Hormonal Changes Are Coming to Your Bird This Spring What’s Your Plan?
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Hormonal Changes Are Coming to Your Bird This Spring What’s Your Plan?

Americans have the ACLU – Captive birds in America have Windy City Parrot.

Part of a call from Hawaii at the Birdie Boutique

“I suggest72 hours of constant light, meaning the bird would be in its cage for 3 days, with the lights on”.

Cage birdkeepers response “she’ll never go for something like that

My email response

As an advocate for pet birds, I wanted to follow up on your lovebird’s reproductive issues.

If a child is sick, he or she does not determine whether or not to accept care.

Although you state your bird would “have nothing to do with it” – she can easily be locked in a cage for three days for her own good so as to extend her life.

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Short Circuit From Love to Attack Behavior With My Rainbow Lory Recently
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Short Circuit From Love to Attack Behavior With My Rainbow Lory Recently

Connie S wrote:

I looked at the anatomy of a bird’s brain that you had in a recent email.

I would like to know more about the portion that says: Short Circuit from love to attack behavior!

That is happening with my rainbow lory recently.

He is 18 years old and has suddenly started attacking my hand when I reach to have him climb on my finger.

Otherwise, he hangs out with me with no problem – when I’m sitting in a chair or lying on the bed. (more…)

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Quickie Rundown on Cockatiel Care Chapter & Verse
Woman hand holding a beautiful cockatiel bird isolated on a white background

Quickie Rundown on Cockatiel Care Chapter & Verse

Cockatiels are the smallest, actually a miniature Cockatoo, and is from Australia. The only bird more popular with caged bird keepers is a parakeet (budgie).

 

The Cockatiel is biologically classified as a genuine member of Cacatuidae because they share all of the Cockatoo family’s biological features. They are the only Cockatoo species which can sometimes reproduce by the time they are one year old.

 

The Cockatiel’s distinctive erectile crest expresses the animal’s state of being. The crest is dramatically vertical when the cockatiel is startled or excited, gently oblique in its neutral or relaxed state, and flattened close to the head when the animal is angry or defensive.

 

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Scientists Fundraise for Conures
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Scientists Fundraise for Conures

Did you know the sun conure may be facing extinction in the wild, and you can help? There is a real need for more surveys to establish their status in nature. The 2014 estimates published on the IUCN database are between 1,000 and 1,499 mature birds. Some of the last known sun conures live in Guyana, a country with a small human population and a lot of forest and savannah grasslands.

The IUCN page mentions that the trade in wild conures is “ongoing” because “due to the ease with which birds can be attracted to bait (e.g. corn) and the large distances they will travel, it is easy to trap all the individuals in an area.” Quoted from Jamie Gilardi.

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Does It Matter What Sex My Bird Is as Long as He or She Knows Its Name?
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Does It Matter What Sex My Bird Is as Long as He or She Knows Its Name?

Why is DNA so VERY important even for your non-breeding parrot?

 

About 20% of parrots, like budgies, eclectus, and cockatiels that are sexually dimorphic.

 

That means that the gender of the bird can be identified by physical differences.

 

In the case of budgies and cockatiels, they have to reach near-adulthood to exhibit differences while Eclectus are readily identifiable upon feathering out the first time since females are red and blue while males are green.

 

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My Conure Went to the Library and Won
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My Conure Went to the Library and Won

Oh No! My Conure Went to the Library Alone and Won’t Come Home

Retrieving Escaped or Stolen Parrots: Part Three

A Surprise Flight Lets Mango Fly to the Library Trees and How He was Retrieved

I am a proponent of clipping wings. I know not everyone feels this way, but I’ve had a cockatiel break his neck flying into a mirror when a loud, unfamiliar noise outside frightened him and other bad experiences with flighted companion parrots.

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Avian Respiration Diseases
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Avian Respiration Diseases

Anatomy and function

The upper respiratory system (URS) consists of the external nares, operculum, nasal concha, infraorbital sinus, and choanal slit.

 

The nares are paired symmetrical openings with an operculum within each. The nares each communicate with the nasal cavity containing the concha.

 

The left and right nasal cavities are separated by a septum. The nasal cavity communicates with the left and right infraorbital sinus.

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Classifications & Obfuscations Regarding Conure Parrots
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Classifications & Obfuscations Regarding Conure Parrots

About two years ago, I spotted a bird in a pet store (large chain). On his glassed-in cage was the label “Sun Conure.”

I decided that I wanted a bird like that. First, I ordered a large cage from you; then I waited about 9 months for a bird to become available. During that time the label changed to “Fancy Conure” vice Sun Conure.

The bird I purchased, my friend “Conrad”, is identical in coloring and in temperament (as described in several references) to a Sun Conure. Since we haven’t mentioned any names of pet chains (so we aren’t subject to law suit!), can you offer any thoughts on the name change.

Crossbreed? Avoiding the endangered species controls? Has anyone else ever raised this question???

Sanford

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Oh No Someone Has Stolen My Parrots! Sundance, Pepper and 19 Other Parrots: Missing!
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Oh No Someone Has Stolen My Parrots! Sundance, Pepper and 19 Other Parrots: Missing!

My first medium sized parrot was a loving sun conure who spent all the years of her life with me. She chose me one day when I was in a pet shop when she was just weaned, about 8 weeks old.

Today I know I got her for the wrong reasons. I was fast learning a lot about my budgie Sydney and twice-found cockatiel Cocoa. After two cold winters in Denver, my husband and I were at last returning to Cape Canaveral for his job on the Space Shuttle. Before leaving Denver I said I wanted a bike for riding the beach and a parrot to ride with me. When SunDance picked me, little did I know she would have an absolute horror of bicycles. No matter how I worked with her, she never overcame this fear.

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Light Up Your Bird Cage with Florescent Budgies a Gift from NASA
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Light Up Your Bird Cage with Florescent Budgies a Gift from NASA

Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch but if you could see what budgies see – not so much.

A couple of weeks ago we talked about not fully understanding the effects of ultraviolet lighting on our birds. Something that not a lot of us including myself fully understand.

Leave it to NASA to set the record straight on the correlation between parrots and the center of our galaxy. Admitted science geek that I am, lots of interesting content cross my desktop daily.

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