Is Pretty Bird a decent type of food?

[DebysFids]

I have been thinking about adding some of their pellets and seed mix to their Roudybush pellets because everyone seems to be on a Roudybush strike they are not eating very much of Roudybush theese days in fact my Senegal hasn't touched any of his in a few days so I thought I would mix the 2 until the Roudybush is gone thats if they will eat the Pretty bird if not then we are back to square one , I have already tried TOPS, Harrisons and Zupreme so I'am out of ideas here so any info would help

 

[lotus15]

I would rank it below all of the brands you mentioned... I'm not a big fan of all the artificial stuff they use; they also use a lot of lower grade and filler items. Here's a link to another thread on the topic: http://forums.avianavenue.com/feathered-food-court/21484-pretty-bird-species-specific.html

 

[DebysFids]

ok tell me about Harrisons food

 

[logo89]

I am not a fan of it at all. This is what Lucy was on when I got her and it has been a very long and hard battle to get her off of it.

 

[DebysFids]

so what do you feed her now ? what pellet? and have you heard of Avi-Science is that a good food?

 

[Cynthia & Percy]

here is a comparison chart for all pellets I use harrisons

Cockatiel Sized Pellet Comparison - Artemis Aviary: African Lovebirds; North Carolina, USA

 

[Riley's mom]

I use it along with Kaytee and Zupreem. I use the Pretty Bird Gold. My birds love it. I mix all of the pellets together along with high quality seed. My birds will not touch Harrison's. I feel that even if the pellets are not "high quality" pellets, they get all of the nutrients they need from the other stuff they eat. It's not worth stressing them out over pellets.

 

[Renae]

Yeah, I was going to get PB, but passed. I use Harrison's as well, they're great.

 

[hotfoot jackson]

Yeah good idea. I feed pellets sometimes in summer when leaving sprouts in the cage all morning might be dangerous. Dusty gets a mix of roudybush, Passwell pellets and Tropican. I mix them so she doesn't get hung up on one kind of pellet in case one becomes unavailable.

 

[Archiesmom]

I mix Roudybush, Zupreem, and a Bird Paradise house blend for my birds. Fairly certain Ella came to me on Pretty Bird, and I wasn't happy with the results. Much happier with what they are on now!

 

[Bokkapooh]

If your birds are on a pellet strike, you need to take away all seed. I find that owners will often feed seed in another dish or the same dish as the pellets. The birds will eat their potatoe chips (the seed) and leave their pellets (the healthy food). And owners will often think their birds arent getting enough and will put more seed into the dishes.

Eliminate all seed, or only give it as a snack (once they are eating pellets again) or put it into foraging toys.

 

[Thugluvgrl187]

Squeeky gets a mix of Zupreem natural, Harrisons, and Roudybush pellets and loves this mix.

 

[DebysFids]

I talked to one of the representatives at Avi-Science today and he is sending me a free 5lb bag to try out, of coarse I have to pay for shipping which is 9.80 but for 5lbs it's 19.95 so hopefully they will like it it sounds ok the ingredients do

 

[logo89]

I am still in the process of gettin gher completly off PB but the pellets she is getting now are harrisons and zupreem. And I just ordered this mix to give it a try PARADISE ULTIMATE BLEND - BIRD PARADISE BLENDS by Bird Paradise

 

[Archiesmom]

I am still in the process of gettin gher completly off PB but the pellets she is getting now are harrisons and zupreem. And I just ordered this mix to give it a try PARADISE ULTIMATE BLEND - BIRD PARADISE BLENDS by Bird Paradise

Logan, that is what I feed my birds and they LOVE it.

 

[Archiesmom]

I am still in the process of gettin gher completly off PB but the pellets she is getting now are harrisons and zupreem. And I just ordered this mix to give it a try PARADISE ULTIMATE BLEND - BIRD PARADISE BLENDS by Bird Paradise

Logan, that is what I feed my birds and they LOVE it. I also use it in their foraging toys because its such a nice variety.

Sorry for the double post, my computer went on wonky on me for some reason

 

[logo89]

Logan, that is what I feed my birds and they LOVE it. I also use it in their foraging toys because its such a nice variety.

Sorry for the double post, my computer went on wonky on me for some reason

Awesome! I cant wait to let Lucy give it a try and see how she likes it.

 

[Monica]

If you've had the bag of Roudybush for a while, you might want to buy a new bag. Maybe the pellets went off and the birds don't like it as well as the fresh stuff?

