Virtual Mailbag 3

Q. How can I stop my parrot from biting?

A. First, make sure your parrot is not hungry. If the bird doesn’t like the food you provide, he or she may be tasting you. Parrots do eat meat in some cases. My Amazon likes a nice chicken bone now and then. With meat still attached, but he doesn’t care for white meat.

Once you have determined your companion is not looking for a snack, you need to look more at your own behavior. Most of the “bird behavior” classes I’ve seen are actually training the humans. If you are nervous around the bird, or hesitant about picking the bird up, the parrot may bite down hard just to have a firm grip while stepping up. This is one of the best articles I’ve ever seen on ways to stop biting: http://www3.upatsix.com/liz/articles/biting.html I especially like the “dirty look” idea. And this article covers the same information in more depth. http://rationalparrot.com/biting.html We can now say, Save the Drama for Your Llama, because you only reward negative behavior if you yell at the parrot.

Q. Is it normal for my lovebird to tear up paper into little strips and stick those in between his tail feathers?

A. I rarely see the words “normal” and “lovebird” in the same sentence. In this situation, however, it works. Peach faced lovebirds do shred paper or palm fronds or whatever nesting material is available, stuff it in their tail feathers, and carry it back to the nest. Here’s a video of a companion lovie shredding the paper, but apparently she never makes it back to her nest with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB46CZlF00o This is a cute video of an argument over the paper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFsfNJphYgA

This page shows the difference in nesting habits between three of the more common species available as pets. http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-species/find-the-right-bird/lovebirds.aspx Apparently there actually are results from a study done on hybrid lovebirds who are confused on which of the nest building behaviors they should be doing: http://www.upatsix.com/chats/lovebird/topic109410.html#p152797

Q. I have lots of tall grass with seed heads growing in my yard/my neighbor’s yard/my Aunt Fanny’s yard. Is it okay to feed to my budgies?

A. If you know for sure the grass has not been chemically fertilized or had pesticides sprayed on it, then go for it. However, if your neighbor has a grudge against you or your birds, or if your aunt resents that you inherited grandma’s tea service, consider if you trust your birds’ lives to them or not.

Once all the hurdles and concerns are cleared, then make green seeds a regular part of your birds’ diet. Much more than the dry seeds that make up the bulk of so many cage bird diets, green seeds have the best in nutrition that your budgies can actually use. Here’s a great page with lots of advice on what to feed different parrots, links to more articles on the subject, and information from Australian aviculturist Mike Owen: http://www.plannedparrothood.com/diet.html

Q. How do you stay sane with so many birds to care for?

A. Hold on a second, let me look up that word you used. Sane: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sane?s=t Ah! I see. You think I am sane, do you? Let me talk to you about some oceanfront property I have in San Onofre.

Part of my sanity is that the job of caring for the birds is shared between my husband and myself. We share the watering, bowl cleaning, refilling of food bowls, fresh food distribution, cage cleaning, and setting up for breeding. Then we share stories about the birds. “Bo Dangles is saying Derp now!” “Guess what noise Wraith is making?” “Gracie has been less aggressive.” “The button quail flew straight up and landed on my shoulder, much to the surprise of both of us.”

Another part is that I love 95% of the noises that the birds make. If they are just chattering or singing, I can actually nap through that. Canary song, dove cooing, or budgie chirps, it’s a sweet lullaby. The screaming I can do without, and for the most part (like as I am writing this) no one is really screaming. The living room sun conures are giving a loud call now and then, but not what could be termed screaming. Our blind CAG Io makes some very loud, very high pitched whistles which are painful to the human ear-drum, but don’t elicit the rebuke from Bo of “Knock it off!” that Maynard’s yelling “Mama!” does. I guess I just love what I do with my birds.

Q. Where’s the second half of the Spring Clean Fling from Wednesday?

A. It will be right here next Wednesday. See you then!

Clean Spring Fling

When you have a lot of birds, you do a lot of cleaning. Canaries and finches make more mess than a conure, but on a smaller scale. Still, they all need to be cleaned and for the health of the flock, the cleaning has to be consistent and thorough.

Certainly those statements are not a huge revelation to anyone. We all do the best we can. But the warmer weather allows me to do a great shuffling of cages so that all get to come outside and be hosed without greatly inconveniencing the occupants.

