Beware of Zupreem - Macaw in Crisis

[lunyluna]

I've had my rescued Scarlet Macaw Luna for 3 1/2 years now, and throughout that time (and her year-long foster period beforehand) she has been on a Zupreem pellet diet. She started on the regular fruit blend for large birds, then I started mixing in the natural and veggie blends, and finally, the pasta blend. She loves the pasta version and has since it came out several months (maybe a year) ago. I was a busy college student (just graduated this week), and I know that's a bad excuse, but that's why I haven't been giving her the amount of fresh foods she should be getting. Now that I'm done with school I've been giving her about a 70% pellet - 30% fresh food diet, but that's only been in the past week.

A month ago, she started acting very aggressive toward me and quite literally almost took my finger off. I'm lucky I didn't have to go to the ER. That put me on edge, so I took her to the vet for what was most likely hormonal issues. The last time she laid eggs was 2 years ago, around the May-June time frame. Her vet date finally arrived last week, and I ordered a blood panel despite the vet not thinking we needed one. Lo and behold, we definitely needed it. Check out her blood panel results attached to this thread - everything is either high or low. Like, off-the-charts high or low. The vet informed me that Zupreem is not healthy at all for them, and the blood panel honestly speaks for itself. Instead, he recommended Harrison's High Potency diet. I've been gradually working that in for the past few days since it arrived, but she's still mainly on Zupreem for 70% of her nutritional needs.

This morning she pooped red, like a lot. It's not bubbly, but the dark parts are very dark and the rest is very red. I will say I offered her a couple of cherries with the pits cut out a few days ago, but I don't think she ate any at all. After seeing this, I immediately called the vet and rushed a stool sample to their office, and now I'm waiting for a call. The receptionist even commented on how abnormal it looked. How concerned should I be about this? One thing's for certain, though, and that's the fact that she will never eat Zupreem again after this. My parents' Amazons are switching to Harrison's from Zupreem, too. Ugh!!!

 

[wrench13]

I am so glad you are taking the right steps with vet visits to confirm and fix any dietary issues. BUT making a 100% change over to any different food is not smart, and parrots can literally starve themselves rather then eat a new food if that is the only thing offered. Change over should be done gradually, so that does not happen. I know the inclination is to never feed Zupreem ever again, but change over gradually.

 

[Terry57]

I've fed my birds Zupreme for almost a decade and their levels are all fine. The only two pellets I feed are Zupreme and Tropimix.

My flocks ratio of food is 60-70% fresh food, fed twice a day, a small amount of seeds and the rest pellets.
No pellet will do for a bird what veggies will.

I'm surprised your vet didn't suggest more fresh foods to add to your birds diet rather than just blame it on the brand of pellets fed. There could also be an infection.

I agree with Al above about switching pellets all of a sudden. That shouldn't ever be done all at once, a bird will starve themselves. Harrison's has instructions on their site for how to switch gradually.

11 Quick Tips for Conversion to Harrison’s Bird Foods

Do your parents Amazon's get fresh food?
Making chop a greater portion of their diet would help all 3 birds, IMO.

There are some great chop recipes here:

Chop Recipe Resource Thread

Best of luck to you

 

[loveyourparrot]

The fruit blend does have food color dye added and will make the poop colored. Red #40 can also make animals and humans behavior change. Just a thought of what it could have been.

 

[SailBoat]

Welcome!!
First of all: A single poop does not define the health of a Parrot beyond that moment. If it repeats, yes, its a run to the Avian Vet's Client, NOW!
Second: I have specific Pellets that I believe in. That said, Never provide Pellets with color as what you have seen, is a reality, as for what ever reason, they can choose and do choose to eat only a certain color and you see the results.
Third and yes this is mean, on my part: Question any advice from a Vet that is recommending only the Pellet they Sell! Now, my past Avian Vet sold Harrisons, but never pushed that specific Pellet. What she stated was: "Only provide Zero Color Added Pellets, Zero to very limited amounts of Sugar and Salt. Yes, there is more, but this will quickly limits many of the Pellets on the North American Market.
Fourth and as stated above: What you are feeding is 180 degrees off: its not 70% Pellets and 30% Fresh Veggies, some fruit, etc. It is, 30% Pellets, seed, grain, selected nuts, etc.. Pellets should be considered as a supplement not the main source of food. Heavy amounts of Pellets have resulted in what you are seeing in the blood panel. High is some areas, Low in others..

