Beaphar Pellets

[ParrotsForLife]

These are the ingredients of the pellets I feed.

Ingredients: Spinach, kale, dandelions, carrots, oregano, rosemary, potatoes, peanuts, broccoli, citrus, wheat, wheatgerm oil, rosehips, maize, barley, triticale, lupin hulls, rosemary, peas sunflower, sesame, soya oil, cinnamon, linseed, peas, alfalfa, kale, and pumpkin. Care+ for Grey Parrots is a super premium complete feed with extra calcium, ideal for Grey Parrots and other African parrots such as Poicephalus parrots. The ingredients, which are more than 95% organic, are cold pressed into pellets, approximately 5mm in size. As the ingredients are not heated they retain their natural nutritional value. Since vegetables, fruit and pulse crops are naturally full of vitamins and minerals, the pellets have a very high nutritional value. No chemical colourings or preservatives have been added to Care+ for Grey Parrots. Every pellet has the same composition (All-in-One), ensuring that selective feeding will be prevented and providing the assurance that a complete diet has been consumed. The result – no more left-overs!

[Wolf]

While this all sound good at first glance, I must say that it does cause me some concern. Why? First of all, I don't like soy in any form as it is rapidly becoming more widely known that it is not good for parrots. The second big issue that I have with these pellets is that spinach is the very first ingredient listed, making it the item that is in the largest amount in the pellets. While spinach seems to be healthy and it can be, it also has a very high ratio of iron in it and since many parrots have major problems from getting too much iron, I am concerned and would not use these pellets for everyday use. In fact, personally, I would not purchase them at all, but this is just my opinion about them, and just off the top of my head.

[ParrotsForLife]

While this all sound good at first glance, I must say that it does cause me some concern. Why? First of all, I don't like soy in any form as it is rapidly becoming more widely known that it is not good for parrots. The second big issue that I have with these pellets is that spinach is the very first ingredient listed, making it the item that is in the largest amount in the pellets. While spinach seems to be healthy and it can be, it also has a very high ratio of iron in it and since many parrots have major problems from getting too much iron, I am concerned and would not use these pellets for everyday use. In fact, personally, I would not purchase them at all, but this is just my opinion about them, and just off the top of my head.

They only get 1-2 spoons of pellets and not everyday and I really like them but I don't like how some pellets are advertised to say to feed a all pelleted diet.

[Wolf]

I agree that pellets should not be advertised as a complete diet. when they were first formulated it was to replace the all seed diet that was commonly fed to parrots as the all seed diet was causing many health issues and premature deaths of the parrots. In the matter of just a few years, while their was some improvements, it still became readily apparent that an all pelleted diet was really not all that much better than an all seed diet. This was probably due to the fact that these early pellets were primarily just ground up seeds and the addition of artificial vitamins and minerals. While they did stop the parrots from picking out their favorite seeds, they were still basically feeding an all seed diet and the artificial vitamins and minerals were not utilized by the birds body as well as were natural vitamins. Then with the addition of soy and soy products there were several more health issues that began to plague the parrot keeping community especially in the area of reproduction and food allergies which often became apparent only through the increased feather destructive disorders. The reproductive disorders are even now becoming increasingly apparent and has been noted mostly in Australia where they have additional wild populations that were fed pellets during periods of rehabilitation due to illnesses and/ or injury to the extent that soy products are not recommended to be fed to any parrot in that country.

At most The World Parrot Trust does not recommend that pellets exceed about 30% of any parrots daily diet.

Just a brief overview of pellets according to my studies.

[Pajarita]

Spinach is also very high in oxalic acid and, although these pellets could very well be high in calcium I don't see where the calcium is coming from with this list of ingredients (they also don't have any vit D3 in them so the high content of spinach is even more worrisome).

[ParrotsForLife]

Spinach is also very high in oxalic acid and, although these pellets could very well be high in calcium I don't see where the calcium is coming from with this list of ingredients (they also don't have any vit D3 in them so the high content of spinach is even more worrisome).

They have Vitamin D3 it saids it on the box and they get vitamin D3 anyway from the sun and their vitamins.

[Pajarita]

Ah, well, that's different. I was going by the description you gave on your post and there was no mention there of anything that would provide high calcium or D3.

[ParrotsForLife]

Ah, well, that's different. I was going by the description you gave on your post and there was no mention there of anything that would provide high calcium or D3.

Does it really mean its high in spinach if its first on the list?

[Wolf]

Yes, it does. The manufacturers are not required to tell us exactly how much of any ingredient is used in their formula but they are required to list the ingredient in the order of the most to the least amount in the product with the largest amounts being listed first on the label.