Warning Harissons Handfeeding Formula

[LoveConures]

We recently had a close call with Harissons Handfeeding formula, and I am posting on this site because I don't want someone else to go through the same experience.

Before I start, a little history: we have 6 birds- 2 African greys (2 yrs & 12 weeks), 2 Caiques (2.5 yrs & 2 yrs) and 2 Jenday Conures (1.5 yrs & 8 months).

We got all birds when they were young and hand fed them with Zupreem. All were weened well and are as healthy as can be in all respects. Now the youngest African grey, our newest addition, came to us pretty thin, and he was still unweened. So we proceeded to feed him the same Zupreem hand feeding formula. He was doing well, putting on weight, alert, happy, playing. Not too long ago, around 2 weeks, we noticed that our local store started carrying Harissons Juvenile Handfeeding formula - with it being supposedly organic, and with all the "rave" about this company being amazing, we thought it would be an even better choice.

As per tradition, when adding a new baby bird to our flock, we like to give all our other "adult" birds a small amount of formula after feeding the baby; it helps bring the flock together, and is a comfort and reassurance with our existing birds. We had done this before and never had any problems.

A week after switching to Harissons we started to notice a change in behavior with the African grey. He was not playing as much, started losing weight (500g to 450g) - and although losing weight may be partially explained by the weening process, the amount of weight loss and the lethargic nature was not normal. But this is not were the real problem arose.

One of our conures (the 1.5 yr old one) was also having a bit of this formula after the grey was fed (but the other did not). About 5 days ago, he started to lose energy and we noticed that he was not himself. A day later, he vomitted in the morning an abnormal amount; an amount, with a smell, that could not be attributed to normal regurgitation. He became very sleepy, really had no energy, and mostly all food and water he was given was promptly thrown up. He got progressively worse during the day, only being able to take small amount of food and water- not enough for the long term. He barely survived until our appointment the next day with the vet.

The vet proceeded to give him fluids and vitamins, and washed his crop out with medication. All the results for bacteria, etc. came back negative, and the only reason the vet could suggest was that something must have been wrong with the formula. After searching through the internet, i found one site where a breeder had mentioned that she had similar problems with this formula, stating that its slow to digest for the birds, and unfortunately some of the babies were dying as a result- strangely enough the article has since been removed. It seems hard to find any information about this formula anyway except from the Harissons website.

The good news is that the conure got better and is recovering nicely. We promptly switched the formula back to Zupreem and the African grey has also turned around- doing a lot better too! I'm not an advocate for Zupreem over Harissons, that's for sure, but I really wanted to share my experience. Anyone who has birds surely knows what a tragedy it is to lose one and go through this ordeal (not to mention the expense!!)

Whether it was a bad batch or not, I do not know. But I will never again buy Harissons baby feeding formula- and anyone else thinking about giving it a go - pay close attention to your baby for these symptoms.

[Zula]

Very interesting. It is always good to know such things. Thanks for sharing.