My Flock

Splish splash...
Just wondered, does anybody else find their parrot only likes to have a bath when a hoover is running, or is that just our nutty pionus?

I suspect I already know the answer! :P

The things they learn...
Taking care not to awaken the sleeping people and critters in my apartment, I quietly snuck into the kitchen to have a quick snack before bed. Oops, I dropped a spoon onto the counter... cue Bonsai with his newest phrase in proper context: "Who's that?"

/'splodefromcute :)

Hey guys! I'm here to ask a few questions about diet. They're probably kinda stupid, but bear with me. Google's being mighty unhelpful. Or maybe my Google-fu's off. :(

I'm currently trying to convert my birds to diets of veggies (from an all-pellet diet), and they're slowly starting to eating some. We give them carrots, lettuce, broccoli, and jalapenos every morning, and sometimes spinach and other random things when we have it. But I'm worried that those and pellets might not be meeting their dietary needs fully. Is there anything else they should be getting? I know sweet potatoes are supposed to be good for them, but they won't even touch sweet potato chips, let alone the potato itself. They love things like rice, pasta, and bread, but I doubt those are good for them. Or does it depend on the type? We never buy white bread/pasta/rice, if that matters. I'd love to convert them to a mash diet that I can make myself, but... they're cockatiels. They'd probably be terrified. They're already terrified of plain ol' cooked vegetables.

My family also eats a lot of nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, cashews...). Is it alright for cockatiels and parrotlets to eat these? My mother won't give any to them because she thinks they'll poke their eyes out on it, or stick their tongues, or something bizarre like that. But isn't that what beaks are for? Breaking seeds and nuts open? Or is she right in fearing that?

And while I'm here, can anyone recommend a good, powerful air purifier? We have an Ionic Breeze right next to the cages, but it's absolutely no match for the combined might of 6 cockatiels and a parrotlet. It's kind of sad how bad the birds kick it's butt. There's dander everywhere!

Parrot Keeper's Lung
I've kept birds for the last 5 years, almost without lapse. I have had experience as a quarantine home before we owned bids of our own, and later as a foster/rehab home for many parrots. I have shared my home with quite a diverse selection of parrots. I am currently home to 4 of my own and 2 of my roommates, mostly small parrots.

( Description of past and breathing issues )

I currently have no insurance and no ability to see a specialist to confirm. Even the idea of losing my birds breaks my heart. I cannot find consistent information on which birds are "safe" and which aren't except the eclectus. I have been looking for a list of birds that are higher or lower on the risk scale. Obviously cockatoos, greys and cockatiels are highest on that list, but what about the others? Pionus are very dusty birds as well. What about my roommate's lovebirds? My husband is interested in caiques, but I cannot find any information about them either. It's frustrating and heartbreaking. If anyone has any experience with this or any knowledge of the less dusty birds, please let me know. You guys are life savers.

Current Mood: crushed

snuggles update
Took Her to scales and tails on Monday, Greg stayed home to go with me,
She did not have a egg. (When I got home I found it under her cage, Still glad that I went Just to be sure she was OK, She has held that egg for about 3 days.)
The vet is doing a full blood pannel He had to clip her nail for blood, Snuggles had been complaning about pain, and we were suposed to ger a pain med for her but they for got.
He gave cipro for her.
She is complaining about her foot and belly. The vet is 3 hr round trip away.
Is there any thing that I can do for her now? Cant get any one to go with me till tomrow.
She sais about the vet "Never again!" I want to minimize the trama as much as I can.
Now that the last egg is gone she is acting more like her old self. She is eating better talking and watching TV.

Roudybush Food Question
Does anyone here feed their cockatiels Roudybush pellets? What is your experience with pellet size? The Windy City Parrot website recommends that I feed them the "mini" sized pellets but I believe that was what I was feeding before I switched to crumbles and I had a lot more food waste (Dusty was the only one who has ever figured out how to eat with his "hands" so with the other two most of the pellet goes flying). What about feeding them the "nibbles" which are supposed to be fine for finches so are even smaller. I switched over to the canary sized Zupreme fruit blend (not the main food) a while ago and had great results with less food waste. What are anyones thoughts on this? I'm trying to waste as little as possible but I don't want to get anything too small for them either.

Also, I remember someone posting a recipe for birdy bread that involved pellet dust a long while ago. Does anyone remember it and/or could they give it to me please?

Current Mood: thoughtful

Quaker Question
When did your Quaker settle into their adult personality?

thx!

Micathermic heaters?
Hi everyone! I just bought 2 heaters today, but I am having trouble finding out if they contain any PTFE [teflon]. I am hesitant to use these until I know, or someone who already has one quells my anxiety! It is very, VERY cold in my house right now and I am desperately hoping that someone has some experience with this model.

