Photo by Dave
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Beginning stages of plucking shown: Galah “Bondi”

As our tour comes to an end there have been some major changes for us and our birds. To name a few off the top of my head:

• We sent the aviaries to powder coating and Chet’s house so he could have them for his birds while we traveled through Washington state. So no more aviaries for our birds for the last month of tour.
• The arrival of Rocko our baby toco toucan.
• Lots ...

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We love it when you guys ask questions here and on the Facebook page. It means that you are paying attention to the clues in your bird’s behavior and physical appearance. It means that you are aware of events in your bird’s environment.  It means you care enough to ask for guidance when something seems off.

Jamie and I were chatting earlier today after she had discovered many, many posts that had been filtered out as spam and were never seen on the Facebook page. She was ...

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Photo by Dave
Location: Centralia, WA
Snuggling up: Blue throated macaw “Jinx”

I am really uncomfortable meeting other people’s birds when I see that the human companion doesn’t hold the bird’s feet when they have them on their hand. Usually the person will have the bird loose on its arm, towards the middle of the arm or something where the person has no control over the bird whatsoever.

Too many times has a bird been spooked or upset, and flown at someone. The owner at that point can’t really do much because ...

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Photo by Dave
Location: Centralia, WA
On my back: Blue throated macaw “Jinx”

I’ve personally worked with a lot of adopted parrots, and they’ve always had extreme issues from an insane amount of aggression to extreme amounts of fear, to horrible diets, large amounts of weight loss to being obese, to hating women or men specifically or plucking themselves, among tons of other issues popular among captive parrots given up for adoption.

Because I had never worked with an adopted parrot that was just nice, with no issues, I assumed they literally did ...

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Q: Do any of the anti-plucking products available actually work?
Gary M., New London, CT

A: There are two types of products on the market that address the issue of plucking: one approaches the problem medicinally, the other physically prevents access to the affected areas.

The following is my opinion. It is based on research of the ingredients in the herbal products and on the opinions of trusted sources who have used them and other products:

Ingestible remedies:

There are a few varieties of these products available, but there ...

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I have written a number of posts urging people to consider rehoming a parrot from a rescue rather than purchasing a baby from a pet store or a breeder. On my Facebook wall this...

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