Quality Cuttlebones? Do they Exist?

[Tweedles]

My Cinnamon Cockatiel Tweedles loves his cuttlebones and will run right over when I put a new one in. He also has a calcium block and uses them both.


I know cuttlebones are not very expensive, but it seems as if they ALL are cheap junk. My local pet store rarely has them in stock and so I have to buy them online. They often arrive cracked or broken, and often the cheap little wire has to be re-inserted to hold the bone properly in the cage.

I don't mind paying more for a QUALITY product if such a thing exists.

Can you recommend a certain brand you and your bird(s) like that isn't cheap junk?

Tweedles thanks you.

 

[bug_n_flock]

Honestly?

I think it's another thing we humans have royally messed up on.

When I was a teenager working in the parrot shop my boss would buy big boxes of *nice* big healthy chunky solid cuttlebones and she would sell them for something like 3 for 5$ or something like that, they were very affordable.

In the 20 some odd years since then, I find fewer and fewer of them and they are all the teeny tiny crappy ones you are describing.

Just a guess based on zero research but I think we overdid it with cuttlefish harvesting, and there's just not as many high quality animals in the sea yielding fewer high quality cuttlebones

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Are the smaller ones inferior or just smaller?

 

[rheashard2]

My CAG hit puberty and was making my life miserable. I went through a phase where I thought she would start laying eggs. I looked into cuttle bone. Large pieces of the stuff used to be everywhere from discount to petstores. I saw it wasn't carried much anymore. I wondered if it was out of fashion. I looked on line. The sites I found carrying and recommending it are thinly veiled advertising. With the pollution, over fishing and global warming I worried about the supply and quality. Maybe its a combination of factors. My desire for information had me do another search. I found this disclaimer.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Does it really matter how big they are?

 

[bug_n_flock]

Yes. They are much lower quality, and at best they charge the same amount as they do for the higher quality ones, but in my experience they are nowhere near as affordable as they used to be.

Also it's yet another troubling sign of the times.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I do notice that Cuttlebones aren't cheap and some of my birds destroy them in a day.