I started making my way across the earth in the middle of the last century.
I traveled terrestrially and airborne as my father Norman was a vagabond pilot – sure, I’d love to have a coffee and chat about that sometime.
If you are a baby boomer you may remember probably what was one of the first chain stores – Woolworths
or adding another parrot to your life
Taking care of a parrot is a lot of responsibility. Most of you already know this but a few may not.
Your friends that don’t own parrots probably look at yours and think they want one too, so please pass these points along to them so they can make a wise decision.
Whether you are buying your first parrot or your 10th, you need to think these things through as well.
Sharing life with a parrot is very much like living with a poorly mannered undisciplined 3 year old who will not grow up and go away to college.
When you are not with your bird, what quality of life do you provide it?
I’m lucky, I work from home and can spend more time with my birds than most people, but I also find that Mango, my tame, trusting conure, doesn’t want to be with me all the time.
And I have a rehomed budgie, Kiwi, that isn’t trusting due to his early life and Mango is teaching him how to be a bird at two years of age, things he should have been taught as a just weaned baby.
Would you like your parrot to learn to talk or whistle, imitate sounds of any kind? If you haven’t been told yet, there is some bad news on that front: there is no guarantee that any bird of any species will ever learn to talk or make sounds. It just isn’t guaranteed.
If that is why you are adding a feathered companion to your home, then your motivations are wrong because even those parrots that do not speak add a lot to the lives of their owners —
Accidents around the home are far too common when it comes to parrots. I have many years of experience and yet, I want to show you just how easily someone with my skill level can still allow something to happen that shouldn’t. This is how Mango lost a joint from his toe when he was very young.
How a Lonely Little Understimulated Budgie is Learning to be a Bird
As many of our loyal Sunday Brunch readers know, Kiwi is a beautiful little yellow and chartreuse budgie who needed a good home and found me through Craigslist. My first parrot — yes budgies are small parrots — was a normal green female budgie named Sydney and since falling in love with her and spending every day of her 11 year life with her, I’ve always loved these tenacious little parrots. I even bred them for a while when I lived on the mainland where an outdoor aviary was practical.
What you can learn from your bird’s droppings
You should become very aware of your companion bird’s poop because you can use them as a daily guide to your bird’s health. The parrots and soft billed birds we share our homes with are flock creatures and, like all flock mentality creatures, hide signs of illness until they are too ill to be able to hide it any longer. The first clue we have of illness or diet-related problem shows up in our bird’s poop.
Unlike humans, birds have only one opening in the body for allowing fecal matter, urine, and reproductive material (sperm and eggs) to exit, the cholaca. Inside the avian body, three distinct routes bring these types of matter to the cholaca for expulsion from the body. In this case, we will only be looking at droppings rather than the use of the cholaca for reproductive purposes.
Hi, we’re thinking of bringing home an African Grey, we would be her third home. Her first was abusive, and she was a plucker. She is permanently bald on her belly. We think she is about 15 years old.
She has been in her current home for many years and does not pluck anymore. I was wondering if you had any advice for what she might need just in regards to being bald. We do keep our home cool in the winter (about 65) will she need one of those panel heaters? Can I knit her a sweater? lol
– are they the real macaws?
Generally speaking, the answer is ‘No, parrots do not make good “Intentional” farmers as they destroy more than they build. Ironically that mess on your floor which was clean 15 minutes ago is an example of nature’s way of using birds as agents to spread seeds throughout the earth. As an example, birds do not have receptors for capsaicin, the protein that makes peppers hot, so birds will still eat the peppers and disperse the seeds. You and I on the other hand will need to drink lots of beer to put out the mouth fire.
Before moving forward I’d like to note that what you are about to read is a digital collaboration between me and Nora – unbeknownst to her as I write this but she will be making the final edits on this post. The original title was “Grow a Garden for Your Parrot” but clearly, there is a difference between what men think about parrots and farming and what women think about growing stuff for parrots
How to Deal With Nail Bleeding Emergencies and Other Minor Foot Bleeding Accidents
Hi, I’m Nora Caterino.
Some of you may know me from other parrot-related websites from my pasts, but for you of those to whom I am new, I have over 25 years of small and medium parrot experience.
I began as the ‘owner’ of a single tame parakeet and eventually became a parrot parent and web and magazine published expert.