Fid, my Blue and Gold Macaw

Have you ever sat back and thought that you had everything under control and that you’re doing pretty well with your birds? Thought that your flock is happily occupied, playing with foraging toys, enjoying their amazing diet while rattling off their extensive vocabularies at each other? Thought that while they were busy in their respective aviaries that it was safe to leave them to it and go out for ...

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Because of its construction, this swing from Birdtricks.com will last forever and help keep your parrot safe in the cage.

Earlier this summer, within roughly a 10 day period, there were 3 separate incidents posted on our Facebook page that described parrots becoming entangled in their toys. I heard of another incident of entanglement from a different source just last week.

In two of the four cases, the neck was caught in a toy part, posing a serious strangulation threat. Fortunately, the owners of all of the birds were home at ...

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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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It was like Christmas for my birds at my place last week. It was what I fondly refer to as “Psychotic branch week”. It’s usually an annual event, although sometimes it happens twice a year. It’s not planned (I wish it was) and it isn’t consistently at the same time of year.

It’s not general knowledge but it is actually illegal to take branches and foliage from trees that are on public property ...

Have you ever blown an entire week’s wage on a new indoor cage for your parrot and then discovered that it sucks? I challenge anyone who has done that to refrain from complaining about it!
About 6 months ago, that’s exactly what happened to me. I decided to ‘upgrade’ my male eclectus parrot’s cage. Stainless steel cages aren’t readily available in Australia, so his old cage was a powder coated one. Unfortunately, they ...

Blue fronted amazon

Q: June is almost over and my bird is still being nippy and trying to build nests. Is it normal for a parrot to still be thinking about breeding season ?
–Jacob C., Davenport, IA

A: Your cockatiel’s behaviors are the result of hormones that begin flooding the body at the onset of spring. Hormones are chemicals which are released into the blood stream causing reactions in other parts of the body. It’s like a communication system. In the springtime, chemicals are released telling a bird that it is ...

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