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 3,720 as of 2024. The city is partially within the Town of Chilton. History The first residents of Chilton were African-American form ...

and

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is an international supplier of bird seed.

History

Nicholas W. Knauf and Peter Juckem founded a

grain elevator A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

, on East Main Street in Chilton in 1866. At age 19, William N. Knauf became co-owner with Frank Tesch when Nicholas W. Knauf died. They took the company name from their initials, K & T. 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 grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

and

general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

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

pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

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 small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

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., a 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 and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

. 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 hand-feeding formula due to excessive vitamin D. In February 2013, Kaytee recalled a number of treat mixes due to reports from a parsley supplier of

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

contamination. They recalled the mixes to comply with FDA regulation, but it was later found that none of the treat mixes recalled contained salmonella.

References

{{reflist Calumet County, Wisconsin Companies based in Wisconsin