Moving is the worst. The packing. The chaos. The unpacking. The chaos. The only good thing about moving is the excuse it gives you to buy new stuff. Moving with parrots complicates matters even more and if you aren’t prepared, it can make things unnecessarily stressful for you and your bird.

It makes sense that a parrot would be uncomfortable with a move to a new location. They are a prey animal that must be very vigilant about their surroundings in order to avoid becoming some predator’s lunch. Familiarity would provide them with a feeling ...

Moluccan cockatoo on the road

Summer is the time when many people choose to do their traveling. The children are free from school commitments and the weather is more likely to remain suitable for a road trip. Why not load the kids and the dog into the RV and head out across country?

For we parrot owners, though, decisions like those are more complicated: what do we do with the bird?

On the one hand, there is the fear of boarding. Not only do we assume that we will spend the entire vacation ...

The padlock holding the food bowl door shut met an untimely death.

I was at the local hardware store replenishing my stock of padlocks (Fid my macaw killed my last spare) when I heard the word “macaw”. Naturally I found myself eavesdropping on the conversation that the three men nearby were having.

They were discussing a nearby robbery. One of them had a friend who owned a Blue and Gold Macaw. Apparently this friend lived just down the road and had been robbed a ...

I saw this comment on someone’s Facebook page recently:

“My bird is biting me EVERY DAY. I literally have a new wound every day and I went to Birdtricks to get some advice and they recommended TRAINING????? Can you believe that??”

I can completely understand why that would be confusing and frustrating to a person experiencing a biting problem. Their bird is tearing into their flesh, causing pain and drawing blood, and Birdtricks recommends “the wave” as a solution. It must have seemed like a flippant response to ...

Blue throated macaw

Q: If a vet always has to take blood to know what is wrong with a bird, then why do they do a physical exam at all? Drawing blood is fast, but the exam just stresses my bird out so much.

–Connor N., Bowling Green, KY

A: Vet visits can be stressful for a bird, but all parts of it are necessary to really determine your bird’s health. And because they are stressful, it makes sense that your vet be as thorough as possible so that you don’t need to ...

Jackie - a young female cockatiel with issues

Meet Jackie. A young, very friendly female cockatiel that is different from most companion birds because Jackie has a job. Jackie lives in an aged care facility (nursing home) where she provides “animal therapy” to the human residents who require assisted living care. As you can probably imagine, this little bird has become very important to the residents, as they are unable to have their own pets. Many don’t have regular visitors, so the companionship ...