My secret is to have as many extra cages as I have in-use cages. No, of course not! Unless I had a warehouse to store them in, that would be silly. I have half as many extra cages. Maybe less. But I can switch the birds over to the clean cages, pull the dirty ones out to the yard, hose and soak and scrub and clean to my Virgo heart’s delight, and then switch out more.

I have three cages like this one in the bird room: http://birdcages4less.com/page/B/PROD/Specials/PA5679 One is full of canaries, one is full of finches and a single rosy bourke parakeet, and one has a pair of sun conures. I would prefer to get the conures into a cage more appropriate for them, but at this time is works pretty well.

These cages: http://birdcages4less.com/page/B/PROD/Specials/PA5723s are commonly called utility cages, and these are the wider of the two sizes they come in. I have 4 with love bird pairs, and one with a pair of budgies. We don’t use the bottom section on the stands for cages, because it’s too easy to overlook the birds when they run out of food and water or need medical attention. Yes, this is the voice of experience.

Our male Indian ringneck parakeet is in a cage like this: http://birdcages4less.com/page/B/PROD/Specials/PA5719 and that covers the bird room.

In the living room, we have 12 cockatiels in two large cages (which apparently aren’t being made any longer). The cages are identical except for color, and the side doors are wire tied open, the cages are lined up so the doors match, and then tied together. This way the teils can be in either side, either cage. It works pretty well. To clean the cages, I need to take two days back to back. I chase all the birds into one side, and Mike closes the doors. We untie the cages, and the empty one goes out to clean. Depending on what else I am doing that day, it might stay out overnight. Then we put it back together, and move all the birds over to the clean one. Repeat with the cleaning, until we have two clean cages again.

My lovebird Jake has this cage: http://birdcages4less.com/page/B/PROD/Specials/PA5665 it is right next to my computer desk so he can see me all the time. To clean this one, I just need to put him in any other cage available and suitable for him. You might think that’s a big cage for a little bird, but he is active and gets around through all of it over the course of a day. He used to get unlimited out time before Maynard came along. Maynard has attacked Jake the one time I wasn’t fast enough to stop Jake from coming back into the office. So now Jake never gets out time if Maynard is out. And if you had to choose between an Amazon screaming or a Lovebird screaming, which would you choose?

Beeby and Esme, a half-moon conure and a green cheek conure, have a cage exactly like the two the cockatiels are in. At one time, we did have the three cages tied together, but moving it to clean the floor was unbearably difficult. So we made changes. Because Beeby is so aggressive, it’s fun putting them into a different cage for the day while theirs is being cleaned. I have a spare parrot cage that I slide them into, a smaller one and not as easy to roll around. That’s probably why it’s not in continual use at this time.

Dani, the orange front conure, has a cage to herself due to her vulnerability and special needs. Again, I can’t find a similar cage to link to, and while I don’t claim to be a Google Search Diva, I would think I could have found it by now. The sun conures in the living room are in a very tall cage, similar to the cage Wraith is in, but taller. http://www.birdscomfort.com/tall_flight_bird_cage.html To clean Dani’s cage, she gets to sit in a carrier for a while, or on my lap. For Sunny and Zazu, they go into the same cage Beeby and Esme got to use.

Next Wednesday I’ll talk about the cages our larger parrots are in, and the outside cages. Have a great week!

Birds and Brains

You probably remember Alex, the Congo African Grey parrot that Doctor Irene Pepperberg worked with and had some amazing discoveries with. I strongly recommend the book, Alex and Me by Dr. Pepperberg.

When I opened my home to two special needs CAGs, I didn’t expect them to be geniuses. So it totally takes me by surprise when Bo Dangles, the toeless female, displays her amazing brain power. She arrived at our house with an impressive collection of words, and soon demonstrated she knew the meaning of many of them. Water, she would inquire when she heard the sink running. Apple? If she wanted that or Corn? This morphed into Corney for some reason.

Bo also knew to say “I’m sorry!” whenever she would bite or try to bite someone. When another bird flys past her cage, she asks, “You okay?” She also added to her words and her sounds on nearly a daily basis. She never stops learning. We don’t really know how old she is, but I believe she is less than 10 years old.

