The Best Pellets?!

[Chantilly]

I was wondering what your oppinion on the best/healthiest brand is in your oppinion. I am guessing Rowdybush, seems to always get good feed back.
These are the brands I have heard of.. How would you order them(if you have also heard of) and have you tried them for your bird? I want to get a better brand than just Vetafarm and seeing as all the local (and not so local) pet shop sells only Vetafarm and Birdzone I will have to buy online. I dont know if birdzone does pellets.
Rowdybush
Harrisons
Zupreem
PrettyBird
Vetafarm
Kaytee
Lafeber
Birdzone.
I have no idea what order of healthyness these should go in.. and I know i want to get Rowdybush, but might buy something else at the same time for some more variety.

[marie83]

Mine didn't do well on Harrisons, I was constantly running back & forth to the vet in the 2 year period they (Ollie & Harlie) were on it. I didn't make the connection for ages

I use TOPS now (totally organic pellets) but not everyday.

Stay away from anything dyed, extra chemicals are not necessary and I don't believe they are ever a good thing.

[Pajarita]

Tops are the only ones that I would recommend but, in reality, I don't recommend any pellets... and the little ones do even worse than the big ones on them.

[Wolf]

Harrisons currently has the most recommendations as far as I know, but TOPS is the only one that I would consider. The thing is that I do not feed pellets, they are all too high in protein and a lot of the wrong proteins at that, in my opinion. They are all extremely dry and generally result in a chronic state of mild dehydration, which is because parrots generally drink twice a day and get the majority of their water from the foods they eat. They are generally full of artificial vitamins and minerals in what we can only hope are in an appropriate balance for the bird, but don't count on it. These artificial vitamins and minerals are not utilized by the birds bodies in the same manner as natural vitamins as found in their normal foods, and are often a source of allergies and other health problems such as feather plucking and self mutilation. That is without touching on the amounts of the wrong sugars, dyes, preservatives and whatever other chemicals the feed companies decide to add to the pellets. I am not a big fan of pellets for birds.
This causes me to have to study nutrition and constantly revise the recipe for the food that I serve them based on new ( to me ) knowledge about their nutritional needs and balance that with what I can get them to eat. It is a constant and ongoing process and it is often hindered by how little information that we can find on parrot nutrition.

[Chantilly]

Thankyou everyone, I will look for some TOPS I dont know why but Vetafarm is RELLY common here. The local (mamal)vets sell Rowdybush, but its like 100/250g for $25. (Unbeleivably bad price) .

[marie83]

TOPS are really expensive to buy outright but with one bird it will last you ages. Especially if you don't feed it every meal or feed loads of fresh food too (good idea anyway but will help keep the protein content lower).

I'm not sure about your country but we only seem to be able to order it online at the moment as there aren't many stockists.

[Pajarita]

In any case, you can't free-feed pellets to any parrot but much less a GCC which requires lots and lots of high moisture, high fiber, low fat, low protein food.

[Chantilly]

TOPS are really expensive to buy outright but with one bird it will last you ages. Especially if you don't feed it every meal or feed loads of fresh food too (good idea anyway but will help keep the protein content lower).

I'm not sure about your country but we only seem to be able to order it online at the moment as there aren't many stockists.

Thankyou, I cant find anywhere in Aus selling it, I will keep looking though.
Rowdybush isnt that common here ever. Everything is Vetafarm for some reason.
Thankyou again

[Wolf]

Although some brands are better than others due to the quality of the ingredients used, most of them are producing their regular crappy, cheaper formulas and their higher priced but better quality foods. So try to not get as hung up on the brand, instead look for organic and 100% all natural, together if possible and then look at the list of ingredients and nutritional values. Most of them are going to be not less than X amount of protein, usually around 12 to 14% and try to go with the lowest percentage down to about 10% if you can find it. The ingredients are listed in order of how much is in the food with the largest amount listed first. Watch out for words that you can't pronounce as most of them are artificial additives or chemical preservatives.

I really don't know why it is so hard to find food that is better for our parrots, but that is why I cook for my birds as well as why I don't use pellets. I would not even use the seed mixes if I could find the variety of seeds and nuts of adequate quality at a price that I could afford so that I could mix my own.

[Pajarita]

The problem with commercial foods for parrots, Wolf, is that they need to have a long shelf-life and, when you talk about the nutritional levels they need, it's impossible to achieve with dry. The ONLY way, as I see it, would be frozen food... but it took over 50 years to get fresh, refrigerated food for dogs so who knows how long it will take for parrots. And, even if you could buy something like, say, frozen gloop, you would still have to provide fresh organic produce because of the phytonutrients so, no matter how you look at it, the owner still needs to do shopping and daily preparation. And that's real hard on 'normal' people, mostly due to lack of time and the 'rat race' lifestyle most people live.