Tops, Harrisons, Roudybush, they're all great!
Pellets, while useful as a base diet, is not as necessary as a parrot's need for whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Although it is the common parrot care standard to feed our parrots their pellets as the foundation of their diet, there are some disadvantages to most pellet brands and I want to discuss some of those with you. This all gets rooted down to ingredients, what are manufacturers actually putting in these bags?
Firstly, the ingredient labels on parrot food bags are structured in a specific way, where the main ingredients incorporated into the food are written at the very top. They are represented by the first couple of ingredients. And with that, many parrot food brands actually put corn, wheat, and soy as the three main ingredients on their labels, which are not going to harm your bird, but rather does not provide vital nutritional value to your bird's diet overall. They are actually there to act as fillers in the food, similar to what companies do to dog and cat foods currently on the market. Basically, the food is majority filler, and less nutrient dense.
Secondly, you must consider the way in which the pellets were made apart from ingredients. These pellets can either be hot processed or cold pressed, which I suggest you look into more! When pellets are hot processed, this takes away vital nutrients that once was embedded into the food, which makes the pellets useless to consume at that point, offering little to no nutritional value. Not only this, but hot processed pellets also can cause inflamed and irritated skin in birds which ultimately leads to feather plucking. Cold pressed pellets actually help to alleviate this specific issue or prevent it altogether.
Having a varied diet for birds is critical in their care and for them to be the healthiest versions of themselves. However, while it is ideal to imitate the diet of their wild brethren, this cannot fully be the case. Wild parrots obtain mostly seeds and nuts while captive birds must be limited on their seeds and nuts and have more vegetables and whole foods. This is because wild parrots fly many many miles in search of these foods, so the fat and calories stored in these high fatty foods are already getting burned off through unlimited flight. Captive birds do not have the space for this kind of exercise most of the time, so seed and fat enriched foods are kept at a minimal while fresh fruits and veggies are served daily in larger amounts.
However, if I still wanted to feed my birds pellets, I would be wary of Zupreem Fruitblend and definitely feed my birds TOPs. Zupreem Fruitblend would not be my go-to since it contains those unwanted fillers, has excess sugar as well as unnecessary additives and preservatives, and their unnatural dyes can be harmful to birds. TOPs however contains limited fillers and is the only pellet brand (that I know of) that is cold pressed.
Below I've attached 2 videos of some great parrot owners that discuss their birds' diets and general avian nutrition concerning the problems with pellets in much greater detail. The first video is Mikey the Macaw who is pretty well known and he talks about the diet change of his two macaws, Mikey and Mia. The second video is the Happy Tails channel that discusses the same topic but instead focuses on reviewing ingredients in popular parrot food brands.
Additional Note: Through this post, I am definitely not telling or discouraging anyone to not feed their birds pellets anymore or that it is wrong to do so. Instead, just giving my personal take on the pellet debate and what I would like to do for my birds moving forward.
Enjoy your evenings!
Pellets, while useful as a base diet, is not as necessary as a parrot's need for whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Although it is the common parrot care standard to feed our parrots their pellets as the foundation of their diet, there are some disadvantages to most pellet brands and I want to discuss some of those with you. This all gets rooted down to ingredients, what are manufacturers actually putting in these bags?
Firstly, the ingredient labels on parrot food bags are structured in a specific way, where the main ingredients incorporated into the food are written at the very top. They are represented by the first couple of ingredients. And with that, many parrot food brands actually put corn, wheat, and soy as the three main ingredients on their labels, which are not going to harm your bird, but rather does not provide vital nutritional value to your bird's diet overall. They are actually there to act as fillers in the food, similar to what companies do to dog and cat foods currently on the market. Basically, the food is majority filler, and less nutrient dense.
Secondly, you must consider the way in which the pellets were made apart from ingredients. These pellets can either be hot processed or cold pressed, which I suggest you look into more! When pellets are hot processed, this takes away vital nutrients that once was embedded into the food, which makes the pellets useless to consume at that point, offering little to no nutritional value. Not only this, but hot processed pellets also can cause inflamed and irritated skin in birds which ultimately leads to feather plucking. Cold pressed pellets actually help to alleviate this specific issue or prevent it altogether.
Having a varied diet for birds is critical in their care and for them to be the healthiest versions of themselves. However, while it is ideal to imitate the diet of their wild brethren, this cannot fully be the case. Wild parrots obtain mostly seeds and nuts while captive birds must be limited on their seeds and nuts and have more vegetables and whole foods. This is because wild parrots fly many many miles in search of these foods, so the fat and calories stored in these high fatty foods are already getting burned off through unlimited flight. Captive birds do not have the space for this kind of exercise most of the time, so seed and fat enriched foods are kept at a minimal while fresh fruits and veggies are served daily in larger amounts.
However, if I still wanted to feed my birds pellets, I would be wary of Zupreem Fruitblend and definitely feed my birds TOPs. Zupreem Fruitblend would not be my go-to since it contains those unwanted fillers, has excess sugar as well as unnecessary additives and preservatives, and their unnatural dyes can be harmful to birds. TOPs however contains limited fillers and is the only pellet brand (that I know of) that is cold pressed.
Below I've attached 2 videos of some great parrot owners that discuss their birds' diets and general avian nutrition concerning the problems with pellets in much greater detail. The first video is Mikey the Macaw who is pretty well known and he talks about the diet change of his two macaws, Mikey and Mia. The second video is the Happy Tails channel that discusses the same topic but instead focuses on reviewing ingredients in popular parrot food brands.
Additional Note: Through this post, I am definitely not telling or discouraging anyone to not feed their birds pellets anymore or that it is wrong to do so. Instead, just giving my personal take on the pellet debate and what I would like to do for my birds moving forward.
Enjoy your evenings!
