Puteh Food

Putehs’ foods are Isolated Nutrients from Beans, Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, Wheat Germ, Eggs and Herbs. With all the real food for your Mata Puteh, You can see the Birds Performance in 1 month times, the dropping will be smaller. Your Birds will look slimmer, after 1 month Bird Sing and Buka Louder, dropping become small and firm. They are active all the time. Sing their middle tones, buka in the morning, late afternoon, and when it rains.

I feed my Putehs with nectar, slices of fruits and pellets. Fruits are apples, oranges and papayas. Their droppings are mostly wet. I see those old timers prefer the combination of Putehs’ food. In this respect, what is your opinion? Those peoples said are good to bring up the "Fire". I have actually mix Aha and 3 Coins together, I guess it really makes the Puteh “Jadi” faster.

You may consider the following when selecting local Puteh food brands available conveniently like:

• Ahar
• Three Coins
• Aik Guan

A new Putehs’ food product is risky in this sense, the brand should preferably been in the market for a long time since. If possible, maker of this brand of food is a well-known puteh keeper. It takes a long time to prove that a product is good or without ill effects to the bird.

Manufacturer of this brand of food must be proven to be able to supply from batch to batch with consistent product. Any inconsistency can be stressful to the digestive system of the bird. For this same reason, you should not switch brands unnecessarily and abruptly as it will cause great stress to the bird especially one that has been on a certain brand for a long time. Old timers during the early days, take great pain to ensure consistency when making their own mix. Not only consistency in the exact proportion of ingredients but even to the exact number of minutes it takes to fry the mix. When a bird is subject to sudden change of diet (or inconsistency) you will notice some of this:

a) Going into molt even if it is not time yet for molting.
b) Sudden drop in form
c) Watery droppings.

Such is the importance placed on consistency of food that hobbyist will go to the extent of keeping some dry food from the batch they are currently feeding their bird, to mix into a newly purchased packet even if it is the same brand so as to minimise or lessen any effect should there be any inconsistency. For newly acquired wild birds, changing brands or some inconsistency during the initial period is ok because they have to go through the same stress anyway to acclimatize to captive food. (New birds during this period of adjustment to captive food should be given more fruits to help them during the transition).

The dry food should preferably be in granules rather than powdered form. Powdered form adheres to beaks sometimes and when the bird sips from the water cup, this will contaminate the water (it may take sometimes before your next change of water). There is also a possibility that some powdered food may irritate the nose or eyes (some birds got bad feeding habit and like to stir and dig into the cup). It is also much easier for the bird to pick up granules one by one than to grab a mouthful of powder and try to swallow it, inevitably dropping some over the cage floor or the surrounding area under the cage.

The traditional method of feeding Putehs may lack logical scientific explanations but over the long period of time have proven to achieve what we see in the competition grounds and ““Chai”” places - of birds in tip top condition and form. Due to the fact that the Chinese way of keeping songbirds are not well documented and explained, some of us may perceive certain practices as "myths or misconceptions". Certainly, food is not the only thing that goes into achieving the final goal. It is only part of the whole, proven traditional method which also includes training. Enjoy your hobby. Cheers!

Too Much Fruits For Puteh? 

The logic that as bird keepers or even if you are keeping other animals (dogs, cats, fish etc) you would try to provide the animal with food which is its natural diet. Of course now we have dog biscuits for dogs, cat food for cats and so on. But even such commercial always advertise them on the fact that its ingredients are very close to natural food.

The same apply to birds. Why do people take the trouble to catch grasshoppers or pay for crickets which are troublesome noisy insects, to feed their birds? Again it’s simply that we wish to feed our birds with the closest substitute to their natural diet.

Any experienced birdwatcher will tell you that the Mata Puteh's natural diet consists mainly of four things: nectar, fruits, grubs (and small caterpillars) and small insects (including small spiders).
Most of us will feed our Putehs with commercial pellets and supplement it with fresh fruits. The question is whether we are giving the Puteh too much fruits. The answer is simply: No.

An animal such as a bird (or any other animal except Carp) eats only what is necessary and never overeats. So you may stick a whole apple or orange inside the cage, but the Puteh will not gorge itself to death, instead it will peck only a small portion of it. The only harm is that it’s a waste to put an entire orange or apple in the cage. If anyone tells you that his Mata Puteh ate an entire apple in one day - its either he is joking or he is delusional. 

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Oranges For Putehs

Give them a small chunk maybe once a week. It will be fine. Don't give it more than once a week and too huge a chunk. It will cause diarrhea. Normally, I give oranges after back from 'chai' arena as to help 'wash their stomachs'. I do not know how true it is, but I guess there’s vitamin C in oranges so it’s good. My Puteh have been responding well so far. Try not to give fruit every day, do alternate day or once in three days. This is so that the bird will eat more of the food in the cup that has got a lot of good stuff. Not feeding fruit everyday also got to do with the ‘fire’, birds that have yet reached their peak are best not to have fruit every day. It is fine maybe once a week, I've tried it myself. Small chunk though. Not too big. I sometimes give papayas, water chestnuts and also luffa if they are molting. I will give apples most of the time. By the way, I know most Puteh owners like to give royal apples. Its softer and nicer I guess.

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