Maynard, on the other hand, is at least 25 years old. He’s a double yellow headed Amazon parrot, and talks even more than Bo. He says “Good Morning!” whenever he first sees you. He calls, “Come on!” when you walk away and he wants you to come back. He says, “Hello cracker?” when he wants what you are eating.

I read once that the biggest difference between Amazons and African Greys, as far as learning ability, is that greys will learn new things for the whole of their lives, where as Amazons rarely learn new things after a certain age.

Yet Maynard is learning. He stood off in the hallway tonight, by himself, saying, “Maaaay-neeeerrrrd.” He sounded like Mike trying to get the parrot to stop shouting. But he sounded like Maynard sounding like Mike, if that makes any sense. Bo sounds so much like me when she says “Honey!” that if I’m not in the room at the time, Mike thinks I am calling him. Hilarity sometimes ensues.

This Live Science article includes some facts about Alex and the fact that greys have the reasoning capabilities of 4 year old humans. Some people object to this comparison, because parrots are parrots, and will get no smarter as they grow. It’s dangerous to be too blasé about such statements. http://www.livescience.com/14708-parrots-logical-thinking.html

Animal News Network shares more recent research from Dr. Pepperberg, and the findings that parrots don’t seem to care much for computer images or television images or even sounds from any devices. They prefer their people or other birds live and immediate. http://animalnewsnetwork.org/avian/parrotintelligence.shtml

Due to Bo’s physical limitations, she’s only been exposed to the computer, and does not seem greatly excited by anything she has seen there. Maynard, however, will sit on the back of my chair while I watch a movie, and really gets excited when the characters shout or are angry and fighting. He laughs when they or we laugh, and he shouts when the music is dramatic. Occasionally he will perch quietly on the chair and focus on the tv screen.

Phys.org published this article in 2009 detailing research that shows a parrot that uses one foot or the other predominantly to grasp items has a higher intelligence than one that does not. http://phys.org/news171555203.html This doesn’t help me at all in determining the intelligence of a parrot with no toes, although she does seem to use her left leg more for holding on to the cage bars when she climbs around.

Wikipedia covers a lot of information on parrots in general, but under the heading “Behavior, Intelligence and Learning” we get to what I most wanted to discover. That parrot chicks need mental stimulation early on and continuously for there to be an intelligent brain to work with. Also interesting in the fact parrots use a different part of the brain for these functions than humans do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot

I can’t find any reference to the study on age playing an important part in what a parrot can learn, other than that stimulation early on is needed. But I do hope I might stumble across it again some day. Another possibility is that more research has been done in that area, and disproves those earlier findings. Instead, I am leaving you with this wonderful article in Scientific American, an interview with Dr. Pepperberg about Alex. Her stories about him often highlight his sense of humor. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bird-brains-parrots-smarter/

Have a great day, see you on Wednesday!

A Cage is Not a Home

Ideally, parrots and most birds belong in a wide, open space where they can forage for food, pick a mate, build a nest, and get on with the business of being birds. However, due to illness, predation, and poaching, many wild birds do not get to do wild things for very long. In that way, sometimes being in captivity is a better option than extinction.

The ideal cage for a parrot is roomy, not so full of toys that the bird can’t get around, and not in the middle of the busiest place in the house. Also ideally would be to have a sleep cage for the parrot, a play area for during the day, and a flight area of some sort.

Like the My Safe Bird Store web site says, Busy Minds makes Happy Birds! http://www.mysafebirdstore.com/TOYS_BY_SIZE_TYPE-FORAGING_TOYS.html But many of these plastic foraging toys look like the thing mommy put in my cage to kill me to Maynard. I like the paper and cardboard and paper bag things most.

