Most preferred? Harrison’s or Roudybush

[Ksweet3mt]

In your experience can you tell me if your BLUE GOLD MACAW preferred Harrison’s or Roudybush better? Thank you!!

[Pajarita]

Hi, Ksweet and friends, welcome to the forum. I do not feed pellets. After almost 30 years of research into parrots natural diets, I have reached the incontrovertible conclusion that pellets are not healthy for them (WAAAY too dry, inferior materials -including soy!- too processed and unknown protein levels). My B&G, same as all my other parrots, eats gloop and raw produce for breakfast and tree nuts for dinner (budgies eat a small grain/seed mix I make myself).

But, if you are going to feed pellets, use Tops which, at least has no soy.

[GreenWing]

Of the two, I will say I prefer Harrisons.
I use Harrisons, a specific kind recommended by the Avian vet, but only partially. My CAG is on the renal diet and I specifically remove all pellets and dried fruit by hand so seeds/dried corn remains which I mix with chop daily. My CAG gets a varied fruit/vegetable diet in her chop.
I also give her a pure bread with safe ingredients drizzled with high quality olive oil.

I agree with Pajarita, parrots need natural sources of nutrition. In any case, my CAG can't have pellets as she had a kidney infection and I'm keeping her on this renal diet in any case because she's doing so much better as a result. As part of her renal diet she needs low protein and as Pajarita says, pellets have protein which isn't good for them.

[Pajarita]

In my personal opinion, and leaving aside all the other 'cons' of pellets, the biggest problem with the pellets' protein is two-fold: 1) you do not know how much protein they have (protein values are always 'more than', 'no lower than', 'minimum', etc so the figure they give you, 17%, 20%, etc, is useless because, for example: 25% is 'not lower than' 17% and it's a HUGE amount of protein for any parrot. And 2) the protein comes from soy which has side effects and it's the cheapest source of protein in the world.
Why give them something that has cheap, inferior ingredients, which does not conform to the overall specifications of their natural diet (moisture, protein, fiber, natural/unprocessed sources, etc) and, to put the icing on the cake, the amount of protein (which is one of the most important levels in parrot feed because too much causes liver and kidney disease) is unknown? It makes no sense!