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Cockatiels and Pellets
My Experiences with Pellets part I
In 1989 I became interested in raising parrots, so I set about saving money to acquire them. Other than having had a few pet budgies, a cockatiel, and a mystery small solid green parrot with a loud screeching voice when I was younger, I had no experience or knowledge of parrots. Essentially, I was a fresh slate. As far as I knew, birds ate just seeds. Seeds were the only food sold for birds locally and seeds were what the owners of the birds I purchased fed them. I didn't know that birds could or would eat anything but seeds and I had never heard of pellets. I didn't know there were any bird clubs or any books or magazines on the subject. My education began when I answered an ad in the newspaper for lovebirds. They were already sold, but I asked her some questions and she was kind enough to give me contact information for the Wisconsin Cage Bird Club.
People who know me also know that when I am interested in something, I immerse myself in it. I become a sponge seeking out and attempting to absorb as much about it as I am able. This, a major part of my personality, is an uncontrollable compulsion for knowledge. (another part is to relate what I have learned.) I joined the Wisconsin Cage Bird Club, found out about AFA and joined them. When I saw a coupon for Bird Talk magazine in a rack at the grocery store, I subscribed. In Bird Talk, I saw ads for other trade journals. I subscribed to American Cage Bird, Bird World, and Parrot World. As they arrived, I read every issue of each cover to cover, including the ads. I called breeders whose numbers I found in the ads and questioned those who would talk to me. I went to the library and checked out every book they had about parrots (not many) and read them. I saw book reviews in some of the magazines. I called my bookstore and ordered and read those books. Avian publications came to the bird fairs and I purchased more books from them. I started writing book reviews for Parrot World magazine. My pay was the books I reviewed. Every minute not physically working, on the job or at home, I was studying and learning about birds.
One concept gleaned from all my reading was the importance of taking new bird purchases to the vet for an exam. Most of the birds I purchased and brought to my vet were suffering from one or another bacterial infection that had to be treated. My vet discussed diet as a factor in their poor immune systems. Since my readings had also enlightened me that seeds were not by themselves an ideal diet, I was receptive to the idea of improving their diets with fruits and vegetables. In this, I was not successful. It rapidly became clear that birds accustomed to an all seed diet do not easily accept fruits and vegetables. I was too new in the game to know about feeding strategies, so my birds were eating mostly seeds.
Then at one of the WCBC sexing clinics, I met Dr. Scott McDonald. He gave me a handout from his clinic about improving bird diets. Kray's diet was a feature of this handout so I tried it and with a little inventiveness on my part, the birds began to accept the new food. It was extra work, but worth it in terms of improved health for my birds. I used Purina Hi Pro for the dog kibble in the recipe.
My introduction to pellets was through an article in Bird Talk by Charlene Beane. In it, she compared the nutrient analysis of several pellet brands available, but not seen in my local stores. Using the contact information she provided, I called several of the manufacturers and asked them questions about breeder results, minimum purchase, possible breeder discounts, and shipping costs. Since I didn't know much about avian nutritional requirements, I couldn't assess the feed analysis of each pellet, but I did notice that they varied considerably from one manufacturer to another.
Finally, I settled on Dr. D's and ordered the shipment of a couple hundred pounds. I chose Dr. D's because the protein was lower, the formula didn't use fish as a protein source, and shipping was less expensive than pellets being manufactured halfway across the country. Introducing the birds to the pellets was easy because I initially just substituted Dr. D's for the dog kibble in Kray's diet. Then all I had to do was gradually increase the ratio of pellet to the rest of the ingredients until the birds were eating pellets as the sole food source most of the time. I still offered them my version of Kray's because part of keeping them is enjoying them and part of enjoying them is making them happy.
The thing I didn't like about Dr. D's was because the crumbles looked exactly like cat litter in color and texture. When I tasted it, I couldn't be sure it wasn't. Then I read the feed ingredients. It used words like 'digest of forage products' to describe what was in the formula. So I called them again and asked what exactly were these forage products. The woman said she couldn't disclose that information because someone might steal their formula.
So my next pellets were Exact, made by Kaytee manufacturing in Chilton, Wisconsin. Obtaining pellets from them seriously tested my patience. First, they wouldn't give breeder discounts, only distributor discounts. I think the purchase minimum was fifteen hundred pounds, but don't quote me on that. Second, they wouldn't ship. They told me it was against the law to sell to me unless I was a distributor. I had a couple of options. I could drive to Cudahy and purchase from their distributor, Great Lakes Pet Supply or I could drive to Chilton and pick up on a drop-ship arrangement. They would not allow me to purchase from them directly. At different times, I did one or another. The one that really irritated me was the Chilton experience. There I would drive to a feed store, tell them how much Exact I wanted, they would drive three blocks to Kaytee, pick up my order, and bring it back to the feed store. Then they would take a mark-up and allow me to make the purchase.
Although I knew the push was to specialize in one or two species, I was not ready or able to commit myself that way. First I needed to be acquainted with many species and then I would be able to refine my tastes. By now I was feeding cockatiels, ringnecks, lovebirds, rosellas, budgies, amazons, conures, severes, yellow collars, goffins, moluccans, and young pair of greenwing macaws. All were on pellets and looking pretty good. My vet also vaccinated everyone against Pacheco's since the new vaccine had just come available. After that I moved to a new location.
Here the birds began to breed for me but here I also ran into trouble with neighbors. Actually it was one neighbor who moved across the street after I did. Because of him, my big bird species interests had to change. The amazons, conures, cockatoos, and macaws had to go. Favorites that I couldn't part with went into the basement which contained the noise better but there was only so much room down there.
Since African species are quieter, they gradually began to replace the noisy birds I was selling. Now I had congos, timnehs, senegals, Meyers, red-bellied and eclectus. Gone were most of the amazons, all of the cockatoos, severes, yellow collars, and conures. I personally lost interest in ringnecks, rosellas, budgies, lovebirds and an assortment of other pairs and singles like lories and great bills.
I was switching back and forth between Pretty Bird and Exact pellets because Pretty Bird would ship and even with shipping, they were less expensive than Exact. If I had a large enough supply order, Great Lakes could deliver either Pretty Bird or Exact to me and the birds seemed to do equally well on both. At the time, I was not concerned about the dyes in Pretty Bird.
Right around this time, I purchased two just weaned heavy pied cockatiel mutation clutch siblings for my cockatiel breeding program. Less than six months after purchase, both birds died within a few days of each other. The vet's diagnosis from necropsy was visceral gout. There were no other deaths or sick birds. The vet thought it might be a genetic problem. In retrospect, I believe the genetics of the birds were such that they were unable to deal with the formulation of the pellets I was feeding them.
Next: part II
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