Making your own… any experiences?

[Hollis]

For the past 30 years, my blue and gold has been on a diet of a premium food. We will call “brand H”. I think the world of this food, and my bird adore it.
The problem I have is with the cost. In the not too distant past, I could acquire bags of this products for around $100 for a 25 pound bag. This was possible because various sellers had loyalty programs, ran promotions that sort of thing. I’m now finding that the cost of this product is pushing $200 for the same bag of food.
The issue I have is that I am on a fixed income. Everything has increased in cost so much over the past couple of years, I live in Florida and my house insurance has tripled since 2021.
I attempted switching my bird over to a significantly less expensive but quality products and that did not go well at all. Plus, I want my bird to have the best nutrition and I believe that “brand H” gives that.
So I had a crazy idea. I often cook “copycat recipes“ at home for myself. For example, the Mongolian beef at a popular chain of takeout restaurants. I was wondering if I could do such a thing and make my own copycat ” brand H” food.
Has anyone tried such a thing?

 

[hiriki]

The problem with trying to make pellets is that the quality, nutritious pellets in the market are almost all cold pressed or extruded, not cooked with heat. Heat cooking significantly diminishes the nutritional value of a pellet and so if your pellet is cooked with heat, it's no exaggeration to say that it's probably not the quality pellet you thought it was. Although, with "brand H" in your post, if you're talking about Harrison's then it's definitely extruded at "low temps" according to their documentation.

Point being, if you tried to cook a pellet it would probably not be quality because you don't have the equipment to extrude it. But, a diet of mainly fresh food like veggies and eggs, with a small amount of pellets to supplement, would be fantastic.