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HannahBean

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Pellets don't need many ingredients, I use Harrison's. A great bird food. I knew it was one of the best bird food, but I didn't get it because I thought it was super expensive. It actually is not!! Birds love it and It's all organic.
I currently use Harrison pellets as well and they are SO worth the price. Ive been caring for a lovebird that plucks when stressed and bought these pellets hoping they might help in some way, Im not sure how but after all the vet visits and medications, you start to get desperate and hopeful for any miracle claims. But with everything mentioned above I think in the least it would give them a yeast infection from all the fruit sugar, and who knows what else. I do wonder on their truth behind the claims of parrot pellets being based off of poultry feed and how different their digestion is to chickens impacts their digestion/nutritional aspects. But better safe than sorry.
 

Mizzely

Lil Monsters Bird Toys
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All research has to start somewhere. It is true that parrot pellets did start off vary strongly based on chicken feed. However, with the works of people like Drs. Harrison, Roudybush, Lafeber and more, we have slowly changed them to be more in line with actual parrot needs. Before them parrots ate seeds and died from malnutrition because we didn't know any better. If nothing else, those "chicken feeds" helped buy us more time to find something better. And yes, we are still learning! The food we feed now may be vastly different in 20 years!

Several of the big brands have decades long feeding trials with birds from the 80s still eating their foods.

Food is more than just a sum of it's ingredients. The label on a bag tells you some, but not all, of the story.

People seem to think corn is a bad ingredient. Corn in bird food is a biologically appropriate ingredient. Can you get a pellet without corn? Absolutely. The best part about corn based pellets? They are widely available, cheap to produce and thus buy, and are tasty so our birds actually eat them! Corn based "crappy pellets" have saved the life of my bird, and have extended the lifespans of countless other birds because of their affordability, availability, and palpability!

Food could be grown in the Amazon itself and still be meaningless if the bird doesn't eat it!
 

tka

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I think it's one of those things where, to borrow a saying from a different area, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I would dearly love to believe that a diet could solve feather destructive behaviour - Leia has her own challenges with that. If there's a product that could fix this and there was meaningful evidence that it does work, I would get it.

However, what I need in terms of evidence are long term studies under controlled conditions. I want to be absolutely sure that it's the diet that's helping the birds - not changing the environment, the influence of hormones, changes in caregiver or how the bird interacts with their caregiver, more regular bathing or any of the other factors that affects feather destructive behaviours. Testamonials on the website just aren't sufficient evidence for thair claim when there's no other information about what else is happening in the bird's life or how many birds have not been helped by the food.

If I had developed a product that worked to resolved feather destructive behaviours AND I had the evidence to support the extraordinary claims I could make about it, I would be utterly transparent with my data. I would invite vets, nutritionalists and other experts to test my products independantly and replicate my findings. I would collaborate with researchers to publish findings about this. I would basically sing it from the rooftops and try to get my work into the corpus of established research on avian diet.
 

jmfleish

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Machelle Pachion has been around forever and she's always been a little kookoo for cocoo puffs!:) I don't think the food will hurt your bird but I wouldn't feed it as anything other than a treat.
 

Just-passn-thru

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Its not a one size fits all.
for me alot of research is essential on the species, and their genetic background, and try to offer-up food that may closely resemble what their wild counterparts thrive on.
 

finchly

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Machelle Pachion has been around forever and she's always been a little kookoo for cocoo puffs!:) I don't think the food will hurt your bird but I wouldn't feed it as anything other than a treat.
Was going to say the mealworms are fine.

But someone gave me a LOT of food from this source and not one single bird would touch it. That made me very suspicious.
 

Just-passn-thru

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Was going to say the mealworms are fine.

But someone gave me a LOT of food from this source and not one single bird would touch it. That made me very suspicious.
no expert here on what all avian diet is , just the species I care for , but from what knowledge i do have, it seems that many passerine do enjoy suet and some form of a carnivorous diet as in "meal worms" an other forms of animal meats
 

finchly

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no expert here on what all avian diet is , just the species I care for , but from what knowledge i do have, it seems that many passerine do enjoy suet and some form of a carnivorous diet as in "meal worms" an other forms of animal meats
Yes, definitely!

I strung those 2 thoughts together as if they were related. I didn’t really mean that because my birds won’t eat it, mealworms are bad.

I meant 1. Mealworms are fine for birds. And then 2. My guys wouldn’t eat any of several foods from that source. Which is weird given my large flock size!
 

Just-passn-thru

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Yes, definitely!

I strung those 2 thoughts together as if they were related. I didn’t really mean that because my birds won’t eat it, mealworms are bad.

I meant 1. Mealworms are fine for birds. And then 2. My guys wouldn’t eat any of several foods from that source. Which is weird given my large flock size!
Oh dear! ... no worries, just showed-up with my 2- cents , no judgment over here ... just a contribution to the cause

for whatever it's worth ... my koi and water turtle like meal worms for a treat :p
 
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Pat H

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FYI-- I checked out the site, being especially interested in copying the ingredient list for reference/ comparing to other varieties of pellets... Imagine my surprise when the site would not allow me to copy... ANYTHING!
 

Destiny

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You can always take a screenshot or use the snipping tool if you are on PC. Nothing is truly safe from duplication in the digital age.
 
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