pictmanual6

David Pace's Pictorella manual (Page 6).

4.11 Behavioural enrichment activities
Pictorellas, if housed in a planted aviary with seeding grass tussocks, thick areas of vegetation to provide privacy and nesting sites, open sandy areas in which to sun bathe and a compost heap to pick through, will require little else in the way of behavioural enrichment.

Feeding Requirements
5.1 Diets and supplements
Dry and soaked seed:
The major seeds to feed Pictorellas include Japanese millet, white millet, red panicum, plain canary, niger and Canary tonic mix. Non-breeding Pictorellas are very much dry seed eaters (Stossel '93).
Soaked seed is always eaten and so it is recommended that a vitamin and mineral supplement be added at least every third day. Seed should be soaked for between 12 and 48 hours and fed every day of the year (Breeding & Research Sub-Committee '93). Soaked seed mixes must be cleaned each day as they can easily sour, with fatal consequences (Stossel '93).

Seeding grasses:
Seeding grasses such as wild oat, panic and winter grass should be offered when available and are eagerly taken (Breeding & Research Sub-Committee '93 & Kingston '94). Baxter records that his birds relished seeding grasses and notes, "...it is quite possible to rear broods if an abundance of this nutritious food is available and supplied regularly to them." (Baxter '59).
On the other hand, I have found that even though Pictorellas were given seeding grasses every day of the year, they failed to feed on it, preferring dry and soaked seed. When breeding, live food in the form of mealworms is relished. Pictorellas do utilise seeding grass heads for nesting material (Stossel '93). Due to this apparent lack of interest in seeding grasses, many breeders recommend the addition of a vitamin supplement such as Sulovete (Vujovich '92 & Pace '93 ). This is sprinkled and mixed into soaked seed prior to feeding.

Live food:
During the breeding season live food is of great importance. Successful breeders utilise mealworms and/or termites, vinegar flies and gentles (Breeding & Research Sub-Committee '93). Vujovich records that his Pictorellas �were not keen on termites.� (Vujovich '92).
I have found that Pictorellas would not take live food until the young had hatched. In fact, this was the main indicator of establishing the progress of a nesting pair. Due to the secretive breeding nature of this species, it is important always to ensure a supply of live food all year round in case a pair is about to hatch eggs unknown to the aviculturist.
Stossel notes that the live food requirements were not specific to the species with some pairs preferring whole mealworms, while others preferred white ants. Other pairs only ate the heads off mealworms and so consequently had to provide large quantities (Stossel '93).
A compost heap to attract live food is recommended by many breeders (Breeding & Research Sub-Committee '93).

Softfoods:
Vujovich provides his birds with a daily softfood mixture consisting of:
� 5kg commercial egg and biscuit mixture,
� 500g each of arrowroot biscuit, Heinz Baby cereal, semolina, wheat germ, soya bean flour, ground sunflower kernels and ground cuttlefish bone. The cuttlefish is an excellent source of calcium.
Four eggs are boiled for 20 minutes to kill bacteria, placed into a blender with the shells left on, and mixed with 13 tablespoons of the above mixture. This is fed at the rate of one tablespoon per pair of Pictorellas (Vujovich'92).
Stossel provides an alternative softfood mixture that is combined and mixed into a fine powder that lasts up to six months in an airtight container in the fridge. The ingredients consists of:
� 1200 g egg and biscuit mix,
� 150 g Farley's Farex - Rice Cereal (one packet)
� 150 g Farley's Farex - Blended Infant Cereal (one packet)
� 150 g Farley's Farex - Junior Ground Muesli (one packet)
� 500 g Arrowroot Biscuits (two packets)
� 375 g Vita Brits (one small box)
� 800 g Granivore Mix (Wombaroo)
� 400 g Insectivore Mix (Wombaroo)
� 400 g Queensland Finch Society - Vitamin and Mineral mix (Stossel '93).

Supplementary foods:
Other important components to a healthy diet include medicated shell grit, dry calcium mix, cuttlefish bone, baked eggshells, fine river sand and semi-powdered charcoal (Stossel '93). Charcoal is an important component in the diet of the Pictorella as it has the ability to cleanse the crop. Charcoal is also placed in the nest chamber and acts as a moisture absorber (Queensland Finch Society '87). Pictorellas are not particularly interested in fruit, however they will accept cooked apple (Queensland Finch Society '87).

5.2 Presentation of food
If more than a single pair is housed in the one aviary, several feed stations should be employed as this reduces the chances of aggression occurring. Food stations can be presented either on the floor and/or on a raised feeding table. Seed is best fed separately. This allows monitoring of preferred seed types at different times of the year and reduces wastage (Pace '93 & Stossel '93).

5.3 Frequencies - feeding schedule
Pictorellas should have access to dry and soaked seed all through the year. Seeding grasses and live food should be provided whenever available, especially during the breeding season, when morning and afternoon feeds of live food should occur.
Establishing a feeding pattern is as important for Pictorellas as
it is for other finch species. A good, varied diet supplied on a
regular basis is an absolute necessity (Stossel '93).