Rarely do people understand completely the space needed for a large parrot. The bigger, the better. I wish I could turn the bedrooms in to aviaries, but the owners might not appreciate that. These are the best accommodations available for parrots, I think. http://www.cagesbydesign.com/t-suncatcherbird.aspx

KW Cages is local to me, and they have the supplies you may need to build your own cage or aviary. http://clover.forest.net/kwcages/index.html

After you get the biggest cage you can afford, and house, think about your maintenance schedule. How much time do you want to spend cleaning the thing? I know in an on-line sense a woman who let one of her finch cages go without cleaning, in the belief that birds suffer from their environment being too clean the same way humans do. No bacteria to fight off means weaker immune systems. I don’t line my cage bottoms with paper, because the birds just make a mess with it. I like to scrape the cage grates and bottoms weekly and about once a month wash it. Ideal for me would be to have duplicate cage parts so I can swap out the dirty ones and replace them immediately with clean. And then have few weeks to find the time to clean what I removed.

Perches for your parrot or any bird are so important, and not something many people understand. DO NOT USE those dowel perches that come with most cages. In the wild, birds perch and roost on branches of trees. Have you ever seen a dowel branch tree? No, because in the wild, trees have the nerve to grow branches that are not the same diameter from end to end, and there’s no smooth covering. Bird feet need the exercise and relief of gripping different size perches, and having a rough surface for traction. I absolutely love this blog because of the photos of the safe trees. http://www.birdtricks.com/blog/how-to-use-natural-tree-branches-in-your-birds-cage/

I came across this awesome cleaner while looking at various safe for birds things: https://www.odorandstainremover.com/store/product_b_cage.html If anyone has used it and would like to comment on it, please do so!

There’s a lot of information on this page, and great ideas, including turning a garage into an aviary, enclosing a patio to be an aviary, and a link to the Parrot Enrichment Activity book! http://www.parrots.org/index.php/forumsandexperts/answers/C9/

Well, it’s Wednesday, and I have meandered without making a real point, but hopefully you had fun and you learned something that will help your parrot companions in the end. See you on Sunday!

Nineteen Years

Early this month, my husband and I celebrated 19 wonderful years of living together. This is not to be confused with our wedding anniversary, which happened about two years later in June. The occasion marked in March is the night he moved in with me.

I mention Mike in most of my posts here, because he is my support and help in all things in my life. We traveled over some rough patches, but instead of shaking our relationship apart, we have grown stronger.

At the time we joined our households, I had two cockatiels and a pair of finches. I decided to rehome the finches, but we kept the tiels. Palafox and Paradise, a male normal gray and a female lutino, were not as happy to be together as Mike and I were. Paradise tried very dilligently to interest Palafox, but he would have none of it. He might not have known what he was, but he wasn’t whatever she was, and didn’t want to do those things she suggested.

I always felt a bit sad watching them in different parts of the same cage, pleasuring themselves alone when they could have made the same music together. Oh, well.

Mike evolved from reluctantly accompanying me and the kids to a bird club meeting to readily interacting with the various parrots and finches. He’s not a club kind of person, so that is now something I do on my own, but he still likes the flock. He monitors the water daily, feeds as needed, and cleans the cages weekly. Without this help, I could not keep my birds at this time.

I believe I mentioned before in this blog that our first sun conure, Zazu, came to my attention when his owner chose to give him away, and I made all the arrangement to travel north a bit and pick him up. We had him home less than an hour when he decided to attack me. Mike could hold him, get him to step up, and be a kissy bird, but I was a threat, an intruder, and not to be tolerated.

Over the years, Mike has been bitten by finches, canaries, parrotlets, budgies, cockatiels, conures, and once by an Congo African Grey. That was our Bo Dangles, who politely said she was sorry after she bit him. Of course, she had no toes so she couldn’t hold on when she lunged at him, and ended up falling a few feet. Maybe that was what she was really sorry about.

My darling husband has also been roped into loading and unloading cages of all shapes and sizes. I have a terrible tendency to insist some cage will fit, and when we had a minivan, I was pretty often right. But once we opted for two Toyota Matrixes . . . Matrices? Well, anyway, when we got two small cars, I often erred. This resulted in getting a great deal at a bird mart two hours north of home, and once we rolled it all the way out to the car, found it would not fit. And Mike didn’t have tools with him. He ended up dismantling the cage with a small screwdriver. And then some of the disassembled parts nearly didn’t fit. We still refer to that incident when I insist on being spacial.

Oh, and Mike never ever liked that cage, either. He was very pleased when we sold it.

