Parrots 101

Sorry I missed last week, folks! Here are this week's questions:

1. What types of perches do you provide for your parrot? (e.g. Natural branch, rope, cement/"nail trimmer", dowel...)

2. Which type of perch does your parrot like to spend the most time on?

3. Do you rearrange your bird's perches? If so, how often?

4. How do you clean your perches?

5. Have you ever made your own perches? If so, what material(s) did you use, and how did you prepare them for use?

I made a sizable order of toys and other supplies from the Perch Store on the 28th of September. The money was taken from my account, but I have yet to receive my package. Since then I've made numerous attempts to contact the Perch Store, by both email and phone. I have received no replies to my emails or my messages. Their mailbox has been full every time I tried to call for the last few weeks, making it impossible to leave new messages.

I've been told that there were people here who have had similar problems with the Perch Store, so I'm posting here to get some insight into the experiences of others. How/did you manage to get this thing resolved?

I've shopped at the Perch Store for years, because they have the best selection of the best products, so I was hesitant to say anything in public that might effect their business. But if this is the way their customer service is going to work then the customers' should know.

(I'm ~veryunseemly, btw. I've had a change of screen names since I last posted here.)

I commented elsewhere that I had done a Loud Day / Passover homage earlier this year and people expressed interest in it, so I thought I'd repost it here. This is not intended to offend anyone, and if it does I can take it down. The medium was Kappa's Twitter account, so the parts I included (I didn't include every step of the seder) were necessarily shortened slightly, and I've put them in chronological order here so they're easier to read.

( Why is this day different from all other days? )

1. What kind of cage do you have (and what type of parrot is in it)? How big is it? If you can, give a link.

2. What is the minimum cage size you'd find acceptable for a bird of your parrot's species?

3. What shape of cage do you think is best for your parrot's species? (e.g. Tall and narrow, wide and short, dome top, etc)

4. Do you think there's such a thing as a cage that's too big for your parrot's species?

5. Does your bird use its entire cage?

1. Do you consider your bird's feathers in good condition? If not, why not? (Plucked, stress bars, broken or beaten-up, etc.)

2. Do you do anything to improve your bird's feather condition? If so, what?

3. Has your bird ever grown any strange feathers? (e.g. misshapen, differently colored) What were they like and what did you do about them?

4. Has your bird ever plucked or barbered its feathers? Did you determine the cause? What did you do to try to stop the plucking/barbering?

5. Do you keep any of your bird's molted feathers? If so, what do you do with them?

Hello. I am the new owner of a lovebird. I did a lot of resarch online before purchasing and I hope to take good care of my new bird. My mother had a Barrabands Parrakeet that died a couple of months ago, but as sad as that was I really love birds, and small pets and I wanted something hardy. According to the websites Lovebirds are all of the above. Of course I picked the worst one at the pet store- I had actaully gone in to look for a tortoise but peeked in the bird room and saw this bedraggled plucked bald bird and I thought I had to rescue it. Apparently the other lovebirds it was being kept with didn't like it and it had to be seperated before the other three lovebirds could kill it. And yes, I know buying pets from pet stores is bad but I just couldn't leave it there.

I am trying to keep it warm, especially becuase of it's naked areas, and have a ceramic space heater and a radiator at my disposal.

My apologies for the long introductory post!

I'd like to hear opinions about lovebirds from other lovebird owners. How are their health issues? How do you 'tame' them- mine isn't aggrssive but I would like to get to the point were it will perch on my finger and perhaps be able to be let out of the cage. Maybe even come when called.

1. What treats do you feed your parrot?

2. How often do you feed treats? (i.e. How many treats per day? Per week?)

3. How do you deliver your treats? (e.g. Put in food bowl, feed by hand, use during training)

4. Are there any treats that you were surprised that your parrot liked? Didn't like?

5. Are there any treats that you consider inappropriate for your parrot? Which ones, and why?

Since tomorrow is Halloween in the US, this week's questions are Halloween/ themed. :)

1. What is the scariest experience you've had as a parrot owner?

2. If your parrots could dress in Halloween costumes, what would they dress up as?

3. Think up a Halloween costume (other than pirate!) that incorporates your parrot.

4. What is your parrot's favorite trick?

5. What is your parrot's favorite treat?

Sorry for the long radio silence, y'all! I bought a house and work got crazy, and those things kind of ate my life for a while there. I'm back now, and will try to be a better mod.

I just re-joined an online caique community I used to frequent, and have been really disappointed in the level of knowledge and advice being passed around. I'm curious about other people's experiences with this, so this Friday's 5 are about community.

1. Do you know other parrot people "offline"? How did you meet them?

2. Do you belong to any bird clubs or organizations? If not, would you like to?

3. What online parrot communities (other than this one) do you belong to? Which one(s) do you like best?

4. What is the best piece of parrot-keeping advice you've ever gotten?

5. What is the worst piece of parrot-keeping advice you've gotten? How did you discover it was bad advice?

My caiques were being particularly meltingly cute today, and I had to share!

