How to improve your bird’s health with Scenic Bird Food and good fruit &
vegetable selections!
• Place Scenic Bird Food in a separate cup from your bird’s normal food and leave it there all day and night.
• Replace with fresh food daily.
• Keep the cup full.
• Only after your bird is eating Scenic Bird Food should you place it in the normal food cup.
Dear Theresa
Your bird passed today? Oh my. I am so sorry to hear this. It is never easy to lose a pet, they are so much a part of the family. You have our deepest sympathies.
Theresa replied
I’m a bit at a loss. We’ve had her for twenty-five years. With the exception of some arthritis in her foot, she’s been healthy as can be. Just back from a vet check about a month ago…Good eater always eating the things good for her…Saturday I woke up to uncover her cage only to find she’s thrown up a cooked food I got from parrot island. It was a pea soup blend.
Good morning and thanks for your time,
I enjoy reading your newsletters every Sunday, and I just knew yesterday, Sunday, I had to contact you. In short, my sweet female, 1.5 year old, sun conure decided to attack her sitter yesterday when she entered our home. Here is the scenario:
- We had three other people present whom she
Now, she did not attack her right away. Perhaps it was not intended to be attack mode. Once the sitter passed me and my bird Sofia, Sofia immediately flew towards her, the sitter, not expecting it, flailed her arms.
I talk a lot about avian digestive systems and respiratory systems but it’s been a while since we talked about feathers. Generally, the birds that we keep as pets have anywhere from 5000 to 7000 feathers. Waterfowl like certain species of ducks can have more than 11,000. Yes, scientists have actually counted them.
From Wikipedia we learn:
Feathers are among the most complex integumentary system appendages found in vertebrates and are formed in tiny follicles in the epidermis, or outer skin layer, that produces keratin proteins.
The β-keratins in feathers, beaks, and the claws, scales, and shells of reptiles — are composed of protein strands hydrogen-bonded into β-pleated sheets, which are then further twisted and crosslinked by disulfide bridges into structures even tougher than the α-keratins of mammalian hair, horns, and hoof.
β-keratin or beta-keratin is a protein in the keratin family. β-keratin is rich in stacked β pleated sheets. Keratin is one of a family of fibrous structural proteins. Keratin is the protein that protects epithelial cells from damage or stress.
December 10th of last year I sprained my ankle. I finally got my boot on that foot for the first time last week on 1/24/17. In less than a month Medicare will be paying all my medical expenses (in conjunction with a supplemental plan F policy). I can relate to getting old. I look old. I have a long gray beard. Look at me and you know that I’m old.
Not so much with birds
For those of you that have stuck with your birds through the screaming biting and destruction – kudos! You’ll learn how much life bird’s can bring into a home.
Hello, I have two Caiques. The first we have had for 6 years and is sweet mostly. The second, we introduced about 2 years ago. At first, the two about killed each other, but now they are friends.
However, the second caique does have an issue with wanting to be super nice to me and then all of the sudden out for blood. It goes for fingers, almost always. I am fairly sure it had a bad childhood and feel awful for it. It has some great times, but then sometimes will revert and attack. It goes in phases.
I am curious if you have any ideas of how to break this? Currently, to hold the bird or get it, most times I need to have a towel, which it is so smart to hold it’s wings out so I cannot wrap it up. It flips out from the towel also so I cannot grab it, always going for fingers and biting. Thank you for any information! Sometimes I’m at my wits end with this bird, but have been trying and trying to make it have a great life.
Wondering if you can guide me with the care of my umbrella. Her vet is away on sick leave for a few months. I am her third owner.
I live in a two-room 35 ft camper trailer with six dogs and the bird. She likes to be around them – in her cage – and when they get treats she expects ( and gets) her own. They are her flock.
She has been a feather shredder since long before she came to me, about three years ago. She is also very indifferent to food. Her owner before me cared for her well and tried her hardest to get her to fresh fruit and veg. Her primary diet is Zupreem fruit blend, though her specific preference are the pink pieces. But she isn’t even very interested in eating.
(no one else wanted the gig)
If you follow digital trends as I do, it’s impossible to not recognize “the next big thing in marketing” called influencer marketing
All the “experts” in the many LinkedIn groups I follow and blogs I read coming across my crowded inbox have very precise instructions on how to achieve influencer marketing.
Search for influencers, connect with influencers, reach out to influencers, tell the influencers what great stuff you have, offer cash and gold bullion with the goal of a said influencer with 3 million followers on Instagram happily talking to their fans and followers about what remarkable stuff you have to say. It’s nice you have an instruction document.
My name is MitchR. I am an avian influencer. Full transparency – my day gig is selling products just for pet birds – I spend approximately 20% of my work week scanning about 40 Facebook bird groups and niche (species-specific) forums like this. The content I write has one purpose which is to make you a better pet bird keeper.
I think serving dishes filled with any sort of commercial bird food without offering foraging and enrichment opportunities 24/7 in and out of the cage is the single biggest problem with getting our birds to eat properly.
A woman replying in a Facebook thread about her self-mutilating parrot “My vet said that it’s become a habit that’s it very hard to break”.
My response was “Ask your vet why these habits don’t develop in the wild”?
Another woman had spent $4000 between veterinarian bills and behaviorists. Her bird was still plucking. In the thread that evolved it turns out that her cages were filled primarily with eucalyptus perches.
Although eucalyptus can be safe it also has a great many toxins that can be lethal to a bird. She also related that her bird got about one hour of daylight – none of this came up in the conversation with her veterinarian or behaviorist.
