The biological reality is that all wild finches - and other species of seed-eating birds, seek out and consume grit on a daily basis; they have carried out this instinctive behaviour for millions of years, just as they have built nests, shelled seeds, bathed and sung - instinctively.
For two centuries, canary fanciers in the UK have provided grit ad-lib - usually in a small cup which hangs on the cage bars; aviaries and outdoor flights are usually floored with soil, grit and sand - from which the birds spend hours every day, picking out the best stones. This system is used by thousands and thousands of fanciers in Holland, France, Belgium,. Germany, Spain and Italy. Grit has NEVER been controversial in the canary Fancy in the UK, nor, as far as I know, anywhere else Europe. It is just not an issue. We give birds water because they drink it; we feed birds grit, because they actively seek it. We feed them seed, because, by beak construction, observable behaviour and biological classification, they are Fringillidae - 'seed-eaters'.
Canaries and most other birds have a
specialized digestive organ called
the Gizzard, which has
the
specific function of grinding seeds to a digestible slurry, since birds
have no teeth to grind their food. The gizzard uses grit to
break-down
seeds with stomach acids completing the digestion. Grit, eaten by the
bird,
jams in the grooves of the gizzard-wall, creating a surface studded
with
small stones, which grind seed like a mill. The stones themselves are
soon
pulverized to sand, or, if soluble like limestone, are dissolved
in the gizzard/ stomach acids, providing calcium for bones and
eggshell-formation,
as well as minerals/ trace elements. Insoluble stones like granite and
quartz, just pass through the digestive tract when they become small
enough.
If a canary, finch, or seed-eater is
dissected, its gizzard will be
found to be studded with grit. Anyone
who requires proof of all this, need only deprive their birds of grit
for
a couple of weeks, then release them into an aviary with bare ground/
soil.
The birds will instantly begin searching for grit and eating it.
I often
scatter grit on my cage floors and watch the delight as the birds
reload
their seed-grinding organs.
Stroud's Digest on the Diseases
of Birds - page 136 -
describes the function of the gizzard in relation to grit and digestion
thus:
"The gizzard is a large, bulbous, muscular organ located in the upper left hand side of the abdominal cavity. Its inner cavity has two opposed flat surfaces which are covered with heavy, horny linings, with thick corrugated surfaces. These are the grinding surfaces and they move against each other with a slow circular motion, driven by the most powerful muscles nature has created - 'smooth 'unstriated' muscle - the same as that of the heart. IT IS THE FUNCTION OF THE GIZZARD - with its powerful muscles, its horny surfaces, THE GRAVEL IT CONTAINS [my emphasis], and by the aid of the strong gastric juices secreted by the proventriculus - to reduce the hardest seeds to a semi-fluid state. It is during this grinding phase that the digestion of proteins takes place."
"In seed-eaters the stomach (proventriculus) is not very muscular but leads into a thick-walled heavy muscular gizzard. The cavity of this organ is furnished with a strong, folded lining, which is pigmented. The muscular walls themselves are arranged in two opposing bulbous masses, which, expanding and contracting powerfully, grind the food into a soft pulp, ASSISTED IN THIS ACTION BY SMALL STONES SWALLOWED BY THE BIRD, KNOWN AS GIZZARD STONES. In a short time these stones become rounded and reduced in size and finally slip through the lower aperture of the gizzard into the intestine and are excreted. IF THEIR LOSS IS NOT MADE GOOD, DIGESTIVE DIFFICULTIES ARISE. It is important therefore that cage birds be provided with materials for use as gizzard stones, in the form of bird grit."
When canaries exhibit an instinctive behaviour - like eating grit every day - it obviously serves an important bodily need. Also, when the biology and body construction of birds indicate that gizzards and grit evolved together, then the evidence is conclusive. New methods constantly arise and some fanciers have adopted the odd idea that birds don't need grit, nor apparently do they need seed! Are these newly-fashionable practices better and wiser than the millions-of-years-old tradition of birds eating seeds and grit? I think not. Should you trust Nature's million-years-old biological design rather than the whims of human fashion? Personally I trust Nature's ancient 'management practices'.
Canaries obviously have no legal 'rights', apart from it being illegal to torture or starve them. But, I would argue that it is ethically 'wrong' to deprive any animal of its basic behavioural needs. It is self-evident, that canaries are 'seed eaters' and 'grit eaters', therefore, in my view, we should allow them to fulfil their instinctive behavioural drives. They are seed-eaters, so we should provide them with seed. They are grit eaters - ditto. They need to bathe regularly - ergo we should provide water. They need to nest in spring, so we provide nesting material and appropriate food. That to me seems reasonable, fair and common-sense.
So if you are a beginner, do not feel the slightest anxiety about following the traditional management of 'organic' canary-keeping. Feed your birds seeds, soaked seeds, grit, greens, grasses and egg-food in the secure knowledge that you are following a long estabished management regime, whose principles have been tried, tested, adapted, changed, tested again and again for hundreds of years, by hundreds of thousands of canary fanciers. It is simple. It is natural. And it works.
Of course there isn't much money down
this route for manufacturers of:
pellets, vitamin supplements, chemical potions and amino acids. And
vets
will never get rich from traditional canary breeders. But it is your
choice.
