I purchased my first Amazon parrot 34 years ago from the previous owner in Tucson, Arizona. It was a Double Yellow Head Amazon, an adult that had been originally imported to the USA thru a quarantine station. As a child I’d had parakeets and ducks and was totally mesmerized by this new large, brightly colored […]
Bringing home your new baby parrot is very similar to bringing home a human baby. There really isn’t anything difficult about the process but it has a tendency to make people nervous and apprehensive. What I would like to give you here is a few guidelines to make the experience as easy as possible on […]
There is one thing you can train your parrot to do that will improve and help maintain your relationship, it is to step up on command. This can be done with a simple two word command, “Step up” or as I use with my birds, “UP”. The command should be used whenever want your bird […]
Know the Source of Your Bird to Avoid Life-Long Issues Most of us have seen the sad videos of puppy mills. Hundreds of wretched creatures huddle in too-small cages. Their only purpose in life is to breed, breed, breed with little regard for their health or welfare. However, most people have not been exposed to […]
Many people fear antibiotics. They believe they are inherently “bad” for them and for their birds. This belief is unfortunately based on the misuse and abuse of antibiotics, and has nothing to do with their true value. Before antibiotics millions died of pneumonia and tuberculosis, as well as other infectious diseases. Antibiotics changed the faced […]
Time and time again I hear from disgruntled lovebird owners. They bought a hand-fed baby lovebird from a pet store and the bird bites, refuses to come out of the cage, and acts as if it is being murdered when you finally catch it. These experiences have given lovebirds an undeserved reputation as wild, unfriendly […]
How to Prevent It – How Best to Find a Lost Bird There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when a pet bird suddenly takes off, flying into the wild blue yonder, while you watch helplessly from the ground below. The first time this happened to me I became frantic, running around the […]
Quinoa (pronounced “kee-nwa”) is a South American grain that looks somewhat like millet, but has a lighter, more golden color. It was the favored grain of the Incas of Peru before the Conquistadors arrived in the 16th century. It was “re-discovered” in the 1980s by a couple of Americans, who proceeded to grow and study […]
The rise in popularity of exotic birds has led to an increase in popularity of another activity: theft of exotic birds. Some large breeders have been devastated by large-scale thefts by professionals. In some states, such as Florida, the increase in bird thefts has led to major changes in how bird owners and law enforcement […]
Use these numbers to find your Parrot-Parent Score: 0=not true at all; 1=sort of true; 2=true a lot of the time; 3=pretty much the case!; 4=you bet, absolutely positively true! 1. I really love birds/pets and could easily make a lifetime commitment to mine. 2. I would enjoy the time it takes to prepare fresh […]