hiriki
Well-known member
- Oct 19, 2014
- 451
- 627
- Parrots
-
(Birdie - Jenday Conure)
(Kiwi - Green Cheek Conure)
(Elby - Lovebird)
(Gorou - Ringneck Dove)
Hey everyone. This is half a vent post, and half a genuine request for advice.
I feed Lafeber premium daily pellets and chop as the base of my birds' diet. Depending on each bird's interest in actually eating the pellets, I give nutriberries as a treat/supplement... for instance, my jenday only seems to touch her pellets if she's on the verge of a slow and painful starvation death, so she gets 5 nutriberries a day. My GCC and lovebird both chow down on pellets throughout the day so I give them 1-2 nutriberries just as a treat.
My problem... is that Lafeber products are packaged in a ridiculous amount of plastic. If you buy Nutriberries in the 5-lb size, you'll know that they come in a tub of all things. The pellets are the same. I have to restock maybe once every 6-8 weeks, so every 6-8 weeks I'm throwing away not one but two plastic tubs. Yes, I recycle, but every year more and more investigative reporting is being done on the recycling industry and how plastic that makes it to a recycling sorting plant is shipped off to a landfill if they can't find a buyer. How many of my stupid bird food tubs are in landfills? Honestly, I'd wager all of them.
I did just reach out to a local shelter to see if they might have a use for these tubs--when I used to work there, the foster department would send fosters home with kitty litter and toys/supplies loaded into similar plastic tubs. But my tubs don't have convenient handles, so I'm not sure they'll even be interested, and if they are--well, how many tubs can one shelter possibly need? Lol.
I'm kind of at a loss. Lafeber is a good pellet--my vet really likes it and stands by its nutritional content, and more importantly, my birds actually eat it. The same can't be said about other pellets that my vet recommends, like Harrison's. Switching pellets doesn't really feel like an option. I could abandon pellets entirely as a main staple, but the fact is that having a dry food in their cage is low maintenance in a way that other diets aren't... for instance, I thought about switching to sprouts, but not only would I then have to work sprouting seeds into my daily chore list, it would also add another bowl that has to be swapped and scrubbed daily, whereas the pellets can just be sifted in the morning and returned to the cage.
Idk, this is a pretty long vent post, not sure if anyone might have any ideas or if I'm just shouting into the void lol. Let me know.
I feed Lafeber premium daily pellets and chop as the base of my birds' diet. Depending on each bird's interest in actually eating the pellets, I give nutriberries as a treat/supplement... for instance, my jenday only seems to touch her pellets if she's on the verge of a slow and painful starvation death, so she gets 5 nutriberries a day. My GCC and lovebird both chow down on pellets throughout the day so I give them 1-2 nutriberries just as a treat.
My problem... is that Lafeber products are packaged in a ridiculous amount of plastic. If you buy Nutriberries in the 5-lb size, you'll know that they come in a tub of all things. The pellets are the same. I have to restock maybe once every 6-8 weeks, so every 6-8 weeks I'm throwing away not one but two plastic tubs. Yes, I recycle, but every year more and more investigative reporting is being done on the recycling industry and how plastic that makes it to a recycling sorting plant is shipped off to a landfill if they can't find a buyer. How many of my stupid bird food tubs are in landfills? Honestly, I'd wager all of them.
I did just reach out to a local shelter to see if they might have a use for these tubs--when I used to work there, the foster department would send fosters home with kitty litter and toys/supplies loaded into similar plastic tubs. But my tubs don't have convenient handles, so I'm not sure they'll even be interested, and if they are--well, how many tubs can one shelter possibly need? Lol.
I'm kind of at a loss. Lafeber is a good pellet--my vet really likes it and stands by its nutritional content, and more importantly, my birds actually eat it. The same can't be said about other pellets that my vet recommends, like Harrison's. Switching pellets doesn't really feel like an option. I could abandon pellets entirely as a main staple, but the fact is that having a dry food in their cage is low maintenance in a way that other diets aren't... for instance, I thought about switching to sprouts, but not only would I then have to work sprouting seeds into my daily chore list, it would also add another bowl that has to be swapped and scrubbed daily, whereas the pellets can just be sifted in the morning and returned to the cage.
Idk, this is a pretty long vent post, not sure if anyone might have any ideas or if I'm just shouting into the void lol. Let me know.
