Senegal Parrot

People instinctively crave touch, as to us, it means empathy, love, and affection. To a parrot, however, touching outside of the head, neck, and feet means that you are initiating sex, very simply. A parrot can be perfectly happy without touch, though many love it.

We should not be touching our parrots outside of the head, neck, and feet, as it brings such frustration to our birds. If continued, human touch can actually spur hormonal attacks in our feathered pets. There are a ...

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The new bird stand that my flock got for Christmas

So I bought the world’s coolest parrot stand as a Christmas gift for my birds. I’d been looking for something like it for a long time. It’s a one-off find; there will never be another exactly like it again. It’s natural wood, well weathered with lots of nooks and crannies to hide things in. There are several places at different heights for birds to sit and it’s on wheels. There are plenty of bits ...

My male Eclectus Pepi, has been a flying nightmare lately. He has gone from being sweet, affectionate and talkative to being moody, unpredictable and often downright nasty. It happened overnight and hasn’t been accompanied by any of the usual signs of sickness.

Of all of my birds, it’s Pepi who seems to have the nastiest bite. He has this knack for getting a tiny bit of skin pinched in his beak. When something ...

Hyacinth Macaw

I was talking to a lady at work who was telling me that she was beginning to train her new Boston terrier puppy.  I asked her how she intended to train it: “Oh, definitely with positive reinforcement, I would never punish a dog!”  As she continued to talk, I realized that she took punishment to be the opposite of positive reinforcement.  A lot of people make this same mistake.

The misconception seems to come from the words positive and negative and people’s misunderstanding of the word reinforcement.

First, a reinforcement is ...

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On Day 10 with blue front Amazon, Storm, I woke up and saw Storm playing with part of his swing in his cage! He was grabbing at the rope pieces with small wooden blocks on them and pulling them this way and that. I was really excited as I watched...

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