Dr D's seems rather high in protein, and since birds can have kidney problems due to a diet too high in protein, I'd be skeptical of using that diet.

 

[The Cozy Nestbox]

We feed Pretty Bird Natural Gold to many of our medium to larger birds. It was recommended to me by 2 avian vets in response to my caring for an Amazon with cancer (she's still alive and doing well), as it contain ingredients unique to their pellet (so I was told) designed to support a bird's immune system. Here is a clip from an article written by Margaret Wissman, DVM about the importance of the nucleotides, which is a key ingredient in the PB Natural Gold:

The new diets being offered by the Pretty Bird company have abundant available nucleotides in them, which allows an animal to absorb and utilize all that they need. The fact that these foods contain abundant nucleotides is what makes them unique and so beneficial to the health of our pets. By supplying abundant nucleotides, the immune system will be able to function at peak efficiency, the liver will be better able to repair itself after insult from toxins (for example, from mycotoxins found in peanuts), and other tissues will be able to repair themselves after injury.
How do we know that nucleotides can do these things? Studies have been performed on birds and mice that have shown remarkable benefits to added nucleotides in the diet. A study was performed on chickens, challenging them with the Newcastle's Disease virus, and birds fed a ration with a commercial preparation of nucleotides before and during the challenge with the virus had a much higher survival rate than those fed a normal poultry feed.
The supplementation of nucleotides will increase the resistance to bacterial infections in animals and humans. This was demonstrated in another study that was performed on mice. Mice were exposed to a pathogenic (disease-causing) strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. The group fed a regular rodent ration experienced a 100% mortality rate. Those fed differing amounts of increased nucleotides in their ration had much higher survival rates: 53% mortality in a group fed .25% RNA in the ration, 74% mortality in a group fed 0.06% adenine, and 58% mortality in a group fed 0.06% uracil. This is very exciting research and what it means is that instead of 100% of mice dying after being infected with the Staph. bacteria, of those fed additional uracil only, 42% survived the infection, with no additional treatment with antibiotics or other care.
Mycotoxins are a big concern for bird owners, as these toxins can be present in peanuts. Mycotoxins cannot be seen, tasted or smelled, but can be present in harmless-looking peanuts. Studies were performed on poultry and pigs, fed either a standard ration, or one with supplemented nucleotides. The results showed that the livers of the animals fed additional nucleotides had significantly lower levels of mycotoxins than those fed a standard ration. Also, mycotoxins levels in the feces of the supplemented animals were higher than standard-fed animals, showing that they were able to excrete more toxins than the control group.

​

Additional Benefits

There are other studies that show additional benefits from the supplementation of the diet with nucleotides.
Benefits include:

• increased resistance to challenge to bacterial and viral infections
• acceleration of antibody production
• increase in white blood cells called neutrophils
• increase in the number of macrophages
• reversal of malnutrition and starvation-induced immunosuppression
• increase in natural killer (NK) cell activity and interleukin-2 production
• increase of plasma HDL cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol)
• decrease in the concentration of LDL cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol)
• faster recovery of the liver after injury
• positive effects on the intestines
• intestinal repair after diarrhea
• positive effects of recovery from stress

There are scientific studies to demonstrate all of these positive effects.

The entirety of Dr. Wissman's article may be read on her website at the following link: http://exoticpetvet.net/avian/nucleotides.html

I found our birds easily took to this pellet. It is actually rather tasty and has a fruity smell to it. Yes, I've personally tried a few myself!

 

[Monica]

I'd love to see a study done using a small species of parrot, a medium species of parrot, a large species of parrot, and eclectus parrots (cause they are that special!).

What I'd like to see done is to take pellets from each company, and feed these pellets to a controlled group of birds... At least 3-5 per species per pellet - with each species determined healthy via bloodwork before this study. Each group of birds would only get one pellet to eat, nothing else. I would then like to see the results of bloodwork after 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 6 years, etc.


So lets say we are testing out Pretty Bird, Kaytee, Harrison's and Zupreem. We are studying the effects of those pellets in budgies... 3 birds per pellet, 4 different pellets, 12 birds. If also studying within other species, that might also include say 12 cockatoos and 12 conures or pionus or pois. Minimum, we'd be looking at 36 birds for this study.

Of course, there are a lot more pellets than those, and it would be best done with 5-6 birds per pellet at least... so hundreds of birds...


If done, this might help weed out the better pellets from the lesser ones and perhaps determine the best pellets (in general) for each species - but not the best pellet for an individual bird.