 

[Botsari]

I don't want to get into too much of an argument about pellets here. But my personal take home is that the OP may be leaning too much on the crutch theory that the problems are the result of using the Zupreem Fruit Blend, or other Zupreem formulation. I'd be willing to bet that is NOT the whole story here. Having a WBC that is through the roof, for example, is almost certainly not (directly) nutrition-related. OP might have somewhat burried the lead there. But as mentioned above, you need a PLAN for switching your bird over, and careful observation. Otherwise your winged xenophobe may end up WORSE for the change.

That goes double if your bird is sick. You may not want to be adding more dimensions of complexity in the short term to the already complex diagnosis problem. But a glance at the blood panel - if valid - would mean your bird may be sick, not merely having nutritional issues. Birds are sometimes pretty bad at emoting in a way that parses with us humans, but that alone would be sufficient to explain behavior changes. The bird I recenlty lost to what much later turned out to be "maybe-cancer" presented his illness to me for the first time by him dropping an almond I gave him - something he never did in his whole life!

Pellet Observation A - one of my current main avian vets doesn't have an issue with those pellets. He is just one of the several avian vets that work at one of the go-to avain medical centers here in the San Franscisco bay area. It is a dead-serious institution with multiple dead-serious avian-only vets that work there. This is the place the casual avian vets send you when they don't know what is going on, and with birds that unfortunately happens a LOT. I say this not to negate what your own vet said, just to establish their bonafides. They even use the zupreme fruit blend amongst several other pellets at the avian hospital. They don't have a fundamental problem with them. But they also like Harrisons. And they don't sell pellets, as far as I know. Personally I think their CTscan probably more than takes up any monetization slack. <groan>

Pellet Observation B - my two greys ate nothing but Zupreme Fruit Blend for their pellets for the past 2 1/2 decades - both were literally weaned onto those pellets, and born a year appart with complelty different genetics. And in that time none of their blood tests came back abnormal - nutritionally or otherwise - not once. That whole time they maintained a healthy weight with beautiful feathers. Every bird is different of course, but you should still be paying careful attention and not resting on what one vet told you.

Some pellets are maybe better than others. I'm currenlty trying to get mine to switch to Mazuri. It is something of a wastage issue for me - my birds develop a preference within the different shapes and colors, and I presume tastes, and since they have plenty of food they will often just throw the ones at the bottom of their list out, or refuse to eat them. I do also like the idea of no dyes. But understand, people having a preference for their birds does not make the other stuff poison. Understand that it is easier to falsify the claim made above, that your bird's issues MUST be due to the pellets you were giving her, than it is to say what will be BEST for her in the long term. Certain narrow nutritional issues can even come from things like not having a full spectrum light bulb in your bird's room. Etc.

And please remember different vets will recomend different things. My "fancy" avian vets from the medical center still recommend the same pyramid nutrition most of the vets have over the years, and one of them is a younger guy that is up on current avian medical research ... such as it is .<a whole other thread, that> And that is the base of the pyramid is still recommended to be pellets (not the mixes with pellets mixed with other stuff, just high quality pellets) because they are nutritionally balanced for parrots special nutritional needs, and the top of the pyramid is fresh chop category stuff, with high-fat seeds and the like striclty for bribes and treats. The latter are entertainment, not everyday food. That is the answer I STILL got when I recently asked a few of them if there was anything "new" on parrot nutrition I should know about.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

 

[wrench13]

Nutrition discussions are always going to be varied and full of debate, as the science of aviculture is growing all the time. What was commonly accepted as good practice 15-20 years ago has changed quite a bit. What is not debatable is that a varied diet, with as few artificial ingredients as possible is the goal. How you aim to get there with your particular parrot is an individual story. And you always need to keep in mind that serving the very best foods with ideal ingredients is useless if she isn't eating any of it.