Harrison's High Potency Coarse Organic Bird Food

High Potency Coarse is the formula most avian vets reach for first. It is a certified organic, Non-GMO Project Verified pellet built for medium and large parrots — and it is deliberately richer than a maintenance diet, because the birds that need it are working harder: coming off seed, breeding, weaning, moulting, or putting weight back on after illness.

The coarse grind matters more than it sounds. A larger nugget gives a macaw or a cockatoo something to hold and crack, which is how a parrot's beak and gizzard are built to work. Some crumbling in the bag is normal, not a fault.

Which birds this is for

Medium to large parrots: African greys, Amazons, cockatoos, macaws, eclectus, pionus and large conures. For smaller birds, choose High Potency Fine (cockatiels, conures, lovebirds, budgies) or High Potency Super Fine (canaries, finches, budgies).

High Potency or Adult Lifetime?

This is the question we get asked most. Feed High Potency when a bird is:

• Converting from a seed diet — Harrison's ask for a minimum of six months on High Potency, and recommend eight.
• Breeding, or a young bird within 6–9 months of weaning.
• Moulting, underweight, overweight, or very active.
• Recovering from illness, or living somewhere cold.
• Managing liver or kidney disease, under a vet's direction.

Once a bird is healthy, settled and fully converted, Adult Lifetime Coarse is the everyday maintenance formula to move on to.

Guaranteed analysis

Ingredients

Hull-less barley*, sunflower kernels*, toasted soybeans*, whole corn*, peas*, lentils*, peanut kernels*, brown rice*, toasted oat groats*, alfalfa*, psyllium*, chia*, calcium carbonate, bentonite, vitamin and mineral supplement, dried kelp*, salt, dried algae*. (*certified organic)

How much to feed

Harrison's should make up 75–80% of the daily diet. The remaining 15–20% is organic dark green leafy or dark yellow vegetables and fruit — sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin, winter squash, broccoli, parsley, spinach, mango, papaya. Feed fresh daily, and offer it as distinct meals rather than a permanently full bowl; it cuts waste considerably.

Switching your bird onto pellets

Most owners fail at conversion because they leave the seed bowl in. The method Harrison's teach is the opposite:

1. Leave fresh Harrison's nuggets available all day, every day.
2. Pick one food your bird already eats — usually the seed — and drop everything else from the old diet.
3. Offer that one food three times a day for exactly 15 minutes, six hours apart, then take it away. Your bird can eat as much as it likes inside the window.
4. As the bird starts on the nuggets, remove one seed window, then a second, then all three.

Never starve a bird. Weigh daily on a gram scale — a swing of more than 10% is a problem. Watch the droppings too: a sharp fall in number or volume means the bird is not eating enough. Talk to your avian vet before you start, especially with a bird under 50 g.

Storage

Reseal the bag after every use and keep it somewhere cool, dry and dark. For the 5 lb bag, decant a week at a time and refrigerate or freeze the rest — pellets lose their oils to heat and air, and a bird notices before you do.

Questions we get asked

How long does a 1 lb bag last?
Roughly a month for a cockatiel-sized bird, a week to ten days for a large macaw. Most African grey owners buy the 5 lb.

My bird is throwing the pellets out of the bowl.
Very common in the first fortnight. It is usually play or protest rather than rejection — keep to the meal windows and weigh daily.

Is the coarse grind too big for my conure?
Large conures manage it well. Smaller conures and anything cockatiel-sized do better on High Potency Fine.

Do I still need to add vitamins?
No. Harrison's is formulated as a complete diet and additional vitamin or mineral supplements can unbalance it. Ask your vet before adding anything.

Who makes it?
Harrison's Bird Foods, founded by Dr Greg Harrison DVM, a double board-certified avian specialist. The formulas were developed for pet birds rather than adapted from poultry feed, which is unusual in this category.

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