When I was little I always wanted a bird. I wasn't too picky about what sort, just any bird, only I knew I didn't want a Macaw because I could hear the neighbor's mimicking telephones and screaming "here kitty, kitty!" quite clearly through two houses...that were twenty acres apart. My preferences didn't really matter though; sadly, my mother was allergic to birds.

Personally, I've never heard of a bird allergy before, but anything is possible and it did keep me away from birds for my childhood. Then came the fateful day my then-husband and I decided the downstairs aquarium needed a couple new inhabitants so we headed off to the pet store. The pet store in this town didn't have any fish we wanted. Phoo. Well heck, it's a day off, let's head 25 miles away to the pet store in the next town over.

No fish we liked there either.

So here we are thinking "we didn't just come all this way for nothing, did we?" when my husband suggested (note, I had nothing to do with it!) that maybe we should get a bird. Alright! I'd wanted a bird since a very young age and this seemed like a great time to get one...but which one? Well, we didn't want a very loud one. Then, we were both gone most of the day every day for work, so we needed one that wasn't very dependent on human socializing.

We told the pet store employee of our needs and he told us it sounded like we needed finches. Zebra finches are closer to a wild animal that's only for observation than a pet. We looked into the flurry of wings in the cage filled with squeaky-toy cheeps and agreed, these looked like good birds for us.

Over to the cages. We found a very nice double-decker cage for $50...yep, that looks like enough room for them. But wait...one pair looks pretty small in here. So by time we finished we'd spent about $200 with cage, supplies, and four birds.

As soon as we got home I got on the internet to learn everything I could about my adorable new avian friends. I learned that they are lively, sociable with their own kind, and aside from their normal nutritious food they absolutely adore treats such as millet.

The next day after work I picked up a package of twelve millet sprays costing $2.84, there were also packages of seven sprays for about $2.47 (makes sense, right?). These are natural stalks of a very small grain so size varies - they have about 6"-8" of actual seeded part on each one - and they can be quite messy if you're not careful because many of the seeds will fall off with just gentle shaking.

I got home and stuck one of the sprays through the corner of the cage about one-third of the way up the side. The finches huddled in the opposite corner and regarded me with their suspicious little beady eyes and absolutely refused to go anywhere near the thing. Great, I suppose I just wasted some more money.

The next morning I awoke to their normal happy chirpings, and the sight of about half a spray of millet hanging on the cage. The little critters were flying around playing with their swinging perch, then racing over to pluck a beak-full of the seed from its stalk, then charging off again. Success!

I now make sure at least one spray is in the cage at all times and they never fail to devour each and every little seed within a couple of days. a co-worker of mine who raises finches told me she fills the bottom of the cage several inches thick with millet and the critters love to nest in it. She pulls out stalks that are completely denuded of their seeds and tries to make sure anything over two or three weeks old is removed from the cage so it doesn't get wet and start to mold.

This co-worker told me a good general rule of thumb is to discard any millet spray I've had for a month in the package. Luckily, they generally don't last that long. If I have a package hit two weeks I put the rest of the millet into the cage and they have it all cleaned up for me in no time flat. As of yet I've never had to discard any for age and it doesn't look like I ever will, and that's with only four birds with a type that has to be in a cage with at least two. Definitely worth the price, and they don't look like they're planning on refusing their treat any time soon.