LORI-DRY

Our Lori-Dry recipe is based on Stan Sindel and Dr James Gills recipe in their excellent book Australian Lorikeets. A must read for all lorikeetists.

Lori-Dry food for pet and wild lorikeets provides them with everything they need to be healthy. The mix provides a balanced diet of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. It also contains vitamins, minerals and essential amino acids.

With the release of Stan’s book, dry food diets for lorikeets and lories exploded. The base ingredient in the recipe was Rice Flour and Baby Rice Cereal as opposed to Wheat Flour used in many other diets. Rice is far easier for Lorikeets and Lories to digest.

In 1988 Shep’s registered the trademark, Lori-Dry and began commercial manufacture. In the early years several areas of concern became apparent.

Firstly the use of Pollen in the recipe was causing issues with storage of the end product and was thus removed and was replaced with additional Whole Egg Powder to maintain the correct protein level.

The Baby Rice Cereals on the market at the time were fortified with an iron supplement, and whilst not proven beyond doubt, some foreign lories were displaying liver problems, believed to be from a buildup of the iron mineral. Shep’s moved to a Rice Cereal manufacturer that did not fortify their product with iron.

The other concern was the addition of multivitamins and minerals. Whilst water soluble vitamins would be excreted by the bird, fat soluble vitamins and minerals could build up over the years. In addition to this, sometimes lorikeetists would fiddle with recipes and add more again.

To ensure that the buildup would not eventuate, in 1991 Shep’s removed the additional vitamins and minerals. Years later aviculturist and avian vets in the United States are now concluding excess vitamins and minerals have been implicated in Liver problems in lories.

Also note, you will NOT find any Soy or Whey in our products. Purple Crowned Lorikeets and Little Lorikeets have major problems digesting these two common ingredients.