So this was just brought to my attention: A brand called FM Brown’s is selling bird “food” called Extreme! Candy-Covered Millet Treats. Hat tip to “Amanda’s Tweeties” for posting this picture:
Someone at a company that makes bird food thought it was a good idea to cover natural millet sprays with a candy coating. That’s basically sugar and carnauba wax, beeswax, shellac (I’m not making this up! That’s from the ingredients list!) and a bunch of unpronounceable things.
Birds already love eating fresh millet… why in the world would anyone think covering it in edible wax is a good idea? This is beyond just a silly idea; I find it irresponsible and terrible corporate citizenship to push this product as “food” for animals as sensitive and small as birds — it’s hard enough getting them to eat real, healthy food. We should demand a much higher standard of excellence from any company that claims to “understand that your companion animal isn’t just a pet; they’re a part of your family. That’s why for six generations we’ve devoted ourselves to creating tasty, healthy, nutritious animal food and treats.” (emphasis mine)
A little googling shows that Brown’s isn’t the only company offering this. This isn’t just about FM Brown, but about any company that would sell this type of thing to unsuspecting pet owners who just don’t know any better just because it’s attractive on a shelf (I bet it’s super cheap to make and stays shelf-stable forever! Just want you want in a food product, right?). Pet owners, please educate yourself on your animals nutrition needs and give this type of thing a wide berth.
Please, please, please to not feed this crap to your birds. And you may want to consider not giving companies who make this type of product any of your pet-related business. If they think this is “food”, what other terrible decisions are they making about your animals’ health?
If you’re looking for healthy ideas for treats, try the Phoenix Landing cookbook for some inspiration: Nourish to Flourish: A Healthy Cookbook for Parrots.
Good on ya. This “food” is produced and on the shelves for one reason only..money. It’s shameful for the company making the stuff and shameful for any stores carrying it.
Ugh! Gross! Only all natural bird food for my flock! And lots and lots of veggies and fruit.
This is why I don’t buy anything for my birds at Walmart.
what i also find disconcerting (besides waxes, shellac, etc.) is that millet already has potential to be a kind of “junk food” for parrots–without the help of coatings. 🙁 hope something can be done about this! has anyone showed it to the AFA or to the APPA? they *may* have some clout. trouble is…on forums like this, we’re ‘preaching to the choir.’ just as Mathieu posted, the people reading this blog probably don’t buy their bird food from walmart…and even those that do would prob only buy trusted brands. unfortunately, of all the people out there with parrots, only about 20 percent are spending time on forums and such, so i worry about the 80 percent–who are the ‘average public.’ it would be good to do something that would address the companies publicly and ask them to pull the products…or maybe something that would be highly visible on social media, youtube, or other more widespread outlets. thanks for sharing!
God, I thought you were having a joke. That’s the most disgusting thing I have seen on the market for birds. How it was allowed to be made puzzles me!
It’s just money to them companies they don’t care who buys it. It definitely needs to be banned!
Wish I would have read these reviews before I bought them. My son thought these would make for a cute little treat for his two parakeets so we bought them and mixed in a few with their regular food. Within a week both birds were dead. Up until that point the birds were healthy and never had any problems. We didn’t notice they weren’t feeling good and seemed to be fine. I can’t say for sure that these treats made our birds sick and led to their death, but not one other thing in their routine care and diet changed. My 9 year old son was devastated that both birds died within 4 hours of each other. I will never buy anything from this company again.
Omg I almost fed this to my birds