Sun conure

At some point in your parrot’s long life it is likely you will find the need to medicate against illness or administer a supplement of some sort. Before that happens, you should familiarize yourself with the procedure of giving medications to your parrot and understand what the lines and numbers on the syringe mean so you don’t run the risk of over OR under medicating your bird.

I feel that the appropriate syringe size for a parrot is 1cc. You can use a larger one if you like, but my ...

Umbrella cockatoo

So many people over the past several months have commented that their bird smells bad that I have been wanting to do a post on the subject. I held out only because I’ve been unable to get any particulars from the people complaining – where is the odor emanating from: Body? Breath? Poop? I’m still not sure what they were talking about.

But, the simple fact of the matter is, there should be no “odor” coming from your parrot. The different parrots have smells that are unique to their species, ...

Cockatiel photo by Anna Sloan

The amount of people who are taking on the responsibility of handfeeding and weaning their baby birds seems to have reached epic proportions this year. What’s going on? The information warning people against doing this is everywhere.

Recently, I got an email regarding someone who wanted to know how to wean her fully grown, feathered and fledged bird. <sigh> She has no idea how to do it – she has no idea that she should have started the process some time back – but here she is ...

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Dr. Brian Speer photo from Avianstudios.com

Q: The closest avian veterinarian is three hours away! What should I do if my parrot gets sick?
Brandi V, Chattanooga, TN

 Why an “avian” veterinarian?

A: There is a very good reason for all the fuss about avian veterinarians. Dogs, cats and other mammals have physiology that is entirely different than that of birds. There are diseases which confront only avian species and the medications for an illness must be geared specifically toward the treatment of birds.

Even the most routine examination of a parrot requires proper ...

What is a foraging toy?

To forage means to rummage or root around for food, the activity at which a wild parrot spends the largest part of his day. And a toy, in a parrot’s world, is pretty much anything from which it gains benefit. Therefore, by definition, a foraging toy can be anything the enables a search for food, even another food. We can use foods as foraging toys.

As expected, the very best opportunities for food foraging are provided by nature itself. Nuts and peas in the pod are perfect examples of foods that are built into their own foraging ...

In the last couple of weeks my personal facebook messages and email inbox have gone nuts and I admit to having missed messages, notifications and yeah I’ve been kind of in my own world after the death of my dog so when I have replied I’m not overly sure how coherent I’ve been! Birdtricks followers have been particularly supportive of me lately ...