Tag: fruit

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How can our pellets be used as a supplement?

Pellets

It’s a fact that some species of birds don’t like te eat pellets due to their feeding strategy. When this is the case, we need to use supplements to fulfill the gap of nutrients that the other foods present.

What if we could fulfill this gap with our pellets? I will give several examples:

wisbroek-micro-on-fish

Inca Sternen

Shore birds, are fantastic flyers and basic fish eaters. At Wisbroek R&D Center, when we present them the fish we sprinkle Wisbroek Micro 22 over the fish. It’s a high quality extruded pellet that, when it gets in contact with the fish, will absorb some water of his body and gets glued to the fish! So when the sterns eat the fish, the pellets are also eaten! What’s really amazing is what we saw with our Incas at Wisbroek R&D Center: after some time the birds started to eat the Micro 22 dry that we offered in an extra dish! Probably because of the coating with fish oil, the taste pleases them. They are in a mixed aviary with Chilean Flamingos and we often see them eat the Wisbroek Ibis – Flamingo Floating as well, probably because it is also coated with fish oil. How awesome is this? Now we just present fish and pellets to them and they look perfect and are breeding as well!

Fruit eaters

Here the case is different. These birds should have pellets in their daily diet. The composition of the fruit present on the market is not even close to the ones they eat in the wild. However it is also known how difficult it is for some birds to feed them pellets. At Wisbroek R&D Center we also had some cases like that. So we thought in the possibility to use our Wisbroek Softbill Diet Small as a supplement over the fruit. It worked perfectly! Because it’s also a high quality extruded pellet, absorbs some water of the fruit and gets glued to the fruit.

Well, fruit they like, so when some pellets are glued to the fruit, they have no chance rather than eat everything! Because the pellets also taste like fruit, eventually they start to eat them dry as well. We just need to keep presenting them to the birds!

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whatsapp-2019-07-18

Insectivores

Some insectivores like the Common Hoopoes or the Bee-eaters will for sure not eat pellets. But they love mealworms right? So what about just feeding the mealworms with the pellets? More information about this can be found in another blog, but to give an example this year we got a pair of Common Hoopoes with 9 babies. And they only eat the mealworms gut loaded with our Wisbroek Ibis-Flamingo Floating and Wisbroek Softbill Diet! Cool isn’t it?

(Blog: https://www.wisbroek.com/en/mealworm-nutrition-how-important-this-can-be-for-the-health-of-the-birds/

At the Wisbroek Research & Development Center, our most important task is keep researching the best ways to nourish a bird. Developing the highest quality feed is a precondition for success, but also brings a responsibility to research the best ways to feed those pellets. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, because sharing knowledge is for sure one of the keys to success for the worldwide aviculture.

Do you have questions about this blog or our feed? Do not hesitate to ask your question via our website www.wisbroek.com or send a mail to info@wisbroek.com.

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Wisbroek’s new range of Parrot feeds

Developing new nutrition

Wisbroek has a lot of experience in developing bird feeds. Over the last years we have heard from several partners that there was an urge for a special feed for parrots. When we visit a new Zoo they often ask us if we also develop Parrot Feeds because they are looking for a better one. So about 2 years ago we have started our research. A research executed with the Wisbroek staff of course, but also many parrot experts, nutritionists, parrot keepers, curators and veterinarians were consulted. Normally the first initial tests (at least 1 year before delivery to market) of our Wisbroek Feeds always take place at Wisbroek. Together with nutritionists and experts, research is being conducted to bring feed to a balanced level as this is a basis for animal health. At the Wisbroek Research & Development Center we didn’t have any parrots at that time, therefore we performed some extensive tests with some prominent partners.

Many information was gathered and interesting points were collected and after all this time we have tried to create, in our opinion, the most complete parrot feed of the market. We developed 2 different kinds of parrot feeds, the Wisbroek Parrot Fruit Blend and the Wisbroek Parrot Nut Blend. One based on fruits and the other one based on seeds and nuts, depending on the parrot feeding strategy. Both feeds are available in a daily blend (Small and Large) and a booster. The Daily Small and Daily Large variant can be combined, depending on the type of bird, because the ingredients are exactly the same. Besides we have developed for the Fruit as well as for the Nut Blend a booster; which can be fed to birds which need extra energy, for example during the breeding season.

Wisbroek Parrot Fruit Blend Daily Small - 10kg
Wisbroek Parrot Nut Blend Daily Large - 10kg

Natural ingredients

We really wanted to make a special feed, so we collect more than 30 natural ingredients and transform these in an extruded pellet that will contain all necessary nutrients for welfare of the birds. It contains DHA fatty acids for optimal health and breeding conditions. Most of the minerals have been added in organic form and organic minerals have a higher availability since they are the natural form of minerals in animal diets. It also contains yucca extract which promotes digestion. Besides, the Wisbroek Parrot Nut Blend is based on seeds, nuts and other natural ingredients with a slow carbohydrate availability of slow release energy. Those are just some of the strong points of these feeds.

Personally one of the most interesting conversations we had was with Tony Silva. He really opened my eyes to certain points that today, in my opinion, are crucial in a parrot feed. Among many, the most interesting, was when Tony was telling the urge of having a good maintenance feed for parrots. But not a maintenance feed that will mean a cheaper and therefore incomplete feed. Just a perfect feed for the parrots but with very low values of fat and protein in order to stop them to enter in breeding mode. And when we keep that in mind, that makes a lot of sense! For example, a hornbill which normally eats fruit, will eat, during the breeding season, some small rodents, small birds or even steal some eggs from nests to get the extra protein he needs for this period. The rest of the year he will go back to his frugivorous feeding strategy. The same happens for many other species. But with parrots for example, if they are a fruit eater / nut eater, they will eat fruit or nuts all year long. The difference is that during the breeding season they also have access to fruits, nuts, flowers and leaves with high levels of protein and fat. So we do realize that the reason why many parrots in captivity have so much aggression issues might be that they are in constant breeding mode due to a diet of high fat and protein. Therefore we have created Wisbroek Parrot Fruit Blend Daily and Wisbroek Parrot Nut Blend Daily. Both in a Small and Large variant. These are extruded pellets containing all necessary nutrients for their perfect metabolism, but mimicking the wild, the less abundance and protein and fat will put them in a non-breeding mode. Besides we created the Wisbroek Parrot Fruit Blend Booster and Wisbroek Parrot Nut Blend Booster with higher levels of fat and protein to trigger them for the breeding! With this range of feeds the breeders/keepers/Zoos, can estimate what their birds need and provide them with an adequate diet, by choosing just one of these feeds, or even a mix of them.

Wisbroek Parrot Feeds

We all know that each breeder/keeper likes to make their own mix, add their own ideas, and that’s fantastic! They know their birds, understand what the specific needs of the birds are and which diet fits best, on a daily basis as well as during the breeding season. Our idea of making a premium feed for parrots was to make sure that if you want to give only the pellets, it will be enough, it is a complete feed, with all necessary nutrients present. But if you prefer to make it more diverse, according to seasons and feeding strategy, it can be used in a mixed diet as well, with no problem at all.

We are really excited with this new project and we hope that we can make a positive contribution for the nutrition of captive parrots around the world!

All information about our new Wisbroek Parrot Feeds can be found on our website. Of course we are also happy to answer your questions and provide nutritional advice. Please contact us via: info@wisbroek.com.

Wisbroek Parrot Fruit Blend Booster - 10kg