| love bird advice... |
[Jan. 12th, 2008|01:59 pm] |
Hi everyone, just wondering if someone can help me out with advice regarding a peach face love bird who is about 8 months old.
We took Beaker to the vet late December and the vet said he was in great health :)
When I enquired about Beakers sex he felt the pin bone and said it could very well be a female, we thought he might have been a male because he has bonded to us really well.
Since the trip to the vet beakers behaviour has altered slightly... the main noticable things are that he/ she spends alot of time down the bottom of the cage, ripping up news paper and shredding it... Beaker has made a little space where there is no paper at the bottom of the cage and he likes to sit there alot.
Some times he is fluffed up which initally caused concern that he could be sick but he is still eating and drinking normally... He does spend a bit of time up the top... he is still very playful and his behaviour hasnt change drastically (ie. he's not sleeping all the time like a sick bird would)..
Beaker also spreads his wings out alot and turns around in circles... it started as a trick (we would say 'soft bird' and pat him on the back and he would spread his wings... ) but now he seems to do it alot lately.
Another thing we have noticed is his bottom is more noticable... like you can see skin and a little hole... normal feathers would cover this but it dosent look sore or anything and there is no poop stuck to him eiather.... as far as i can tell his poo looks good (the vet esp noted this since he has a good diet.)
Beaker has also been biting alot lately... he has phases but recently his bites have become more vicous and have broken skin several times.
Anyone know what could be up or if this is just regular love bird nesting behaviour. |
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[Jan. 12th, 2008|02:47 pm] |
| [ | mood |
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I'm on one of my complaining jags again...a little backstory.
I am currently in Singapore visiting my family, and I have been to visit bird stores across the country. The conditions in most would appall and sicken most of us who care about parrots as more than a pretty decoration and as an intelligent, sentient animal. I am writing a letter to the SPCA and the Food and Veterinary authority of Singapore to bring to their attention the plight of the birds, as both organisations mostly concentrate on the welfare of dogs, cats and other small furry animals. This is the draft of my letter, I'd appreciate it if some of you read it over, corrected my facts, and added suggestions. Can someone also correct my section on the age of African Grey babies, approximately how old are they when they have some feathers (tail, head, some wing), but fluff on the rest of their bodies?
( I really need to learn to shut up )
EDIT: How can I sound slightly less offensive yet convey the importance of the message I'm trying to get across? |
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| lovebird quirkiness? |
[Jan. 12th, 2008|10:03 pm] |
hello ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) parrot_lovers!
the situation as we currently have it is, at the mom and pop parrot store where i work, managerlady has two older lovebirds who have always been kind-of for sale and kind of just... living there. ('older' in this context meaning 'not babies' - i think they're three or four years old.) recently she moved their cage and everyone has been asking about them - including my mom, today, when she stopped in.
they are "small adoption fee requested or free to good home" - i don't know if that counts as a rescue since they're from a shop, but that's the situation.
anyway, mom thinks she might have talked dad into letting us bring them home. they're not handtame, but i'm okay with that, and they'll be getting a new cage and living in my room (my parakeets live downstairs in the dining room, so this will also be a good quarantine location for the lovies). they're both male (and are actually brothers) - one is a kind of slate-y green color with a white head, and one is a lighter version of that green color with a very very slightly yellow tint to his white face.
my question is, i've observed these birds when i'm at work in the course of doing my job, but i've never had a lovebird before and i don't know much about them other than they're feisty and territorial. what should i know about lovebirds before i bring one home? also, what size cage would you recommend for a pair?
they're already used to eating roudybush, with nutriberries and veggies and fruits (they looove grapes) as treats, they loooove to shred things (newspaper, toys, unwary fingers - though to be honest they're more interested in fleeing than biting when a hand comes by), and they're fairly even-tempered - not aggressive (more shy), not prone to screaming, and other than being handshy are curious and active. one is a little more dominant but not to the point of being destructive or abusive towards the other.
again, i don't know if we'll actually get them or not, but mom fell in love with them and i've always had kind of a soft spot for them when i see them in their cage at work (i want to name them armand and albert, after the two main characters in the movie the birdcage, heh). any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated! :) thank you! |
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| petsmart question |
[Jan. 12th, 2008|10:26 pm] |
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| |  relaxed | ] |
For Christmas my dad got me a gift card to Petsmart--not knowing about the whole sick birds along the west coast issue, and because there were no other pet store gift cards that he could find. I just went there tonight and bought some perches: a rope, manzanita, and fig perch, as well as a mineral block. Knowing about the psittacosis issue, I put all the items outside until I could find some more information about the situation.
