Harrison's Spicy High Potency Fine (Pepper) Bird Food

Sold for years as High Potency Pepper and now branded Spicy High Potency Fine, this is Harrison's answer to the bird that will not touch a plain pellet.

Birds do not have the receptor that makes chilli feel hot to us, so what reads to a parrot is not heat but novelty and colour — and that is often enough to break a deadlock. Plenty of owners come to this bag after six weeks of a seed-addicted Amazon flicking nuggets across the room.

Which birds this is for

Small to medium birds in the fine grind: cockatiels, conures, quakers, lovebirds, budgies and similar. It is a complete daily food, not a treat — a bird can live on it.

When to feed it

• Conversion. All birds should start on a High Potency formula and stay on it at least six months.
• Special needs. Moulting, over- or underweight, very active, in a cold climate, recovering from illness, or managing liver or kidney disease under a vet.
• Breeding birds — High Potency for every breeding pair.
• Weaning birds — for at least nine months after weaning.
• Geriatric birds.

Ingredients

The High Potency Fine recipe — certified organic hulled millet, hull-less barley, toasted soybeans, sunflower kernels, whole corn, peanut kernels, peas, lentils, toasted oat groats, brown rice, chia and alfalfa, with calcium carbonate, bentonite, a vitamin and mineral supplement, dried kelp, salt and dried algae — plus certified organic dried red pepper. Guaranteed analysis is printed on the bag; it is closely comparable to High Potency Fine.

How much to feed

Feed fresh daily as distinct meals. Harrison's should be the bulk of the diet, with organic dark green leafy or dark yellow vegetables and fruit making up the rest. Do not add separate vitamin or mineral supplements.

A note on the nuggets not matching

Harrison's use whole grains and whole legumes with no bleached or dyed flours and no by-products, so the colour and shape vary bag to bag. Only heavily processed food looks identical every time. It is not a fault.

Questions we get asked

Is chilli safe for a parrot?
Yes. Birds lack the receptor that makes capsaicin painful to mammals; wild parrots eat hot peppers freely. It is one of the reasons chilli is used in wild bird seed to deter squirrels but not birds.

Will it make my bird's droppings red?
Sometimes, mildly. It is the pepper, not blood — but if you are at all unsure, ring your avian vet rather than guess.

Can I mix it with plain High Potency Fine?
Yes, and many owners do — starting spicy-heavy and shifting the ratio over a few weeks once the bird is eating pellets reliably.

Is there a coarse version for big parrots?
Spicy Lifetime Coarse is the maintenance formula in the large grind. There is no spicy High Potency coarse.

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