Food Samples.

[kaylayuh]

For those of us with pet shop birds or picky birds, we know how disappointing it can be when you buy a food for your bird hoping that they'll eat it and they refuse. Personally, I was sick of buying a $10 bag of food that just goes to waste in the refrigerator or is kicked out of their bowls and onto the floor. So I got the bright idea to email companies asking if they offered samples of their food. To my surprise (and delight!), some companies do. Some are free while others have a small fee.

Here are the companies I've contacted about samples:
Harrison's
Lafeber
Pretty Bird
Goldenfeast
Dr. Harvey
ZuPreem
Volkman
Roudybush
Hagen
Higgin's
TOP
Crazy Corn
8 in 1
Noah's Kingdom
Oven Fresh Bites
Kaytee
FM Brown
Ziegler Bros. Inc.
Avian Naturals
China Prairie

Who Said Yes:

Lafeber (with a $4.99 fee per pack) - I got one for both my budgies and my conure. Included are Nutriberries, Avi-Cakes, Nutri-Meal and their pelleted diet.

Harrison's (no fee) - they're sending a sample of high potency fine and high potency super fine.

Oven Fresh Bites (no fee) - they're sending a sample of their Medium sized bites.

Hagen (no fee)

Roudybush (no fee) - they didn't reply with an email or phone call, but they did send two very generous samples. I got an 8oz. bag of crumble sized and an 8oz. bag of mini sized pellets. ***EDIT: Roudybush actually sent two different sample boxes, both of which had one 8oz. bag of crumble size and one 8oz. mini sized pellets. All in all, I got a pound of both crumble sized maintenance and mini sized maintenance pellets.



Who Said No:
Pretty Bird
Goldenfeast - emails coupons for use online and in stores.
Dr. Harvey
TOP
8 in 1
Kaytee - sends coupons.
ZuPreem - gives you a link to coupons.



Who Hasn't Replied:
Volkman
Higgin's
Crazy Corn
Noah's Kingdom
FM Brown
Ziegler Bros. Inc.
Avian Naturals
China Prairie


And let me say, I'm happy to pay a fee to try some samples before I go buy a bag of food they won't eat. Hopefully we find something here that isn't seed that they'll eat. If I do find something they like, I'll probably be tempted to buy stock in the company.

[patdbunny]

Hey! This is a fantastic idea!
Gave me an idea too! What about all of us on here feeding different things sending each other samples? Not a whole lot, but a little bit's only going to be like a buck or two in postage. I can see where it would get expensive for the sender if there's a lot of requests so maybe the requester could send the sender $2 for postage?

I currently have Kaytee rainbow chunky for large parrots, Kaytee original (about the size of a hole punch, tan, flat pellets), and Kaytee natural for cockatiels. So if anyone wants a sample, hit me up.

[kaylayuh]

I think it would be great if people here wanted to do samples, too.

I really just got sick of forking out $10 for a bag of food that these birds would just throw all over the place or completely ignore. I'd rather spend $20 on a bunch of company's samples than on one bag of food that'll go to waste. The $9.98 I spent on two Lafeber's sample boxes is well worth it for the amount of stuff they send and how fast it gets here. The lady said I should receive it by Thursday.

[patdbunny]

Dr. Beex Birdkakes is running a pretty good sample promo:
https://secure.net-thing.net/drbeex/order.htm

$6.95 for an 8 day supply. I ordered this. The postage for them to mail it to me was more than $6.95.

I cut them up half dice size and fed them out over about 3 days for their afternoon snack. My birds eat everything. So, I was a little surprised that most of them didn't even touch the birdkakes. For the price it was worth the experiment.

[kaylayuh]

I'll definitely have to check them out. Hopefully everybody else will be able to add bird food suppliers that I've missed and we'll see who does offer samples.

[zazanomore]

So glad my birds took to roudybush right away

[kaylayuh]

So glad my birds took to roudybush right away

My birds are very picky about everything and it doesn't help that they didn't come to me with the best diets. I'm hoping that they'll pick something from the set of companies that are sending samples because I really, really, really do not want to go spend money on a whole bag of food to just waste. I mean, I will if I have to, but I'd rather not.

I'm really looking forward to trying Lafeber's stuff. I've been looking at it in the local stores but could never justify spending $12 on one single pack that I wasn't sure they'll eat. I was super excited to hear that they do have a sample program and it's so cheap for their boxes. They put some from each item of their product line in there and some pamphlets so I can try something from everything with them.

[captwest]

Well i buy Katee excat orginal by the 25/50 lb. bags so if anyone wants a sample just let us know.

[kaylayuh]

Well i buy Katee excat orginal by the 25/50 lb. bags so if anyone wants a sample just let us know.

How long does that last you with 40 birds?

I bought 20lbs of fortified seed mix from a small Californian company back in February and I've used about 9lbs of it for 3 birds. I figure the next time I'll have to buy seed for them is in July.

[GlassOnion]

Avian Organics is an awesome food vendor, another forum I visit has quite a few vendors and this place is truly a hit with the birds. You can order by the grams too.

www.avianorganics.com or ca