A bit over a month ago, I did a post about how a heat source helped stabilise my elderly galah when he suddenly fell ill. He had a minor infection, which he has recovered from.

Unfortunately though, there was a reason that a minor infection was such a major problem. A normal bird, would have coped with a minor infection a lot more easily – the fact that he didn’t showed that something else was going on.

It has been ...

When I wrote a blog post on cleaning tips, I mentioned the incredible staining ability of a red Dragonfruit. A few people commented wanting to know what a Dragonfruit was. I could relate to those questions as I could remember a time when I had no idea either. The questions have inspired me to share some of the weirder things that end up in my birds’ food bowls.

My favourite vegetable shopping experience was when a cash register ...

When you decide to spend your life enslaved to a pet bird, you’re not doing it because you like their ‘chewed-on style’ decorating help. Usually it has something to do with you actually liking birds. Not surprisingly, bird people have a tendency to not just welcome wild birds into their garden, but to actively encourage them to show up.
Which brings me to the controversial topic of feeding wild birds. You might think it isn’t ...

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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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 ...

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 ...