How Can You Compare the Personalities of an African Grey and a Macaw?
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How Can You Compare the Personalities of an African Grey and a Macaw?

That is not really a fair question. The personality of a captive bird is determined by many factors and the environment that humans provide for them.

The bigger question is are we seeing the paratroop personality or does being a captain of birds change everything? In other words, would a bird be different in the wild than in captivity?

There is no single event, procedure, or training apparatus that will cause a bird to act like this or that, be an uncontrollable screamer, feather self-mutilation, or toe-tapper (a neurological issue in some Eclectus parrots).

Most people fail in raising captive birds because they don’t “speak bird”. It is essential to look at a pet bird holistically because every component of their life impacts their behavior.

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When Sun Conures Attack!
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When Sun Conures Attack!

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
  • ignored.
  • The Super Bowl was on. The constant annoying cheering of the tv fans.

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.

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Why 4 Roommates 2 Feathered and 2 Humans Need to Work Things Out.
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Why 4 Roommates 2 Feathered and 2 Humans Need to Work Things Out.

Jan 9, 6:36pm

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.

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Birds Are Amoral, Not Bad. Humans Are at Fault and the Problem Source.
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Birds Are Amoral, Not Bad. Humans Are at Fault and the Problem Source.

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.

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Pepper Our Two and a Half Year Old African Red-bellied Parrot
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Pepper Our Two and a Half Year Old African Red-bellied Parrot

Catherine,

Sorry for the delay.  I had full intentions of providing you with my take on the African Red Bellied parrot several weeks ago and life got in the way.  🙂
First of all, let me introduce Pepper our two-and-a-half-year-old ARB.  I am emphasizing two year old because we are going through what I can only hope is the terrible 2s stage and not a lifelong trait with him.

For a bit of history, this is not my first rodeo.  I was very active in owning, caring, training, and taming parrots many years ago.  I go back to the days when most were wild caught birds that required significant patience and attention.

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Christmas With My Parrots

I just love this time of year with my parrots. Currently, we’re singing and dancing to rambunctious Christmas carols while hubby wraps presents. It’s time to think about gift-giving for your beaked family.

Homemade toys are the answer, because, like me, you probably have lots of things around, like wrapping paper tubes to make into foraging toys. Husband wraps with the pretty foil paper which isn’t suitable for them.

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Canaries – Nature’s IPods – Why They Sing
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Canaries – Nature’s IPods – Why They Sing

Before iPods there were boomboxes. Before boomboxes, there were stereo radios. Precursors to phonographs were Victrolas.

But the way to get tunes in your home long before there was electricity was the natural sound of bird songs.

For years people would place a Canary or other singing finches in a small cage on either side of the room and whoever did that first can take credit for inventing stereo sound.

Canaries are small songbirds coming from the Finch family and were initially found in places like the Azores and believe it or not the Canary Islands.

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Lorikeets 62 Species of Nectar Slurping Seed Eating Carnivores
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Lorikeets 62 Species of Nectar Slurping Seed Eating Carnivores

Sandra wrote: Hi, I just want to say that I absolutely love the Sunday Birdie Brunch and was wondering If I could request a topic on lorikeet diet, scaley breasted lorikeet in flight My cutie loves her daily fruit veg and lory mix. Do you recommend a certain mix for lories? blue lorikeet I have Joy and Wombaroo at the moment, and the textures and ingredients are so different!

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Quickie Rundown on Cockatiel Care Chapter & Verse
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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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