How Companion Parrots Become Obese

Obese blue fronted amazon, Storm, carrying about 30% more than his species' average weight

Companion parrots experience both advantage and disadvantage with the humans in their lives. To their advantage is the human who loves them and provides them with all their needs – feeds them the healthiest diet, offers enrichment and vet care as needed.

To their disadvantage is the human who loves them and provides them with all their wants – rushes to release them when they insist on coming out of the cage, makes excuses for unwanted behaviors ...

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Non-Stick Cookware Kills Another Parrot!

Photo from babble.com

Earlier this week, I heard about yet another parrot death following exposure to the toxic fumes of non-stick cookware. This death is particularly frustrating because this owner HAD heard the warnings, but didn’t take them seriously.

It astonishes me that some people still aren’t aware of this danger (for both birds AND humans) in this day and age, and it makes me wonder what we are doing wrong that the information is not reaching everyone.

But, what are you to do when someone DOES have the knowledge and chooses to ...

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What You Can Learn About Your Own Birds From Deceased Birds


Adult Spotted Dove.

 

There’s a common misconception that working in wildlife rescue means working with lots of amazingly cute and cuddly animals. Unfortunately, the real situation is quite different. A LOT of wild rescue work results in the animal being euthanised because they’re usually extremely ill before they come to someone’s notice for rescue.

Not many photos of dead animals make it to the media and no decent rescuer is going to be stressing out a seriously ill ...

 

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Simple Ways To Make Food More Interesting To Parrots

Umbrella cockatoo

Parrots are picky eaters. Which, when you think about it, is strange for an animal who spends the majority of its life in the search for food in the wild. You’d kind of think that they would be a little more forgiving when it comes to the meals we serve. Far be it for a parrot to make anything simple.

That leaves it up to we humans to figure out some way to get them to try the foods we know are good for them. Sometimes the answer has little ...

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Training Treats for Lorikeets and Other Difficult to Reward Birds

Rainbow Lorikeets enjoying some flowering gum.

It can be extraordinarily frustrating watching others successfully train their birds while you can’t even get your bird to look at the obvious types of treats available.  Not all of us have a bird that is happy to take a sunflower seed or something similar as a reward for training. I’ve seen many people give up on training for this reason.

Most birds will happily work for some sort of nut (favourites ...

 

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