roudybush pellet, ethoxyquin, zupreem, green cheek, avian flightsuits

Roudybush and Ethoxyquin

Roudybush Statement

The following statement was provided www.foryourbird.com/ by a Roudybush
representative.

Reference to Ethoxyquin will be removed from Roudybush packaging ASAP.

New, All Natural Preservative

Unless a food is kept frozen until it is consumed, it undergoes changes over
time that decrease its vitamin levels and oxidize fats. Excessive oxidation
of fats leads to rancidity. To prevent rancidity and loss of necessary
nutrients, preservatives are added to foods. These preservatives are
primarily antioxidants. Until recently, the most safe and effective
preservative available has been ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin became the target of
a tremendous amount of adverse publicity due to a poorly designed study of
its safety in rats performed many years ago. Since that study, many more
tests were conducted in rats, mice, and dogs, showing the preservative was
very safe. Unfortunately, these studies did nothing to stop the already
building misinformation about ethoxyquin.

Roudybush has included ethoxyquin in our formulations in the past. The
quality of the food we produced was our utmost concern and until an equally
safe and effective preservative was developed, we were unwilling to switch
to one of the other inferior or less safe preservatives available just
because people were afraid of ethoxyquin. Recently a new, all natural
preservative with excellent safety and efficacy was introduced. We have
replaced ethoxyquin with this new preservative in our Low-fat Maintenance,
Maintenance, Breeder and High-energy Breeder pellets.

The new preservative is a combination of d-tocopherol (a close relative of
vitamin E), rosemary, and citric acid. Vitamin E (a-tocopherol) has
antioxidant properties, but it is also biologically active and larger
concentrations needed as a preservative have not been tested for safety in
birds. The advantage of d-tocopherol is that it has antioxidant properties
but it has very little biological activity, so risk of toxicity is
eliminated. Rosemary has natural antioxidant properties. Citric acid binds
to certain minerals responsible for starting oxidation reactions, preventing
those reactions from occuring.

Roudybush is committed to providing your birds with the best possible food.
Any changes we make to our formulations are thoroughly researched and only
made when the data shows us there is a clear advantage.

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