Kaytee is a company based in

Chilton, Wisconsin Chilton is a city in and county seat of Calumet County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 4,080 at the 2020 census. The city is located partially within the Town of Chilton. History The first residents of Chilton were Africa ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is an international supplier of bird seed. The Kaytee brand supports a non-profit foundation dedicated to raising awareness of pet care and environmental conservation.

History

Nicholas W. Knauf and Peter Juckem founded a grain elevator, on East Main Street in Chilton in 1866. William N. Knauf at age 19, became co-owner with Frank Tesch (K & T) when Nicholas W. Knauf died. They took the company name from their initials. They built a

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

and general store to sell seed to farmers. They used the 1872 railroad to ship barley and oats to markets; that led to selling barley to Milwaukee breweries. In 1920, the company became a national supplier of

pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...

s to be used for

pigeon Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

feed. It expanded into making feed for birds and other small animals, becoming the first commercial supplier of wild bird seed in 1955. William Engler Sr., long-term employee and son-in-law of William N. Knauf, purchased the company in 1964 and renamed it Kaytee Products, Inc. His son, Bill Engler Jr., took over the company in 1982. Bill Engler Jr. was named the Small Business Person of the Year in 1993 by United States President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

. As of 1993, Kaytee had 365 employees and annual sales of about $70 million. At that time, it also held about 1300 exotic bird species in an aviary in Chilton. Engler sold the company to Central Garden & Pet in 1997. They renamed the company Central Avian & Small Animal and continued to market products under the Kaytee brand.

Controversy

In April 2012, Kaytee recalled five lots of parrot handfeeding formula due to excessive vitamin D. In February 2013, Kaytee recalled a number of treat mixes due to reports from their parsley supplier of

salmonella ''Salmonella'' is a genus of rod-shaped (bacillus) Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The two species of ''Salmonella'' are ''Salmonella enterica'' and ''Salmonella bongori''. ''S. enterica'' is the type species and is fur ...

contamination. No salmonella was found in the actual treat mixes, but to comply with FDA regulations, they recalled all mixes containing that parsley.

References

{{reflist Calumet County, Wisconsin Companies based in Wisconsin