Hahaha. Tricked into eating Harrison's

[Cage Cleaner]

I just tricked my GCC into eating Harrison's. I'm pretty smug about it.

They were both unfortunately on the travesty that is Zupreem Fruit Blend. My Sun conure, being that she is a baby, converted readily in just a few days, while my GCC refused to touch the food and would throw it on the floor if offered by hand, actually looking puffed up and upset.

This is because he was likely more used to the zupreem pellets. They are colorful and artificially flavored, which probably translates to delicious to him, but completely is also unhealthy and loaded up with GMO corn. Also, they are bigger and allows him to hold them in his hand while eating, which I seem to find both my birds preferring. I will have to look into buying the "coarse" version of the Harrison's when this bag is finished. I personally don't really mind the waste, and feel that these pellets are indeed a bit small. They are hardly bigger than those small millet seeds in seed mixes.

Since the Sun has been eating Harrison's for a few days now, mixed with Totally Organics (which she actually converted to the minute they were offered), I hand fed her one by one and let the GCC watch from a distance. I would say "good bird", etc, and ignore the GCC. All this time the GCC was watching attentively because I kept "rewarding" the Sun for something.

Then, after about 15 or 20 pellets were fed, and when the GCC started to bob up and down for attention, I put both on the playstand, and continued to feed the Sun Conure Harrison's by hand. I continued to ignore the GCC until he finally got so curious he became slightly aggressive, and tried to take the pellets from my hand before the Sun Conure could do so.

So I let him have some. The first few he had in his mouth he dropped, and I went back to feeding the Sun every other pellet. Eventually he started to munch on them as they were offered.

When he started doing this I would make him do tricks for more. This seemed to have the desired effect of having him actually believe that the pellets were treats. I asked him to do more tricks each time, and given that he would actually do them, as well as combined with the fact that he actually began to eat them, showed that he did think they were treats. No more of the offended puffed up look he used to give me when I offered them by hand.

I let the GCC jump onto the Sun's food bowl (which I had in my hand as was using to feed both birds from) and he started to munch away at the contents. Heh.

I then put some pellets in his own food bowl, let him see that I did so, and then put him on his cage. He rushes into his cage and is now happily munching away and previously hated pellets.

I guess it's all in the marketing.

[Naurthon]

Nice!

[GlassOnion]

Nice job! Birds really do learn very quickly from others of their own kind.

[Cage Cleaner]

Nice job! Birds really do learn very quickly from others of their own kind.

Hahaha yes. Or in this case it was partly that but also partly jealousy.

[Bobioden]

Not a fan of Harrison's, it is organic and has to be used within 30 days of opening the bag.

Much better choices out there. Roudybush being one of them.

[dohcsvt]

I have a Sun and GCC and have ben attempting to get them to eat harrisons. Maybe I will try using it as a reward for trick training this morning and see what happens.

[Cage Cleaner]

Not a fan of Harrison's, it is organic and has to be used within 30 days of opening the bag.

Much better choices out there. Roudybush being one of them.

I personally love the fact that it is organic. Anything that -doesn't- go bad in 30 days makes me wonder whether I should be eating/feeding it. I never thought much about organic/ non-GMO claims, until I went into healthcare and learned what they actually do to the food we are eating, now. And, given the fact that I myself only eat organic and non GMO, I decided recently I would do the same for my birds.

I did quickly look over the ingredients in Roudybush before I decided on Harrison's/Totally Organics. There were not many other pellet diets that could compare to these two. Of course, there were not many that could claim to be organic. Roudybush's rice diet seems decent to me, but it's Maintenance one is not something I would feed my birds.

It claims to have no artificial preservatives, which is an arguable claim. I suppose it is technically true--however, it's main ingredient, ground corn, is most definitely GMO corn. This means that that corn itself produces insecticide/pesticides/herbicides on its own to retard the infestation of mold, etc. This also means that the gene spliced into the corn's genome is activated when consumed by the bird's own system. This applies to humans, as well.

Another ingredient that is high on the list for Roudybush is Soy. Soy is bad news all around when it comes to eating in the US. GMO soy is arguably worse than GMO corn, with the added effect that it is highly pro-inflammatory. In addition, it is high in phytoestrogens, and can affect an organism's natural hormonal balance. Interestingly enough, however, it is effective as diet treatment for some forms of prostate cancer for that very reason. I suggest to all my clients to not eat any protein bars/shakes/etc that uses soy protein as the main ingredient for these reasons, and ESPECIALLY NOT on a daily basis. Aside from the hormone issue which may differ slightly, I don't see why the other issues with soy would be any different for birds.

GMO Soy and GMO Corn are widely used in the US because they have become cheap to produce. It isn't because it's healthy or beneficial. Most companies (bird food or not) use it as a main filler because it is simply cheap. Foreign and more "original" versions of soy is more or less still the pet plant of the health department, but what soy has become in the US is a travesty as well as nearly a farce of what it could be.

I will not claim to have it all figured out, though. Harrison's uses corn and as well. However, both are labeled as certified organic, which means that it shouldn't be GMO. The catch is that organic certification doesn't actually TEST for whether the organism is in fact genetically modified. But I do not want my birds to be dependent on one diet alone, so since it is the second best thing available right now next to Totally Organics, I am using Harrison's High Potency mixed with TOPS.