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 ...

Blue fronted amazon

Q: My neighbor gave me a 4 year old cockatiel a couple of weeks ago. She couldn’t keep him and knew that I have a cockatiel that I adore. Before I took Luca home with me, I asked a lot of questions about his favorite foods and toys and tried to get as much information about him as I could. I found out that he has never had a bath because he is afraid of water. I didn’t believe her when she told me this because my bird ...

The excited blush of a macaw at play

I wish it were possible to do a blog post that would define, once and for all, the body language of parrots. Heaven knows we get asked for it enough. How cool would it be to be able to tell someone that when your bird does this, it means this?

Unfortunately, such a post will never come to be. There are too many considerations that prevent it:

• Each species of parrot has its own ways of expressing themselves.
• Each bird has its own personality.
• Each owner ...

   

My exceptionally well behaved Blue and Gold Macaw - Fid.

Last night, I was 2.5 hrs late home. It wasn’t controllable or predictable. Who can predict being stuck in stationary traffic while a drunk tow truck driver kept blocking and unblocking the road (even though he wasn’t trying to tow anyone?!?) No one was going anywhere until he either got arrested or got off the road and let the traffic move again.

I have an erratic schedule at the best of times, so the birds ...