Harrison's Bird Food?

[kikidee]

So right now, my POW parakeet is on a seed and fruit/veggie diet (I give him fruit/veggie mash with grains in the morning and seeds in the evening). I was exploring youtube and saw a experienced parakeet owner feeding Harrison's Bird Mash to her parakeets (budgies, conures, and IRN). Seeing that it was all organic, and used by experienced bird owners, I was thinking of using this instead of seeds. Would that be alright? I was reading about it and online the website tells to feed a high potency formula first and then put the bird of an Adult Lifetime feed.

For people who use this,
- did you use the formula before putting the bird on the actual feed? It also says to give them Harrison's Birdy Bread as well, but I think I'd just make my own.
-do you use it instead of seeds? I saw the woman just mix the mash in with fruit and veggies, but I assume I'd use the Adult Lifetime Fine as the seed replacement.
- I guess I just want to know how other parrot owners are doing with this brand.

[Wolf]

I really don't know, but after looking at the natural habitat of this species as well as the type of food that it eats there, taking the seed out of it's diet may not be the best of ideas.
This bird is from the interior of Australia, which is primarily a dry desert with little to eat but seed. This would lead me to believe that totally removing seed from it diet would not be wise. This bird should do well on seed and vegetables with some fruit thrown in as well. I am well aware that this is a captive bred and raised bird, but I can't just ignore the fact that it evolved for thousands of years to consume a diet that is high in seeds as it is its life conditions and not it's genetics that have changed with regards to nutritional needs.
This, of course, is only my opinion and others may think differently than I do about this.

[kikidee]

That's what I was considering wolf, and while I am not disagreeing, I was just figuring that perhaps the feed may meet the nutrition that seeds would give. But I came here for advice so I won't change Navi's diet unless it is the same or better.

[Wolf]

That's what I was considering wolf, and while I am not disagreeing, I was just figuring that perhaps the feed may meet the nutrition that seeds would give. But I came here for advice so I won't change Navi's diet unless it is the same or better.

I don't know if it would meet the nutritional requirements or if it would provide more of the things that her body requires or what. I have finally learned with these birds that sometimes less is more and that more is not always better than less. If that is confusing then you will have an idea of what my studying about parrot nutrition is / has been like for the past 5 weeks. It is a complex and often confusing thing to learn and I guess that it is because of how it changes on a seasonal basis.

[Pajarita]

Personally, I like to know exactly what I am feeding and that's one thing you just cannot do when you feed pellets (Mash is the same thing as pellets only crumbled) because the manufacturers never give an exact value or even a range on their nutritional label. This on top of other problems - all pellets are too dry and Harrison's is made with soy and I don't believe in feeding something that affects the endocrine system to animals- so I don't use any of these processed commercial foods for my birds.

The High Potency is used for sick birds or birds that have had a real bad diet for a long time because it's supposed to replenish the lacks of vitamins and minerals (it has higher values than the other recipes) caused by an all seed diet BUT it's also very high in protein so, if a bird has been eating seeds all along, this makes things worse for their liver and kidneys and that makes no sense to me. It's also recommended for switching a bird from seeds to pellets because, precisely because it's so high in protein, the birds like it and start eating it and, when they get used to eating pellets, you switch them to the 'maintenance' which is lower in everything. But lately, I have been finding more and more accounts of AVs recommending feeding High Potency all the time (one of my birds came on it) which tells you how little they know about avian nutrition.

I don't feed pellets to any of my parrots but, if I had to choose species that I would not even if I did others, those would be the partial ground foragers (tiels, budgies, Princesses, etc) because all of those consume grass seeds in the wild on a regular basis. And, to put the icing on the cake, those are all species that do particularly bad with pellets (kidney issues as they get older).

A word of caution, you are going to find A LOT of 'experienced' and 'expert' people out there in the bird world but, if I were you, I would take their recommendations as simple suggestions and not something backed with any kind of ultimate knowledge because, in truth, there are no experts when it comes to birds and experience doesn't mean anything more than somebody who has kept birds for a long time -which does not mean the person has been doing the right thing all along!
Go to nature and see what the species eats in the wild, that will tell you more than any expert or experienced bird keeper or breeder out there.

[Wolf]

Although some of my reasoning is different than Pajarita's in regards to why I don't care for pellets, I do agree with her and can't fault her reasoning. I always look into the natural diets and behaviors of my birds in the wild as this tells me how they should be fed and what I need to do to keep them as happy as I can. They are highly specialized for the environment that they live in naturally and so it is best to take this into consideration in everything that affects them in our world. While I don't mind answering questions on the forum, it is most of my social life, I always try to encourage bird owners to not take my word and to do their own research. Ultimately it is you, the birds companion that have to choose what to do and your bird is depending on you to get it right.

[kikidee]

I see. I wasn't sure if his diet was ok because often his poops can be watery and have almost no substance to them. However that may r a different issue. I want to take him to the vet but my dad won't let me because he doesn't see enough "signs" that the bird is sick and I don't have much money to spend because I have been in school and not working for a while. However I think I might take him with my mom in secret because I know they hide their issues.

[Wolf]

Watery looking poop is not unusual if the bird ate some fruit shortly before as fruit has a lot of water in it. Is this the only thing going on that makes you think that your bird is sick?

[kikidee]

No he also sneezes a lot but we looked online and it said it's only bad if the sneezes are wet ad his are dry. Honestly I just am trying to be safe about everything and try to catch things before they get too bad. I recently had a turtle die because he had an illness that was not obvious but too far along to cure so now I'm paranoid I suppose. But sounds like he's fine which is good.

[Wolf]

I have never heard of sneezing being anything other than a sign of illness in any bird. I would like to visit this place online, so if you could post the link to it, I would greatly appreciate it.
In the interim while I check it out, if you post the link, I think that I would remain with my present information and experience which says that this could be a symptom of illness and get to a vet asap. While we are fortunate in having near instant access to information sources, we must also wade through a couple of boat loads of misinformation as well as good, reliable information.