Updates and Musings About Life with Parrots
Hopefully, by now we all know how important it is for parrots to eat a balanced diet that includes fresh foods. In fact, I just recently attended a parrot nutrition lecture by Jason Crean in which he advised a 100% whole food diet. In other words, NO processed foods including pellets. I’ll blog about his…
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It’s National Pi Day: 3.14 (but only in the United States, where we list dates backwards). Last year we listed 3.14 reasons why pi(onus) are awesome. Here is my list of why I love my Mika girl: She’s nuts! Yesterday I walked in the door listening to my iPod and she flipped out. She spent…
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Tactile enrichment? I’ll show you how to do tactile enrichment … To Mika, all bits of paper are bird toys.
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Last week, Kris Porter of ParrotEnrichment.com asked if we’d give some feedback on a new foraging toy she has developed. Of course we jumped at the chance! (Are you kidding? A foraging toy developed by the guru of parrot enrichment? Yes, please!) The box arrived Thursday night and we couldn’t wait to open it. Check…
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The other day I was feeling like I needed more snuggle time with Mika. So a little bit before their regular bedtime, I put an almond in Stewie’s cage and put him away for the night, thinking this would give me extra time to hang out with my pionus girl. However, as soon as Mika…
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In my last post, I wrote about Mika’s progress learning how to fly. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t repeated the exercise of luring her with her favorite junk food, but she has undertaken a couple more attempts at landing somewhere specific… with mixed results. Just goes to show that a parrot learning to…
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We have a contractor friend who was kind enough to offer to cut up pieces of his leftover untreated pine two-by-fours when I mentioned that I could use pine scraps for parrot toys. I picked up a small bag of them yesterday and restrung a $15 toy Mika had shredded in a few days. (This…
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Last week, Stewie and Mika went to the vet for their annual checkup. Stewie posted about his trip on Facebook resulting in a long comment thread about everybirdie’s vet-visiting habits. Among most of Stewie’s bird friends, the consensus matches the advice you’ll find on boards and parrot organizations: a routine checkup every year is the…
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A recent, last-minute trip out of town reinforced my appreciation for my friends. Despite already dogsitting for one sick dog and some personal issues of their own, they graciously let me drop my birds off at their house when I had to rush out of town on a family emergency. When I came back a…
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After a whole year of watching Mika enjoying head scratches, Stewie has decided that he’s going to allow me to touch him. Not just touch him, but rub his neck and pinch the keratin off his new feathers! Pin feathers are itchy and uncomfortable and, in the wild, parrots engage in allopreening to help each…
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I frequently see people struggling with getting their bird back in its cage. I adapted one of my recent BirdBoard responses into a blog post. How do you get your bird to go in its cage? My parrot always puts up a fuss and runs/flies away when it’s time for him to go back in….
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