Eclectus Diet - Suitable Dry Mixes

chris-md

chris-md

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Parker - male Eclectus

Aphrodite - red throated conure (RIP)
A question often seen in the eclectus world, given their unique dietary requirements, is "what dry mix can I feed my ekkie? I'm in ..... situation and can't really feed fresh at the moment".

To begin, we must emphasize that it is critical to feed your eclectus fresh food. Usually amongst parrot owners this is accomplished through serving chop, which is essentially a bunch of fresh ingredients that have been run through a food processor or otherwise chopped up really finely, and mixed together. To help in that respect, below is a thread to a sticky on assorted Chop Recipes:

Chop Resource Thread

On the assumption you understand the importance/mandatory requirement for fresh food in an electus diet, let us proceed with the question at hand.

The basic criteria for ANYTHING suitable for eclectus are as follows:
  1. No artificial/added vitamins or minerals
  2. No artificial/added dyes/colorants
  3. No artificial/added preservatives (looking at you, sulphur dioxide)
  4. Under Guaranteed analysis, crude fat should be hopefully 15% or less - this threshold is admittedly a bit arbitrary on my own part, but in many mixes I've seen they tend to have a range of approximately 4%-20%. High fat content is associated with triggering and exacerbation of hormonal behavior in ekkies. Admittedly, high calorie in general across ALL macros - carbs, protein, and fat - are associated with hormonal triggers, but since dry mixes tend to lean on fatty seeds, emphasis must be placed on monitoring the fat content especially. This threshold tries to straddle the line between being reasonable with what's feasible and backing away from really high fat foods.
A note on pellets: Especially for reasons 1-3, popular pellet brands like Harrisons, Roudybush, and Zupreme are summarily rejected. They are not made with whole ingredients, and always contain excessive amounts of added vitamins while being corn based - another occasional trouble food. You'll no doubt hear about how many eclectus are doing fine on these pellets. I'm not here to argue with them - I cannot argue with success. But far too many eclectus have also suffered at the hands of vitamin enriched foods, enough so that your starting point should be to avoid them altogether.

I want to reiterate: these are intended to be dry mixes. Popular soak and serve mixes that are perfectly healthy and wonderful additions to the diet, but are cook, not dry mixes. Starting out, this list is tiny because I have much more research to do and frankly, dry mixes suitable for ekkies are hard to come by, but I would like to build onto this list as I can find more.

So begins the list below:
  • TOPS pellets and any iteration thereof (numerous influencers lately have been working with TOPS to create their own custom pellet blends)
  • Anything from the Goldenfeast line
  • Some Options from Christines Chop Shop
  • Origins Wild Diet from TheBestBirdFood
MORE TO COME!
 
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Great foundation for a Sticky Thread as special diet requires for this Species cannot be understated!!

The sad, continued loss of high-quality suppliers /vendors for the Parrot industry cannot be understated. And, high-quality food sources are leading that loss.

Thank you good friend for starting this Thread!!

Cheers!!
 
As I understand it from some threads on other forums, they’ve been bought out a few times. One can only assume each time the new ownership has tried to streamline the brand and improve profits. I’ll admit there might have perhaps been a slight over saturation on their part, too many lines of products. It’s really unfortunate, they dropped some rather valuable products from their lineup. I know they had a buyer for life in me until this happened.
 
As a new Ekkie parent I appreciate posts like this. Although I have been reading and researching for over a year now, I all of a sudden have found myself a little overwhelmed now that we have our Ekkie. Am I feeding correctly, is he getting enough vitamins from what I’m feeding him, is he eating the right foods, is he eating enough etc… (thank you for advising on vetalife, although was feeding him sparingly I did have this in his diet, which is now going in the bin.) As a new parent I have tried sifting through various foods to offer and was tempted to buy this but have no real idea if this is any good! Was just wondering if anyone has ever tried this for their Ekkie sand is it any good? https://www.habitatpets.com.au/prod...LfhEzIJQGmk_fVBuZLBNBimRhrlfTcCRoCSJYQAvD_BwE
 
Please note the following often served to eclectus are unsuitable and should not be served:

1. Anythign Vetafarm
2. Anything Volkmans
3. Anything Pretty Bird
4. Anything Zupreme/roudybush/harrisons
5. Anything Lafebre
6. Anythig Kaytee
4+5+6: Basically anything you can get from your local store catering primarily to dogs and cats (petsmart/petco, etc).
 
Great thread, which of the Tops bags (easily available) is recommended?
 
We've got a huge bag of Tops, but our boy won't touch it anymore. Any ideas about how to make Tops more appetizing? Add spices maybe?

I also ordered some a sample pack from Bird Street Bistro and some Goldenfeast. These were darn expensive, but maybe variety will help.

I'm taking a break (maybe permanently) from Roudybush. Over the last couple of days, Toby has gone into full-blown hormonal state. He is a real mess today. He's nervously pacing back and forth, begging constantly at the window, jumps onto my shoulder when I walk by, won't eat, watery poops, all the typical stuff he does when hormones kick in. So, yeah, I need to get his diet straightened out.
 
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WingDing said:
We've got a huge bag of Tops, but our boy won't touch it anymore. Any ideas about how to make Tops more appetizing? Add spices maybe?

I also ordered some a sample pack from Bird Street Bistro and some Goldenfeast. These were darn expensive, but maybe variety will help.

I'm taking a break (maybe permanently) from Roudybush. Over the last couple of days, Toby has gone into full-blown hormonal state. He is a real mess today. He's nervously pacing back and forth, begging constantly at the window, jumps onto my shoulder when I walk by, won't eat, watery poops, all the typical stuff he does when hormones kick in. So, yeah, I need to get his diet straightened out.
Click to expand...
you can crush it up and make birdy bread out if it. Look up the tops bird bread they sell. it's just crushed pellets with some fruit/veggie puree
 
Thank you for all these great posts, i will try the Top's for Moses dod you recommend the small or the larger pellets?
thank you and God Bless our Eclectus Parrots:)
 
What about good old fashioned OATMEAL as a substitute?

Mine gets fresh chop and oatmeal. And I've converted my other birds to chop... cuz if I'm gonna make chop I'm gonna feed it to everyone.
 
Oatmeal is just one food, oats. As a substitute for chop it’s insufficient. And not dry (since the point of this thread is to essentially identify chop alternatives).
 
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