In order to best utilize this research, you must understand that the birds we have in our living rooms are not domesticated. They are wild animals  – tamed, but still wild. The process of ...

Read the rest or post a comment »

The cold weather here in the northern hemisphere will soon be upon us. This means that time spent in the aviaries and trips outdoors with the family will be limited for our birds. This also means that they will be getting less of the healthy benefits derived from...

Read more »

Photo by Dave
Location: Centralia, WA
On my back: Blue throated macaw “Jinx”

I’ve personally worked with a lot of adopted parrots, and they’ve always had extreme issues from an insane amount of aggression to extreme amounts of fear, to horrible diets, large amounts of weight loss to being obese, to hating women or men specifically or plucking themselves, among tons of other issues popular among captive parrots given up for adoption.

Because I had never worked with an adopted parrot that was just nice, with no issues, I assumed they literally did ...

Read the rest or post a comment »

Photo by Dave
Location: Nampa,ID
Playing and learning: Baby Toco Toucan “Rocko”

There are tons of reasons for playing with your bird with things such as towels, blankets and clothing. The biggest reason to do so is so that you can towel your bird to hold it still in the event of an emergency. The other reason is so that your bird is not fearful of being covered up by a blanket or towel whether it happens on accident or happens on another account.

While our birds were babies, ...

Read the rest or post a comment »

Photo by Dave
Location: In the RV
Pictured playing with his ball: Toco Toucan “Rocko”

When our baby toucan Rocko started showing signs of aggression every once in a while, most of all when he appeared to be bored, Dave and I looked at each other like, “What do we do to stop a toucan from biting? This isn’t a parrot we’re dealing with…”

Rocko’s bite is a completely different type of “bite”. He has two different ways of hurting someone or something. In the wild, toucans ...

Read the rest or post a comment »

Photo by Nathan Slabaugh Photography
Location: Centralia, WA
Pictured: Toco Toucan “Rocko”

There are lots of things that make raising a bird super complicated and scary, just like raising a human child. You worry they won’t turn out right, or that you didn’t do a good enough job in a certain area over another.

As long as you know how to properly raise a bird (you can learn these steps from our Total Transformation Course which also covers flight training indoors and fixing behavioral problems with your current ...

Read the rest or post a comment »