The heater in question is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Bionaire-BH3950-U-Micathermic-Adjustable-Thermostat/dp/B000I0WQR2

I am using one on the main level of my house right now [no birds are on this floor and there is no shared airflow..] and it is working great, and I really want to replace the old oil heater that is in the bird room with one of these tonight.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Well, while I am still curious to know, I ended up bringing another Oil heater I had in storage [and didn't even know it >___>] down into the basement and it is pleasurably warm down here now! The bird room is at a very comfortable temperature -and after I put plastic over these windows tomorrow [I should have done this in October, Lazy me.] it'll be a variable paradise. :3

Current Mood: cold

Young birds and molting
Lenore is just over four months old now, and she seems to be going through a heavy-duty molt. I was told I shouldn't expect a molt for quite some time, so this was a bit unexpected.

What is a basic time frame should I be looking at for her molt? I'm assuming with small birds (she's a linnie) that it takes less time. She's had pinfeathers for about a month, maybe a month and a half now, but there's a lot more of them now than there have been in the past. What is a basic time frame for budgie/lovebird sized birds?

Any tips on keeping her socialized? She has been adamant about biting anyone who comes near her who isn't me, and in the past few days she's been biting me if I try to do more than give her scritches (and even then she's temperamental) and doesn't want to come out of her cage. We're still spending time with her, but whenever I get near her she goes nuts. I've read that some birds don't like to be touched at all when molting, and their owners typically respect that. How will this affect her sociability?

Thanks for any advice--this is my first molt, so I'm totally a nooblet here.

Two things...
Hi gang! Our oven element popped on Saturday and it's possible we need may need to buy a new stove if we can't find a new element. What would you consider to be a bird safe electric stove? My husband wants to get a self cleaning stove, but I don't know. To be honest, I haven't cleaned the stove for all the years we've lived in our house because of the birds :-D It doesn't get that dirty anyway inside.

Second, I'm working on a college entrance art portfolio and I have thought about getting monthly made service just to take some of that pressure off (no self cleaning houses yet :-D). I don't know what questions to ask - I'm going to ask on the LJ community for my city as well, but I just don't want Lysol or anything bad being used around Muffin.

Sorry everyone about the oversized picture I posted.

Vet recommendations in Minneapolis?
Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anybody has a recommendation for a good avian vet in the Minneapolis area of Minnesota. I recently moved here from Duluth and have yet to settle on a vet for my birds.

I have a quaker parrot who is plucking herself under her wing to the point of creating a huge scab. I brought her to VCA Cedar Animal Hospital in Minneapolis on Tuesday for it because they were the first place that had an appointment when I discovered her injury. Previous to that, she went to the Greenbrier Animal Hospital in Minnetonka one other time.

The vet put her on Baytril for 14 days and gave me something called AVI Bird Soother to put on the wound; it apparently contains mostly aloe. I just got home from being out of town for a day and discovered she has not only made her wound worse, but has created a new one lower down next to her leg. She is acting just as normal as before, if not more active than the first days after I found the wound, but I'm afraid of what will happen if she keeps making things worse. I want to make sure I'm going to the best vet I can as I try to get this treated. I don't have anything against either of the two vets that I brought her to before, but if anybody has any feedback on those two or any others in Minneapolis, I would love to hear it.

I've been on winter break from work (I work in a school), and go back tomorrow, and I'm so worried to leave her alone all day now! Thanks in advance for any advice.

One Post-Bath Lovebird
Auto never fails to reject any post-bath drying techniques I try with him aside from rubbing his wet little body all over my shirt and hands - I try to tell him that the towel I'm offering is much more absorbent and will work a lot better, but he'll have none of it.

But! Drying off after today's bath made me notice how perfect the lighting in front of my computer was, so I couldn't help but take a few pictures.

Photobucket

( Ahh, the majestic green and pink chicken )

Foot Enrichment?
Quick random question: I have a Quaker parrot who will be 2 years old in March, and I've noticed he doesn't use his feet to pick things up or play with things.

We've given him foot toys, which he simply rages at, then throws them out of the open cage door. Have tried 2 or 3 varieties - rings, rope toys, noisy toys, plastic puzzle pieces...

We give him treats that are big enough that he has to hold them with a foot and eat them, and he holds it in his beak for a few seconds, looks around and drops it.

We've taught him to "shake hands" and he's pretty good at it with one of his feet.

Not really sure if there's anything else we can do, or if he's just not old enough yet to be expected to use his feet for that sort of thing. Does anyone have any ideas?

And here's Yoshi, because who can resist a chance to show off their birds? ;)

(early stages of his "roll over" trick)

Budgie!
Ichi the budgie went to the vet (about two months ago, really), and was declared all-clear to come out of quarantine. Since then, he's been desperate to make friends with Monster. We've been slowly introducing them under heavy supervision, and it's going well so far. Ichi's gone from being a scared pet store budgie stuck in a rat cage, taken out twice in the entire time the previous owner had him, to stepping up reliably and running to hands to be picked up, hanging out on shoulders and fingers, stepping up nicely from his cage, and singing and burbling all day. He had a broken blood feather scare a little while ago because of the absolutely butchered clip he had when he came to us, but he's doing well despite that. He's been learning to control his movements better and should improve even more as his wings grow back.