What can I do to make sure the items aren't contaminated? Can I clean them, use a product, something? Or should I even bother using them? I just got Everyone's Favorite Cage™, and I absolutely love it. It was a pain to put together, though. Both of my birds are in there together, but aren't the best of friends. In other words, they tolerate each other. :P Tuki likes his space, and Teague will do whatever. I wanted some bigger perches since the cage is so huge [it's taller than me!], hence why I bought some tonight; I'm just wary of putting them in because of the whole psittacosis problem going around. I washed my hands, also, for fear of contaminating them, and will be changing soon.
Also, what are some good breakfast recipes you make for your birds in the morning? I've been trying a few different mixes, but I've found they don't like egg.
UPDATE: Thank you all so far who have replied! I've read every single comment and have soaked, scrubbed, sat in bleach, scrubbed, sat in alcohol, scrubbed again, and the perches are now in the dishwasher. I even put the hot water prewash option on. I was planning on putting them out overnight again for drying, but after reading the comment about the oven drying, I'm curious to know how many of you do that? And does it work? I might use that, or I might use that and put them outside overnight. Thoughts?
Oh, I forgot to mention before but I checked out the birds last night and found that ALL birds are under quarantine! YAY! Thankfully, nobody can buy them. They had big yellow signs everywhere saying they couldn't be sold because of "health issues". Pah. |
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| help on food changes |
[Jan. 12th, 2008|11:11 pm] |
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| |  worried | ] |
This is the first time that I've ever had to change food for a bird. When we went to the vets, our vet told us to change the food from Zupreem to something that was a little more wholesome which was Harrison's. Thats all well and good, but my Cockatiel, who's had the same diet for five years refuses to change. My Senegal switched the quickest because he's younger and he didn't like eating Kaytee anyway, so it was easy to change him and he's happy as a clam on his new diet. Lexus, however....
He also told me to watch the millet that we gave him and such. I know its not good for him to have it, but I'm terrified that he's going to starve himself if we cut it all the way out. We get a good ways and then he'll stop eating because, I think, I fuck it up and change him too fast. I had gotten down to half a sprig of millet and then I just took the whole thing away because he was eating his food. That set him back so far, he's not eating again. I added in the Zupreem, he ate the Harrison's instead. So that was good. I took out the Zupreem and I was right back at square one.
I've tried the whole "pretend you're eating it" deal and it really doesn't work with him. Lexus is stubborn (like his mother, unfortunately) and won't just adapt. I'm beginning to think that he believes that if we get him on that diet, we'll take away all his millet. What can I do to ensure that we won't take away the millet all the way while getting him to change and make sure that he doesn't starve himself? The vet tends to believe that it would be easy to switch over my Cockatiel. HAHAHA! Thats so funny.
I'm scared of him not doing well and ending up getting sick in this transition, is there anything that I can do to help him? Or do I just have to restart this thing again and slowly start working down the whole millet thing? What really disturbs me is that he was eating his food AND the millet. Yeah, millet isn't that good, but he had been eating the millet and his food. So should I just leave the millet deal alone since he had actually been eating a good deal of his food before I started to cut down on his millet? Exactly how bad would it be just to let him continue eating the millet (I leave one full sprig and that tends to last a couple of days, when I haven't tried to confiscate it from him)?
EDIT: Thanks for the helpful information. :) I'm going to be just making sure he'll continue to get good food. He likes cereal (like rice crispies and the raisin bran crunch flakes), crackers, broccoli and pretty much anything that I'm eating. The little mooch! But I'll just give him healthy stuff and not worry about changing his diet over. I never would just keep him on one food thing for the rest of his life. As its not healthy for us, it can't be for them. Thanks again guys! |
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