Roudybush Rice Diet

[MaraWentz]

So my hubby and I believe she has a corn allergy making her preen so much. She used to have a couple pellets in her old food she ate, so she had maybe 10-20 pellets a day, but now that we switched her to an all pellet diet she has around 40-70 pellets a day. And all the pellets we have ever given her contain corn, and since we switched her to the pellets only that means her corn intake greatly greatly increased she is preening like crazy and I cant stand to look at her. It's just sad now, instead me blowing it off as a bad habit. She had a bit of dry skin as well (not bad, just a little dry) and the aloe helped that but she is still over preening. She has a lot of white feathers showing now and I'm thinking its an allergy, so I want to switch her to Roudybush Rice. Has anyone else used it and do your birds like it? Does it help them with self mutilation problems? It's the only pellet without corn near me (I'm going to mysafebird store in NJ), besides TOP, but TOP has a disclaimer on Bird Paradise, saying that feeding them that pellet only can harm the liver, so I'm not touching that brand (and that disclaimer wasn't on any other pellet Bird Paradise sells).

 

[Wulfgeist]

Hmm I've not heard of the rice one. Jasper was sent home on Roudybush..maint I think. Now Tico is eating it and hasn't had any problem. My heart goes out to all the people with pets having corn allergies..I hope you find something soon that doesn't cause her trouble.

 

[MaraWentz]

Me too. The rice one is completely free of any main allergy ingredient

 

[DebsFlock]

Yeah, the Rice formula is intended to by hypoallergenic. I don't know if vets can do allergy panels on birds, but I'd think it would be worth a dietary trial to see if it improves the situation.

That disclaimer on the TOPS is weird. It appears to come from the manufacturer, not the store, and it is claiming an all-pellet diet is bad for the kidneys because of the protien level, but I don't think TOP has a higher protien level than other pellets. I think it represents feeding philosophy of the manufacturer. It would probably be safe to do a dietary trial with that as well. Or even go pellet free for a few weeks. Nutritional issues are mostly long-term things, it would take many months before the unbalanced diet led to a deficiency.

 

[Conuregirl]

all my birds eat regular roudybush pellets. i tried the rice diet with each of them and it was untouched. i mixed the rice diet with other stuff and they would pick out everything else.

have you tried bee pollen? it has helped my feather picking bird.

 

[MaraWentz]

Can't find the bee pollen locally at all, but we're switching her to the rice diet cold turkey tomorrow- we can never mix her foods and switch- she picks things out and likes her food separated, which is why we switched to pellets, thinking they were healthier, not just full of corn fillers. But I'd rather do the rice anyway since it's completely allergy free. Her picking is just getting worse and worse. Still not bald, but just horribly tattered feathers and lots of white fluffy ones here and there. Next month she will be seeing a vet.

 

[greenbirdsf]

My Yellow Nape Amazon has been on Roudybush Rice for almost 2 years now. I switched her from Scenic, which is corn-based. She was diagnosed with a liver problem in 2010 ( fatty liver ) but my vet could not pinpoint if maybe the damage was caused by an aflatoxin in her diet. Corn is a major source of that sort of thing as production of pelleted food is not well regulated. One moldy clump of something could easily contaminate a batch. I was not happy with the fat content or the coloring in the Scenic Diet and I grew more suspicious and took her off of it. When I had switched to pellets from seeds about 9 years ago, she had liked Scenic best. Harrison's would be ideal as it is organic and production is pretty well supervised, but she never liked it. She likes the Rice Diet better than the other Roudybush pellets and she has been doing great on it; weight is down and steady, and her bile acids have dropped in half from what they were when we first discovered a problem.

If you are actually seeing changes in the color of your birds feathers and there are skin changes too, you should get a blood panel done and make certain that there is not something going on with the liver or anything else before you start going crazy with changing the diet. If the liver is not functioning 100%, signs will show up in skin and feathers, usually black lines on feathers but also other colorshifts. My bird showed these signs but since I have gotten her treatment and diet on the right path she molted most of the ugly feathers away and she is looking great. You should really see your Avian Vet before you make changes, just so you will have a clearer idea of what is happening.

 

[Annageckos]

I feed TOP and just looked at my bag and nowhere on it does it say anything about liver damage. It does say that 'we believe that no crumplet can provide 100% of a bird's nutritional needs.' Reading the ingredients I feel completely safe feeding it. I was at Bird Paradise the other day and didn't see that warning. Someone metioned protein, and as per the bag it is 'min. 13%'