( I only have horrible cell phone pictures. )

This is Max.

He has recently learned "I love you", which he only says while in his reverie, staring out the window, in this calm little voice.

Other things he knows are "Stop it!" and "Ohhhhh yeah!!"

Emergency drills?
I know a number of people here have emergency kits (here's mine if you don't and you're looking for ideas), and some have emergency evacuation plans. For those of you who have plans or kits, do you do drills? And if so, do you actually include your bird(s) in the drills so you'll have an idea of how they'll react and how long it'll take to get them into the carriers, or do you not include the birds because you don't want to scare them or cause trauma which might make an actual emergency evacuation go less smoothly?

Parrotlet video!
I took a video of my parrotlet talking... and I felt like sharing, lol. I love his squeaky little voice. Sorry about spamming you guys with my birds!

( Video under here. )

Current Music: Alela Diane - White As Diamonds | Powered by Last.fm

Quakers molting
I have a 2.5 year old Quaker named Tycho.

Every xmas he goes through his yearly molt and this year...he's been especially molt-y but thats not my question.

My question is that now that he's a bit older (i'm guessing this is why), he has become extremely cuddly and snuggly during this molt and I'm wondering if this is what I have to look forward to for future molts.

The past 2 molts have been far tougher. I had to be extremely careful about respecting his space and preening him carefully but this time around he's just all about snuggling up to my neck and gentley preening me as I preen him and same with my husband (We've been very lucky b/c he goes to both my husband and myself equally).

Anyway, so is this his adult personality or this still part of his puberty?

In the last several months he's turned into a very sweet and mellow bird who rarely nips ... this could be though b/c we've gotten very very good at reading his body language and respecting his cues. This change, I should say has been nearly imperceptible and has really been over the course of the last 2.5 years but in the last several months, I've noticed how much of a consistent mood he has been in. He's been vet checked and all blood work is normal. I was just assuming this is his adult personality and wanted to know if someone might be able to give me some info as I can't find specifics on the web or from my avian vet (they all seem to give you a range for puberty to be over).

Baileyflock Spam
'Lo everyone! Just me popping in to deliver some spam of my flock! :] This picture post'll include everyone, not just Bail and Dusty this time, Haha.

Anyhow, enjoy! :]

( Click )

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Hurt - Unkind | Powered by Last.fm

A little Christmas HAM

"Look at my belly! Look how cute it is!"

Current Mood: relaxed

Just wanted to say thank you so much for all the support and kind words I got on the comments from this post about Gio. You guys have no idea how nice it was to read your comments and even sharing the anger I feel towards my sister right now because I can't do that with anyone I know 'in real life'.

I fortunately had the day to process the entire thing before I saw my sister again, so it all ended in a lot of screaming and crying when I saw her that night - had she been there when I'd found Gio first there would've been some major blow out between us and I just don't know what would've happened. At the moment I'm living at my dad's house with him my sister - my dad doesn't think much of the incident because 'she didn't mean to do it, it was just an accident and it's just a bird' and thinks that an 'I'm sorry' is more than sufficient. As much as I'd live to have her permanently banned from the kitchen, I can't. I'm vegetarian and she won't touch anything I cook for whatever crazy reason that seems to make sense in her head and my dad usually eats at work, so she has to cook for her self.

My sister tried to apologize today by bringing me a pizza she got for free at the Pizza Hut she works at. Needless to say, it's going to take a lot more than a cold pizza for me to forgive her. Unfortunately I can't even demand that she pays for Gio's cremation because she's in a lot of debt and can barely afford to pay for her own bills. I'm not much better off financially, but my boss is letting me pay in parts so I'll get to have my boy's ashes back in a couple of weeks.

So I'm left saving up some more to be able to move soon - it's going to be a lot of fun trying to find shared housing with my pit and my old chihuahua.

Here's an old pic I found of him on flickr - silly bird liked to sit on my laptop and try to kill it one key at a time. Once I had one of the 'F' keys missing for over a month before I found it under my bed and I'm still missing one of the rubber pad thingies on the screen lol.

bahaha
This is kinda funny. At least to me.
My little bird likes to sit on my desk next to me while I internet sometimes.
Once in awhile I've noticed he'd do what appeared to be very sudden, frantic preening.
I just realized what's happening is sometimes a bit of the laser from my mouse
would shine on his body through the gaps around the scroll wheel on the mouse.
He was doing the behaviour because he thought the laser was getting him.
What a dork.

Kiwi

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a while >_<

I have bad news.

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