I am slightly alarmed.

Kiko is sitting on my bed with me and eating his Bountiful Harvest small bird blend with gusto. He eats everything other than the dried fruits. I tried one of them next to a hot pepper(my head nearly exploded xD), and instantly regretted it. Curious, I tried to find what kind of pepper it was. While searching the web I have found several cases that said Bountiful Harvest sulpherized their fruits and fried the veggies in oil. Is this true?8o

I haven't heard that before, remember not everything you read on the net is true. I've never had a problem with that brand - though i dont buy it too often.

And i'm not sure if you were implying the pepper was too spicy for your parrot, but birds dont have VR1 receptors so they dont sense capsaicin oil (which is what makes peppers spicy, for example) they just get pleasent peppery taste.

Oh and i do believe the peppers in that brand are chili peppers, theyre long skinny and red, right? with yelow seeds inside

What bird doesn't like hot peppers? They don't get the hot. It just makes their tongues tingle...

Problem being then they try to lick your eyeballs!

Birdman666 said:

What bird doesn't like hot peppers? They don't get the hot. It just makes their tongues tingle...

Problem being then they try to lick your eyeballs!

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yeah, basically what i was saying, in so many words My birds LOVE chili peppers, lovebirds and macaw especially

Problem being then they try to lick your eyeballs!

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Thanks for the laugh, Mark! They do try to lick your eyeballs after a beak full of the hottest peppers known to man. Happily, my birds also like chewing cinnamon sticks and star anise. Much more pleasant when they want to share.

Yeah, I've never had any problems with that brand either. Kiko is extremely picky, but he loves Bountiful Harvest. I don't believe it, really, but I was slightly alarmed that the rumors even spread. But Kiko looks even healthier than he used too. I feed it to him 3 or 4 times a week.

I was referring to my tastebuds exploding. xD The little fruit clump looked so appealing that I HAD to try it. I didn't give any thoughts about it being next to a hot pepper. I was extremely surprised by the spicy-ness of it. xD

Since I have had two mini macaws with heart disease I had to severely change the surviving mini diet in order to lower his alarming cholesterol numbers. When first tested his cholesterol was 1328. At his blood draw his blood was a pinkish color because he had so much fat in his blood.

First I changed his pellet to a low fat roudybush and cut out carbs. Since I was testing him every 6 weeks it took a lot of different attempts to lower his numbers. The first retest dropped it only to 1240. With the advise of his vet I cut back a lot of the fruit and added in more veggies. With that change his numbers dropped some more but it was never a real big improvement. When the number stagnated at around 600 I started feeding him hot peppers. Jalapenos were the first I threw in his fresh mix.

The next checkup his numbers lowered again. I then went a bought every hot pepper I could find. Mihijo was fed habanaro, serono, jalapenos, these weird asian hot peppers I can't remember the name. I use to have to wear gloves to cut up the fresh mix because the oils use to BURN my hands.

Mihijo LOVED all of them and ate them with much gusto. I was fortunate to have a parrot that had a robust appetite. I had to stop kissing my boy because my lips would burn so bad.

At the next checkup his numbers dropped to 248. Dr. Blair was very pleased. She began advising other patient caretakers to add fresh hot peppers in their diets to help get the cholesterol down and she had success in several different species with hot peppers lowering cholesterol.

I know believe every parrot should be fed some variety of hot peppers to help keep heart disease at bay.

I feed Valentino jalapenos and sernos. He likes his peppers to be juicy with a lot of moisture. Since he favors juicy peppers I don't feed him habenaro because the skin is does not have enough moisture and the meat wall is too skinny with little moisture.

Because Valentino is a HUGE eye ball licker I got into the habit of whipping his beak with a wet paper towel when I take him out of his cage. Especially if I see bits of food including the peppers all over his face. My lips have burned many a time from kissing my best friend.

noblemacaw said:

I feed Valentino jalapenos and sernos. He likes his peppers to be juicy with a lot of moisture. Since he favors juicy peppers I don't feed him habenaro because the skin is does not have enough moisture and the meat wall is too skinny with little moisture.

Because Valentino is a HUGE eye ball licker I got into the habit of whipping his beak with a wet paper towel when I take him out of his cage. Especially if I see bits of food including the peppers all over his face. My lips have burned many a time from kissing my best friend.

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MY RFM is the exact same way. Likes the juicy ones.

Sarah always thought it was funny when she secretly fed Sweepea hot peppers without telling me... Numb lips I can handle. But the eyeball licking... OMG! IT BURNS... !!!

Sulpher - yes, how do you think they preserve those fruits and veggies?

If a company buys things from a vendor and the vendor adds it to the product the company who is then selling it is not required to list it in the ingredients because they were not the ones to add it.

When I found that out I threw out a couple of containers of that food.

Good idea on the peppers. They're super inexpensive too, so fresh all the time will be easy.
My B&G Will be getting lots more now.