Product Description
Let’s be honest; cockatiels can be stubborn seed-eaters. While we know pellets are hands-down a healthier diet, many cockatiels ignore them. Who can blame them? Pellets offer balanced nutrition but little in the way of taste or texture. Before you reach for another bag of seed, drop a few Cockatiel Nutri-Berries in your bird’s bowl or foraging area. Chances are he’ll find the crunchy whole grains and hulled seeds irresistible. You’ll be relieved to know that your cockatiel finally likes a nutritionally balanced diet, complete with stabilized vitamins, chelated minerals, and amino acids.
The Lafeber difference is in the hulling. A seed mix might be coated with vitamin and minerals, but as soon as the bird cracks the seed, the nutrition is lost along with the empty seed hull. By hulling the seed and grains and then adding essential vitamins and minerals, Nutri-Berries keeps the nutrition right where it belongs — in each and every bite. Cockatiel Nutri-Berries also add 8% pellets to the taste and texture mix, and they are sized to appeal to cockatiels, as well as quaker parrots, Indian ringnecks, Neophemas, and other small birds.
Classic Nutri-Berries are nutritionally balanced like pellets, just not ground up. Both pellets and Nutri-Berries contain seeds and grains. In pellets, they are finely ground before being formed into a pellet. Most of the seeds and grains in Nutri-Berries are kept whole because Dr. Lafeber discovered how to nutritionally balance them without grinding them down, leaving the taste and textures in a more natural form that birds find appealing. We also balance the Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids to boost your bird’s immune system and to promote healthy skin and feathers. Our foods are naturally preserved and free of artificial colors, so you can feel good about offering them to your cockatiel or other small- to medium-sized bird.
- Exceptional high rate of birds’ acceptability compared to regular pellets
- Omega 3 & 6 fatty acid balanced
- Naturally preserved & flavored
- Non-GMO formula
- Made in the USA on the Lafeber Family Farm
- Can be offered as a complete diet or as a healthy treat
Nancy Herrmann –
After a near loss of my much loved cockatiel Sweetiebird due to a fatty liver (too many sunflower seeds), my vet suggested Lafebers Nutri-berries. He is also blind and introducing new food can be very tricky. His health steadily improved and he absolutely loves his Nutri-berries. I crush them in his bowl for his daily food along with Sunny Orchard and Tropical Nutri-berries. I put full berrries in small boxes for him to forage and he really goes crazy over them. His very special treats are Avi-cakes, he chatters while eating them. I highly recommend Lafebers pet bird food.
Mairi Morrison –
This is simply the best food for my cockatiels and Galah cockatoo that I have ever tried – and I think I must have tried pretty much everything on the market! As a breeder, it’s very important to me that my birds are in top condition, and the difference that NutriBerries makes is truly remarkable. I have several birds who were bred in outside aviaries, and although they came to me very nervous, flighty, and disinclined towards human attention, it is astonishing just how quickly they settle down and start to become interactive members of the family within a short space of time on a NutriBerry-based diet! Even previous chronic biters quickly settle down, and the fussiest of seed eaters never fail to take to NutriBerries right away – no stressful conversion. Exceptionally fussy eaters might occasionally need to have the NutrBberries crushed up to get them started, but that’s the full extent of any conversion problems I’ve ever seen in the several dozen birds I’ve had over the years.
My original cockatiel came to me aged several years old, from an outside aviary that the breeder was dismantling, and I was told that he needed only bird seed, a cuttlefish bone, and occasionally a bit of apple or whatever. Unfortunately that was back in the days before the Internet really took off, and my poor bird suffered this poor diet for almost 10 years before internet adoption became widespread and I got online, and started to learn about proper nutrition. I put him onto AviCakes right away, and a month later found the top avian vet in Scotland, and took him for a checkup. Sadly, the damage had been done, and he already had fatty liver disease, but his bloods checked out remarkably well, and Mr Lawrie was delighted to inform me that his lymph was lovely and clear and healthy – something he rarely saw in pet cockatiels at that time. He was also a big fan of Lafeber products, and advised me to keep my boy on Lafeber foods. He continued to thrive on his NutriBerries and AviCakes, and was so delighted with them that he literally started singing AT his supper everytime I put a new pot of Lafeber food in his cage! He changed within a month from being an antisocial biter, to a bird who loved nothing better than to ride around the house on my shoulder. I saw more progress in just one month on Lafeber foods than we had made in the previous 8 years. The transformation was nothing short of miraculous. Erchie lived a happy and healthy life for another 15 years on Avicakes – and I believe he would still be alive now, approaching 30 years old, except sadly my husband took a Teflon tray into my house without me knowing, and the fumes were fatal.
I now raise my birds exclusively on Lafeber foods, and the size and health of my babies has improved dramatically. Mr Lawrie gave them all a checkup last year, and was so delighted with their health and fitness, that he declared me a “Lawrie-approved cockatiel breeder” – the only one in Scotland! I can’t thank all of the lovely people at Lafeber enough for everything they do to improve the health and wellbeing of our wonderful birds, and all of my babies go with detailed care sheets, a starter bag of NutriBerries, and instructions of where they can buy more of them. I have also introduced many of my other bird-owning friends to NutriBerries, and everyone who has tried them has been absolutely delighted with them too – not one of us would dream of feeding our babies anything less!
I could rave about this wonderful product all day, but in a nutshell, just try it. You’ll not be disappointed, and your feathered friends will be so happy that you’ll never look back.
Joan Smuda –
Our cockatiel has been my companion for around two decades and has always been a fussy eater. A recent infection got him to the vet who called me to task about his nutrition. He was eating only seeds. She recommended a pelleted diet, but he won’t eat those. He did take quite well to Lafeber pellet berries and we received a sample of the nutria-berries. They are now his favorite food and he is his old noisy, active self again. This was a great solution for him and we cannot believe how much he likes them. I feel better knowing that he is getting the nutrition that he needs. Thank you.