Harrisons Pellet questions..

[ConureLady]

I've decided to put my conures on Harrisons Fine Pellets and super fine for my parakeets..

Should I buy the conversion kit? CONVERSION KIT- SMALL BIRDS-harrisonbirdfoods.com

also, I see that High Potency Formulas-harrisonbirdfoods.com high potency formula is to be used for the first six months and that after six months you put them on Adult Lifetime Formulas-harrisonbirdfoods.com adult lifetime formulas for non breeding conures.. but two of my three conures might be breeding... so can I keep everybody on high potency formula?

This pellet food seems more complicated than I'd like.
It says that the high potency is for year round uses, but it says only for molting, sick, breeding, conversion, etc...

I'm super confused.

So should I keep my parakeets and conures on highpotency for six months, and switch everybody to lifetime maintenance? or just switch my parakeets? I cant just switch the one conure, he lives with the pair that are trying to breed.

If i have them on high potency for six months and then switch to lifetime, how am I going to know when to switch back to high potency during molts, breeding, sickness etc?
If i switch back and forth wont I have to start the conversion process all over?

 

[MonicaMc]

The budgies shouldn't be eating more than 50% pellets as their main diet... they still need seeds! After 6 months, just switch them over to aL.

If the conures will be producing during the HP diet or shortly after, keep them on it. If they aren't, then switch to AL and switch back to HP at least 3 weeks or so prior to breeding them.


If all three of your conures are pretty close, you may be fine allowing two of them to breed and the third will help out with feeding. However, you need to be prepared to remove the "3rd wheel" if ever an issue arises.


HP is used as a "Nutritional Boost" when converting or when the bird may require extra nutrients for whatever occurs, but that it's not necessarily a 'year round' diet. AL is a 'year round' diet.

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

I'm going to try to switch Pritti to Harrison's also. I tried it once before and he wouldn't eat any of their pellets. He ate a two or three of their treats and then stopped. This time I'm going to try using the suggestions from Harrison's. I have a bad feeling about how this is going to go. If you don't mind, can u keep us posted on this thread about how the conversion goes?

It makes me kind of crazy figuring out what's best. Harrison's has a pretty firm and strick diet recommendation. My main a-vet wrote an article and lists fresh foods and grains and other 'people' foods that are fine to feed thte birdies. the other a-vet closer to home for urgent matters says 10 percent non pellets, 20 percent max, and better to give nothing but pellets. talk about different opinions.

 

[Remy]

I just buy Harrison's High Potency all the time. It won't hurt the bird, and I believe in having as much nutrition in the diet as possible.

I've had 2 parrots and I haven't had any trouble converting them. I just stuck them in a bowl and put them in the cage without anything else, and they started eating it. Maybe I just got lucky. You can also mix it with stuff, like juice or soup, to make it more appealing. I've tasted it though, and it's not bad. A little bland to eat all the time, but it tastes kind of nice. I think the spirulina gives it some sweetness.

 

[MonicaMc]

I just buy Harrison's High Potency all the time. It won't hurt the bird, and I believe in having as much nutrition in the diet as possible.

Yes, but you have medium/large parrots... small parrots shouldn't eat a high pelleted diet with high protein for an extended period of time.

A diet of 17% or more protein in it, for an extended period of time, can be deadly to small parrots! AL has 14% protein and HP has 20%.


Please don't think that just because your medium and large birds are ok on the HP diet that that it's also ok for small species. It's fine for conures, caiques, pionus, poicephalus and other medium sized birds.

My avian vet and her entire clinic will chastise anyone who feeds their budgies, cockatiels and other "parakeets" pellet diets any higher than 50%!!!



This goes for anyone who has small parrots (not including conures). Just please, don't recommend a diet high in HP to those birds.

 

[ConureLady]

I've decided on lafebers for everybody. I'd like to see what everybody thinks of this...
All my conures can have inside of the cage is couscous, legumes, steel cut oats, lafebers pellets, and outside of the cage they can have pellet berries, nutriberries, and fresh foods.

I've found that the best way to feed a variety of fresh foods is cheaper if you get salad bar food from Safeway. I weigh a quarter lb normally around $4.00 two times a week and it ends up $35.00 a month. A quarter lb gets two grapes, a small piece of melon, a small slice of pepper, one leaf of spinach, one leaf romaine, a bit of cottage cheese, sometimes berries. I alternate foods of course.

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

Hi ConureLady,

I wish I had a good salad bar nearby -- I would do the same. The closest one is Whole Foods about 25 minutes away in area I would have no other reason to be. I'm wondering about how much Safeway charges you -- $4.00 for a quarter pound sounds super high -- that's $16 for a single pound of salad bar. I hope they aren't overcharging you.

Regarding Lafeber's -- I feel like it was a really big mistake for me to start Pritti with the Nutri-berries. Just about immediately, he wouldn't eat hardly anything else -- he would be like an addict waiting and literally eat nothing else all day waiting for the Nutri-berries. I tried twice leaving him with his usual favorite pellets, Zupreem Natural, and a dish of his favorite fresh foods - and it was just like with sunflower seeds - he was like addicted. What bothers me is that even though Lafeber's pkgs say that they have all the nutrition of pellets, it is only true if the birdy eats every single part and there are no crumbs of the little pieces or the pieces he doesn't like of the Nutri-berries - which is exactly what Pritti does -- So if he is only eating some of the grains and none of others, then he's not getting a balanced food. Whereas with a pellet, every bite should be an even blend of nutrients. Also, when I spoke and wrote to Lafeber's they were very nice and informative, but also careful in choosing their wording to not say that they were as nutritious of pellets, but that they have all the nutrition of a pellet. I asked that specific question, and they gave that specific answer. So if I make a homemade healthy muffin with all the ingredients that go in a pellet, then I also add propylene glycol as Nutri-berries, corn syrup, and some other weird chemicals -- then it still contains the foods that had the same nutrition, but then the additives make it not "as nutritious" as the original healthy muffin would be. I hope that made sense. I even later added a variety of the Nutri-berries, plus the pellet-berries (he wouldn't eat their plain pellets either), hoping i could convert him to the pellet-berries then back to pellets. It's been very tricky, but as of today, I'm not giving him any more of the original Nutri-berries, but will use the other Lafeber's products to wean him off and on to Harrisons or Totally Organics, I'm going to decide tomorrow which one.

So my recommendation is to simply monitor how much of the Nutri-berries your birdies are eating and that they are not picking and choosing which grains and such to eat when they bite it up.

Let us know how it goes. Lots of luck.

 

[ConureLady]

I totally understand! I never used nutriberries until I brought home my 8 year old conure and at first I was so happy he taught the younger two to eat something new but now I just find myself with a lot of waste and dropped ones. I only offer them on the gym ontop of the cage around 4pm after they have been forced to eat only what's in the cage.

The salad bar is $8.99 a lb but we have two large taxes.