Help needed from passionate parrot owners

[June2012]

June2012 have you considered volunteering at a bird rescue? There are a few large ones in S CA. That would provide bird experience, and expose you to many different species so you can figure out what you like. Even if its just helping with event set up and break down, its a good road to you dream destination.

I'm not 18 yet, so many of the ones in Southern California are a far drive that will allow me to volunteer.

 

[Hawk]

This may seem harsh...

Well, first of all, passionate parrot owners are aware of the dangers of feeding a seed diet to their birds, so if it's primarily a seed mix, it doesn't matter how pretty you make the packaging, if I feed that to my bird long term I will destroy his/her liver, so I am not going to buy it... :11:

I will put it down and walk away.

If you're selling seed mixes, then you need to find out what IGNORANT parrot owners, who don't care about the health of their birds think... they're the ones who buy based on pretty packaging and advertising claims.

Sorry, seed is only about 10% of a parrots diet. If it's 75% of the content of your bird food mix... well, it's not something I'd give mine.

Parrot owners are a lot more sophisticated in terms of ingredients/what we feed because the pet food industry has been marketing stuff that has long term bad health consequences for our birds for a long time... Diet and nutrition are absolutely critical components to captive bred birds, and most people are smart enough to know that.

Your packaging should be focused on concisely what's in it, and how is this more beneficial for my bird's health than anything else on the market. We're pretty bottom line people.

There tends to be a lot more involved taking care of a parrot than there is taking care of other animals. So, we do tend to be more informed.

I second that as well, My birds rarely get seeds or pellets, once a week in their bowl, they eat veggies, beans, fruit and and every thing good for them. Home grown and fresh.
They are healthy, beautiful plumage and lively. You can't get that on a seed diet.

 

[Hawk]

We feed Harrison's because it's good for them...

We feed Zupreme because they actually eat them, instead of throwing them...

There's a slogan for you: Your bird will eat more than they throw, guaranteed or your money back..."

This is what My parrots think of the majority of the seed and seed mixtures out there.....

 

[skylala]

Perhaps you could consider making a balanced or supplement parrot diet using real, whole food?

You can successfully flash freeze a lot of fruit, veg and herbs etc, as we do for people, so perhaps you could create some frozen food we can defrost for parrots, that are in meal-sized packets with appropriate ingredients in every bag.
A lot of parrot owners create 'chop' and freeze it for their birds. This is chopped up veggies and other goodies and if I could buy something commercially made like this, I would.
Here are examples of Chop recipes.
http://www.melbournebirdvet.com/chop.aspx
https://studentswithbirds.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/how-to-make-chop-for-parrots/
http://parrotnation.com/tag/chop-recipe-for-birds/

I'm pretty confident there is nothing like this at all on the market, and it would be successful if you did it right. You would need the right ingredients to make it work, but it would be pretty great. Things like vegetables, fruit, grains, beans, lentils, spices. Lots of SUPER FOODS. Yes, the words 'super food' is good marketing for parrots as it is with people. Parrot owners will respond.


I would think, if this could be done (and done well), you could create a very successful brand and product. You can be creative with the ingredients and specialize them with different parrot species, as they have different dietary requirements.

Good luck.