It's getting on towards Northern Hemisphere winter, and people are coming out of the woodworks asking about space heaters. Since I answer this question so frequently, I decided to just make a website answering it. :)

Feel free to give the link to others.

X-posted

I was hunting around Wikipedia today, and decided to make a list of extinct parrots. Here they are, ordered from longest ago extinct to most recently lost, with links to Wikipedia for more info. For each one I have the common name, species name, where they were located, when last seen, and cause of extinction.

1. Saint Croix Macaw (Ara autocthones) - US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, prehistoric – possibly used by the indigenous peoples


2. Norfolk Island Kākā (Nestor productus) - Norfolk Island (off eastern Australia), 1851 – hunting and trapping by European settlers


3. Cuban Red Macaw (Ara tricolor) - Cuba, 1864 – deforestation, hunting


4. Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) - eastern North America, 1918 – deforestation for framing, killed as pests, invasive species (honey bees)


5. Glaucous Macaw (Anodorhynchus glaucus) - South America, believed recently extinct (last sighted 1960) – habitat loss, trapping, food source loss


6. Sinú Parakeet (Pyrrhura picta subandina) - northern South America, believed recently extinct

I have recently discovered what a dusky conure croon sounds like. Instead of being the really adorable static-like noise that cockatiels make when begging for scratches or food, it sounds more like someone gargling rocks. I'm afraid I have to admit I find the sound not really pleasant, but knowing what it means from context, I think I can learn to tolerate it. :-P Reminds me of the Nanday conure I met at a pet store with a "croon" so loud it hurt my ears. Anyone else find their bird's cute little croon irritating instead?

And today I start the ear buds training - recently got a new pair of $20 in-ear ear buds, the type that have a kinda gasket that shuts out other noises and allows for much richer bass. Kappa never bothered the wires of any of my previous ear buds, but this pair have white wires, and she keeps starting to pick at the wires. I'm using the same technique I've had so much luck with in the past: since Kappa's flighted and plays well by herself (but prefers to be with me), whenever she does something against the rules (now including pecking at the ear bud wires), I step her up onto my finger, and send her back home. (I'm not "throwing" her at her cage or "flicking" her off my hand, I just give my finger a little twitch and twist, and she lets go and flies home. When she wants to stay she just grabs on tight though the twitch and she stays.)

I'm also trying to get her to stop pecking at my shirt when she's on me, but I'm having a hard time being consistent with that, because tiny holes in my shirt doesn't bother me as much as if she chewed right through my ear bud wires. I've been working at the shirt pecking since the start of Summer without much luck, but I expect I'll get through to Kappa on the ear buds within the month. We'll see! :)

(x-posted to parrots101 and caiques)

Hi everyone. We're new!

It is my pleasure to introduce Phoenix, our female Yellow-sided Green Cheek Conure.



X-posted to several other communities.

( Find the parrot in the picture! )

( There she is! )

I worked from home today, and I had a little help from a certain little caique parrot...


This is what happens when I work from home.

( More! )

Hi! My name is Danelle and I'm a first time owner of a cockatiel (Sunny) and a parrotlet (Cricket). They're my first birds in the history of ever, and before Sunny I was scared of birds. I seem to have lost all fear thanks to Miss Crankypants. I come bearing gifts of photos :). If you see anything I can improve in the cages, please tell me. I just for the big rolly cage last week (I found it from someone on Craigslist for $60 :)) so it might be a little sparse. I went to a bird show today ad got a few more things for it but I just started working again after not being able to for a month, so I'm gathering things a few at a time. Anyways, happy to be here :)

x-posted various places

( The goods )

Mr. Jill is in his new cage and although he hasn't explored the upper reaches of it (except when I changed a few things and scared him) he's found his water at least. I realized what excellent exercise it's going to provide him as he has to flap a little farther to get across to the other perch. I think I will need more perches for him though...and an old sheet! What an oversight - I realized I didn't have a blanket big enough to go over it.

It took a few minutes of jangling his favourite mirror to get him to go inside it. He seems quite happy, although everything is a long learning experience for Jill. For example, I put his plastic pal Peter in there, and he fell off of Peter while trying to get to the other side of the perch. It didn't occur to him that he could just fly to the other side. So far he has not really found where his food is. I put one cup as close to a perch as possible, but y'all should have seen him stretch himself as long as possible to get at it. Sigh! Mr. Jill is not the bright crayon in the box, but I realized I forgot to report that is getting better at stick training. He gone on the stick the past few times when I offered it.

We bought Jill's EFC along with some new perches and toys last night. He was a little freaked out to see it at first, but seems OK with it now. I came home early today because I have a cold :-P I held him in his old cage up to the cage, put his plastic pal Peter in the new cage and tried to make the EFC as exciting as possible. He was just like "What? What? What!"

Later on I managed to lure him inside the cage with his favourite mirror. I'm really hoping he recognizes it as a cage :-D He hopped on the perch, which is just a regular dowel perch, but acted as if it was burning hot! He flew up onto the side and clung there for a bit, and then scared himself when he flapped down - the cage papers rustled and out the door he went! I so wish Moxie was here - he would know what to do :-D