Dear Birdtricks,

I got Lizzy (5 year old sun conure) when she was just a baby. We were inseparable for the first 4 years, but last year I got a new job that has me traveling several times a year. While I’m away, my husband and son take care of Lizzy for me. When I get back she treats me like a stranger – she won’t step up and sometimes bites me– I feel like she hates me! It takes weeks for me to win her back to being MY bird again. We go through this every time I go away. ...

My Rainbow Lorikeets. Dori is on the left, Lori is on the right. Almost identical they can be hard to tell apart if you don't know them.

The textbook average weight for a Rainbow Lorikeet is approximately 130 grams and they don’t tend to fluctuate much more than 5 grams away from their personal average weight unless there is something wrong. So if I were to tell you that my Rainbow Lorikeet “Lori” weighs 120 grams, would you ...

Quaker parrot

Q: My cockatiel yawns a lot. Is that normal?

–          Coralynn F., Bedford, Ma

A:   Yawning is a bit of a mystery. The reasons for it are not really fully understood, but there are some plausible theories as to why we yawn.

You may have noticed that yawning generally takes place during periods of inactivity. One theory suggests that fatigue causes breathing to slow and yawning increases our oxygen intake.

Another theory says that yawning expands the lungs and causes them to flex, similar to the way we stretch our arms and legs ...

I am loving this new series we have begun on sharing people’s success stories with the Bird Tricks’ training program. It is incredibly uplifting and inspiring to hear about more and more people realizing that having a bird is so much more than just something pretty in a cage to add to their household décor. This next story is particularly near to my heart as it’s a great example of my fervent belief that no matter what the start your bird has had in this life, no bird is untrainable – every bird deserves the opportunity to live an enriched ...

Umbrella cockatoo

I log into Facebook every morning to see what is going on with my bird loving friends. Most days I scroll through the pages quickly only pausing when something catches my eye, but I was stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of what appeared to be a cockatoo wading in soapy dishwater.

Because I know this particular party to be very responsible with birds, I was expecting a humorous story with an explanation for how this bird had gotten himself into this predicament. To my surprise, I learned ...

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Musk Lorikeet

A family went to a pet store and bought a bird. A cute little parrot that instantaneously became part of their family. A few weeks later, it was at an avian vet, in intensive care. The family was heartbroken when it couldn’t be saved. Turns out the bird had been hiding an illness the whole time. The vet told them that if it had been caught earlier, the bird could have recovered. If only the pet store had bothered to screen ...