Product review - Baked Birdie Munchies: Cran-Blueberry

Last week, a representative from a bird product company called Caitec contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in receiving some free samples of a newish food line to try on my parrots.  Of course I was interested!  I received a box with a sample of their pelleted diet, Oven Fresh Bites, and samples (in three flavors) of their treat product, Baked Birdie Munchies.

My parrots have frequently acted as testers for toy designs, but this was their first experience in the food-testing realm.

Of course, Max was right there when I opened the box.  Her sixth sense for parrot-items was activated and she flew to the chair, trying to eat through the plastic.  The fact that they look like little cookies couldn't have hurt anything!

Since I am bigger than her, I got the bag to safety and opened it up.  Since Max was already excited, she got the first bite; she wasn't disappointed:

Stella, who notices everything that involves Max, in her ever-vigilant crusade to make sure she's not slighted, immediately flew over to the stand for her own share:

I couldn't decide which of these pictures to post, so they're both going up here.  They took turns eating and looking at me:

They loved them!  Whenever they see the bag, they get so excited.  Even Thomas was amazed, "Why do they like this so much?" he kept asking.

After eating another one, Stella went down to the base of her stand to scarf up the crumbs:

Of course we did not forget the other parrots; they just didn't get as excited as the greys.  But they all loved the treat!

Basil:

Rocky:

Calypso (he's so adorable I had to post two pictures):

Beeps ate some, though he's been particularly camera-aggressive lately, so you'll have to take my word for it!

I probably should have waited to post until we'd tried all of the varieties, but I had so many pictures from the first, I decided to space it out.

I did do the ultimate test, which is to pit the treat against Max's favorite food of all time, the cashew.  I really thought the baked birdie munchie might win out, but ultimately, she went with the familiar cashew:

This is quite possibly because she'd already had several munchie pieces already that day but no cashews.  I will continue to experiment!

I did have one comment and one wish.  The comment is that, due to the consistency (which the parrots loved), they are quite messy.  You can get an idea from Stella's stand above.  Little piles of crumbs stood below where the parrots had been when they ate.  Since we are always sweeping up, this is no big deal, but just something I noticed.

And my wish.  I wish these came in different sizes.  They would be a perfect training tool, but they are very large.  When I gave one to the parrots to eat, I'd always break it in thirds or fourths.  I'd love to use these as a treat for clicker training, if they were smaller.  I may try using the crumbs to see how that works.  Stay tuned!

Over the next week or so, I will try the others with the parrots and record their reaction.  So far, so good.  We'll definitely be buying more of this!