The holidays are a hectic time of year for everyone. Between work schedules, office parties and friends and family there is little time leftover to enjoy the company of your feathered kids. Parrots are people too, though, and it is important that we not exclude them from the festivities.
Christmas morning can be an especially fun time for your birds. Nothing inspires play in my birds quite like the sound of ripping paper. When the family goes about opening their presents, something that parrots happen to be very good ...

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As much as I like the cages I have selected for my birds, It seems to me that there is one major flaw in their design. Most birds primarily occupy the top half of their cage and, given this fact, it makes sense that the majority of the space should be in this area. Average inside dimensions for a large parrot cage are about 30″W X 42″L X 60″H. This leaves half of the cage, for the most part, unused. I often wonder why it is so hard to ...

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Q: I will be bringing home my first bird, an amazon, in a few weeks and want to get a cage ready for him now.  I want it to be perfect.  How do I know what perches and toys are right?

Lillian G,  Las Vegas, NV

A:  Since many parrots spend the majority of their time in their cages while their owners are at work, it really does have to be as close to perfect as we can make it.  The two main factors to consider are safety and comfort ...

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I did a post about a year ago on full spectrum lighting.  Since that time, some new information and findings have been brought forward. We are continually learning that our human solutions to our birds' problems are not always right on the money the first time around. This information is important to be aware of when we are choosing lighting and its positioning.  Following are the best parts of a very helpful and informative thread I read on one of the many great bird boards out there in ...

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Visually sexing a parrot is never 100% reliable, with the exception of the dimorphic eclectus, whose genders are entirely different colors and were thought to be two different species in the wild for the many years before they became a popular companion parrot.

While DNA or surgical sexing are the only guaranteed ways of determining your bird’s sex with certainty, well, that and finding an egg in the pellet bowl, there are a few parrots that allow us to make an educated ...

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