Lafeber Company

Dedicated to excellence

Lafeber Company was built by a father-son team of veterinarians with a shared love of animals and a special passion for birds. Dr. Lafeber, Sr. developed the very first commercial bird food pellet in the back room of his veterinary clinic in the early 1970′s. Today, our recipes are developed by his son, Dr. Ted Lafeber, III along with top veterinarians and nutritionists. Every diet is tested by an independent laboratory to insure optimum pet health. Lafeber Company also consults leading experts in behavior so that our diets provide dietary enrichment.

Dr. Ted Lafeber, President & CEO

Lafeber Company’s manufacturing facility has always been located on the Lafeber family farmland, and all of our products are mixed, formed and packaged under one roof with equipment specifically designed for small batches. Carefully watching food production process from start to finish gives us the opportunity to maintain our high standards.

Nutrition and enrichment

Lafeber Company exels at offering food shapes, textures, flavors and colors that birds find appealing while providing nutrition in every bite. Our foods our scientifically and nutritionally balanced.

Many Lafeber products are also designed to provide dietary enrichment. Enrichment improves the mental well-being of captive birds, and also helps to manage feather destructive behavior and other abnormal, repetitive behaviors in psittacines.

Critical care nutrition

With the advent of the Emeraid Nutritional Care System, Lafeber Company now provides critital care nutrition for not only birds, but mammals, reptiles, amphibians and other exotic animals.

The Emeraid Nutritional Care System is designed to quickly provide life-saving elemental nutrition for a wide variety of exotic animal patients during the critical first week of care.

Emeraid products may be fed alone or in combination to meet the needs of a variety of species.

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LafeberVet.com

The mission of LafeberVet.com is to promote the art and science of exotic animal medicine.

Critical Objectives:

1. Provide access to current information on topics related to exotic animal medicine
2. Serve as a source of dissemination of client educational material.
3. Provide information on Lafeber Company related to veterinary medicine including:
   • Veterinary information
   • Support of veterinary students medical students

Creators of LafeberVet.com:

• Dr. Ted Lafeber
• Dr. Christal Pollock

Dr. Ted Lafeber conceived of LafeberVet.com as an online resource for the exotic animal veterinarian. Dr. Lafeber earned his doctorate of veterinary medicine from Iowa State University in 1998. After graduation he became business partners with his father, Dr. Ted Lafeber, Sr., founder of Lafeber Company. In early 1990, Dr. Lafeber, Jr. became president of Lafeber Company and today he also serves as its chief executive officer.

The motto of Lafeber Company is “Caring and working for the health of animals”, and Lafeber Company’s dedication to avian health and nutrition is well known and well respected in the veterinary medical community. To honor Dr. Lafeber’s Sr. contribution to avian veterinary medicine, Dr. Lafeber created the T. J. Lafeber Practitioner of the Year Award, which honors outstanding avian private practitioners. In 2004, Dr. Lafeber, Jr. received the prestigious Outstanding Service Award from the Association of Avian Veterinarians (AAV) in recognition of his commitment to the well being of birds. Dr Lafeber received the President’s Award from AAV in 2007 in recognition of his continued dedication to avian health and welfare.

Dr. Christal Pollock is a veterinary consultant for Lafeber Company. She serves as the veterinary website editor and technical writer for LafeberVet.com and she is also co-manager of the Lafeber Company veterinary student program. Dr. Pollock took the initial idea of LafeberVet.com and turned this into a concrete design, conceiving of the elements and content for the site. Dr. Pollock earned her DVM from The Ohio State University in 1995 and she completed a residency at the University of Tennessee in avian and zoological medicine. Christal served as an assistant professor in the zoological medicine service at Kansas State University for five years, and she currently lives and practices in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Pollock has edited, written, and presented extensively on topics related to exotic animal medicine. She is board-certified in avian medicine and serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery.

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