This seed is at its nutritional best. The vitamin content of even the best processed seed is nether consistent or adequate enough to assure optimal nutrition. Natural factors, such as drought, insects, excessive moisture, disease, and molds, make the vitamin levels of seed uncertain. Man made variables, the storage, transportation, and processing of feed, conspire to rob the seed of the vitamins needed by birds. Research has proven that the vitamin supplementation of seed is a must to achieve peak production Pelleted feeds, seemingly an answer, fall short of the mark.
Pellets have a place as supplements and in commercial production.
If by complete is meant being able to rear vigorous show winners, without the addition of vitamins, fruits, vegetables, or eggs to the ration, then pellets fail miserably. No one knows all the elements that are required in any cage bird diet. Only the cockatiel has been the subject of recent university research. Human diet, intensively studied for millennia, is constantly being revised and updated. Canaries fed on pellets alone, particularly red factors, show rough plumage.