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Why has Excel/SS changed - the answers

Dasonix

Mama Doe
I covered this back last year and the year before but time to go over it all again for the new members and to refresh ppls memories.

Can Admin please make this a sticky as it will save loads of ppl from posting the same questions all the time.

Right.

There have been a lot of posts of late about people saying that there buns dont seem to like there food any more.

The first thing everybody has to realise is that all feeds are made from crops such as alfalfa and hay's with other crops such as flax seed (linseed) etc added.

From year to year the quality and taste of these crops change dependant on the sun, rain, soil etc etc. This means that the ingredients that go into the feeds can never be identical so the makeup and tase of the feeds will change constantly.

With human foods there are huge panels of taste testers and specialists to blend the ingredients to maintain consistancey. In the pet food markets things are different. The primery way that the feeds are matched to the last batch will be by the chemical analysis of the ingredients and of the finished product.

To the very best of my knowladge there are not many human taste testers in the pet food market. This means that you will never get 2 batches exactly the same even if there chemical makup is almost identical.

So what can you the end user do about this.

Not much..... pass on your comments to the manufacturers as we did when the density issue came up with SS quite a while ago. That issue was the result of a equipment configuration issue so could be resolved quite easily.

With ingredients issues there is not much that can be done. Try a differnet batch number, or try a different feed. Either way there will come a time when you have to go through it all again when the feed changes the next time.

Just accept that things change.

Who is to blame?

Well that is a hard one. I think it safe to say everybody is. e.g. the farmers that grow the crops, mother nature for giving us such a inconsistant climate, Joe public for causing global warming, wholesellers for how they store the raw ingredients and then store the finished product, the manufacturers for choosing those batches of ingredients etc etc etc the list goes on.

If you have any comments feel free.
 
the thing that's changed very noticeably with SS is the pellet size - huge long straight ones in the last batch and now gone back to really small, hard and curly like they were over a year ago - how's that? :?
 
the thing that's changed very noticeably with SS is the pellet size - huge long straight ones in the last batch and now gone back to really small, hard and curly like they were over a year ago - how's that? :?

They also describe the new ones as 'Aniseed + Fenugreek' flavour. Given a choice, I wouldn't fancy it :|

Martin
 
They also describe the new ones as 'Aniseed + Fenugreek' flavour. Given a choice, I wouldn't fancy it :|

Martin

They were always Aniseed and Fenugreek they just didn't print it on the packaging
 
The shape will be down to the Die used in the extruder.

The small curly die is normally used for Science Selective Chinchilla

As was said above the food has always been that flavour its just a new bag design.
 
Jasmine bun has never been a fan of any of the mixes of pellets, no matter how well I have tried to diguise them (even stuffing them inside her favourite apples and bananas!)

After tonnes of research, Ive worked out a kind of commercial free diet. She gets tonnes and tonnes of different hays/grasses/lawn grass. Then on top of that she gets loads of veggies, fruits, seeds (sunflower, wheat etc)

When I took her to the vets for her check up, they were astounded that she looks so good. Her teeth are perfect, and her coat soft and shiny (and NOT fat!)
 
I have this issue with Excel junior at the mo, buns won't eat the new bag I got them. Going to mail the company see if anything has changed. So for the mo had to get a normal bag of excel as the junior one was non existent around here for some odd reason.
 
Well all three of mine went off SS, Gus and Sweetpea are eating it again. Poppy won't so I got her some excel lite, which she seems to like. I don't want to have them of different food though :roll: Poppy is such a fussy madame
 
I mailed burgess about my issue and they want a sample of it so going to do that later and will let you know what they say.
 
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