Donna B writes on 9/9/2018
I have a 6-1/2 year old Jubilee Macaw (named Bijou) who seems to be having a very difficult molt.
I am concerned his constant picking might turn in to plucking.
Bijou has begun constantly picking on himself and pulls out not only larger feathers but also small to mid size feathers and gray fluff.
As of now, however, I don’t see any skin abrasions or blood. Â
Why is humankind so focused on lopping off body parts?
We “bob” dog’s ears and tails.
We castrate bulls.
We lop off the foreskin of infant males.
My husband and I have two 14-year-old African grey parrots.
We bought them from a pet store that sold only parrots when they were chicks.
They seem very healthy – have good appetites, play, scream, etc.
However, one of the birds has been losing her feathers and it is getting worse.
I’m going to interpret this as a cage placement question.
The answer is not straightforward.
Parrots like privacy.
We talk a lot about the birdcage canopy effect of lining the top third of your bird’s cage with so many toys that you can not see the bird.
This gives them a sense of security in that they are not easily seen all the time.
You have some sort of window covering in your bedroom, right? (more…)
Name: Inna M
Hello.
We have a 7 year old African grey.
Unfortunately we made a mistake and did not train him properly.
At first I thought to myself “this’ll be fun.”
Once I started the project it was a bit more difficult than I forecasted.
I originally started with 9 YouTube channels but some favorites needed to be included not simply based upon numbers.
For those who are not following on us Facebook or our YouTube channel, you’ll note that we are ramping up our use of Fid-eo to better communicate caged bird care.
I don’t know that there’s enough storage space on the Quora servers to answer this.
I read that parrots are loud, noisy, and messy – a lot.
Then again so are children.
Let’s start with a top-level explanation.
Pet people in the disciple category will always react negatively towards the word own preferring instead to call it pet bird companionship.
In reality, birds are the most owned pets we can have.
We have to lock them up in a bird jail.
Find the Birdy IQ exam here if you haven’t taken it
Of the first 170 exams we had a 25% pass with 75% correct answers to 44 multiple and true/false questions
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Your African grey may have upwards of 8000 feathers. Feathers keep a bird warm, and dry and enable flight.
For a molt to occur, the old feather must be removed. Before molting begins blood vessels that support the feathers dry up so the attached feather becomes loosened by the surrounding tissue.
Mitch,
Have you written about “bird sleep”? I watched an eagle chick go from hatchling to fledgling and during the process, both the chick and parents seemed to sleep only periodically, preening much of the night.
