Using Your Energy When Working with Birds

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African Grey

Energy is very important to parrots and how they react to us. Our birds can sense our every mood change, reading both your body language and the way you look to them in UV. They can perceive many more colours than we can, and – as the Island Parrot Sanctuary once put it to me – because of that, they know you better than you know yourself. They can see your mood.

One of the things I try and do with new or ...

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The Importance of Having a Plan B With Parrots

Parrotlet in his emergency travel cage

Celestial Parrotlet in his emergency travel cage.

 

I’m one of those people who doesn’t take much time away from my flock unless I can help it. If they can go with me, they do. If not, I tend not to go at all. At one point in my life, I had even said that I would never travel, would never take a holiday – but when you have birds, ‘would never’ are dangerous words. Keeping ...

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The First Sign Of Hormones In A Young Macaw

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Fid my Blue and Gold Macaw. He can open the fridge door, climb down the door shelves and steal any bottles that have screw top lids. He’s not worried about drinking the contents but all lids are HIS.

 

You know you’re in really serious trouble when you walk into your bird room and all of the birds stop what they’re doing and look at you in that way they do when they want to see if your head is going to explode? There is ...

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How to Survive with Parrots in an Apartment

Bobo the umbrella cockatoo.

Umbrella cockatoos may be quiet sometimes, but they have the capability to produce an ear-splitting scream like a dying, wounded animal.

 

We can’t expect our parrots to be quiet all the time. Many species are naturally noisy, such as sun conures, amazons or cockatoos. While we can train our birds that excessive screaming isn’t okay, I feel that it’s important to allow them to let off steam sometimes.

Enter the scream session…

Try making time for a sanctioned (and planned!) ...

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Who Is To Blame For The Bird’s Bad Behavior?

Blue and gold macaws

This summer I had the opportunity to meet Chris and Misty, a couple that Dave Womach worked with on a behavior consultation involving their moluccan cockatoo. They were at the Womach’s house graciously offering their time to disassemble some of the indoor cages for the Womach’s final move to Idaho.

In talking to them, I realized that Dave had managed to drive home a really important message during the consult. Chris said to me that he was relieved to find that the source of the problem was him ...

 

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Keeping Your Birds Safe Around Dogs And Cats

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Can dogs, cats and birds live together?

 

Photos and videos of birds with other pets tend to start wars on social media. There are many people that swear their dogs and/or cats are best friends with their birds but there are just as many tragic stories where those friendships end in disaster. It’s a tough topic.

 

There are two main reasons to be concerned about letting your birds interact with your dogs and cats. The first and most obvious is the fact that you’re trying ...

 

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