I may have mentioned that he does woodworking and cage building for me. He created and added the sides and roof to the aviary, and when we added the outrigger cages, his term, he designed and built the cage supports and the enclosed areas. He’s had to add smaller wire around the bottom to keep baby button quail inside, been responsible for putting up and taking down nest boxes in there, and also does the nest checks when the cockatiels are breeding.
He comforts me when one of the birds dies, sometimes even when his own heart is bruised. His task is to build the fires where we send the small bodies off to their next stage. His task is to keep the birds hidden in the freezer when visitors come over.

I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with me and carrying on with all these chores. Some people think humans don’t mate for life, but I think it just takes the right pair of bonded people. Just like with birds, the bottom line is being happy enough to roost together at the end of the day.

Take care, see you on Wednesday!

All Flocked Up

My commute to and from work follows an east-west traffic corridor. I have noticed a pattern to the birds I see as I drive along. Of course, it varies by season and as the time of my commute changes.

First, you must know that I have been known to pay more attention to the birds at Disneyland than the attractions and shows there. I can’t help it. I am aided and abetted by my husband. He will interrupt terribly important gossip from my office involving people he will never meet to point out the hawks or egrets or any odd thing with wings as we drive along.

I get on the freeway right at the end or beginning of the modernized part. The ramp is metered, and on the lights at the top of the ramp, most mornings, I see a hawk or two. If I don’t see the hawks, I expect they are off catching breakfast.

As I leave the city I start in and enter the next one over, crows fly from the south hills to the north hills. When I get to the street my office is on, I see ducks, the occasional egret, seagulls, and crows. Several fast food places dot the streets here, and refuse is greedily sought by the last two types. There is a flood control channel where the ducks stop over and raise families, and the egrets look for anything living in the weeks and muck.

Nine hours later, I reverse my travel, making a slightly different route for my sanity. I once saw a vulture trying to feed on road kill in the streets I take home, and tried to get a photo of the creature with my phone, but had no luck. By the time I parked and got out, the poor thing had realized there were too many cars zipping past his meal, and he moved on. Such beautiful wings!

Heading home, there is one area where a huge flock of pigeons circles between a grassy field and the wires over the freeway. There are white lines, like shadows in reverse, on the road below them. One city over, near a church, there is another flock of pigeons, mostly white, and always in flight, circling over the road and then returning to the church. Great advertising!

One more city closer to home, and now the crows are wrapping up their murders and heading to their community roost. This is the point in my commute home where the traffic almost always stalls. The wide, black ribbon of birds heading purposefully across the sky mocks our lack of progress below. I love it.

Finally at home, I open my front door, and hear a high-pitched voice call, “MAMA!” I know my Amazon only wants to regurgitate on my feet, but at that moment, I am the happiest commuter ever.

I’ll be back on Sunday, have a great week.

In the Spring, A Young Bird’s Fancy Turns

To courting. Mating. Laying eggs, feeding the wife, then the kids, and finally kicking them out of the nest so the cycle can start all over again.

For Parrots who live with humans, this time can mean hormones rushing around and little voices whispering in the bird’s head. Voices that say, Attack your human to protect him or her. Tear up this thing for the nest. Find a dark hidey hole so you can lay eggs. And don’t eat that! Okay, this last one is always present, but needs to be stated.

The phrase Bird Brain is used incorrectly to mean a person who has very little use of their grey matter. But in reality, it should mean someone whose behavior changes with the seasons, is messy and loud, and thinks a bell is a wonderful toy. http://theworldofafricangreys.weebly.com/behavior–body-language.html And isn’t originally from around here.

The best way to encourage breeding behavior includes providing an abundance of food, at least 12 hours of light, water in bowls for bathing, and materials to tear up. My love birds like palm fronds. Then you see the head bobbing, the feeding of each other, and the wing and crest (if present) display. Some species involve a very attractive foot gesture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlelGSQCsns

When no parrot of the opposite sex is available, birds have no trouble substituting. Humans are a good choice to them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTwXwIPr550 but if you want to dodge that bullet, so to speak, here’s tips from a veterinarian on how to curb your bird’s desires. (Part 1, the other parts should be easy to find.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qRCOQFyXxk I can’t leave this subject without posting this wonderful, famous video of a male kakapo named Sirocco having his wicked way with the video camera man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS-H6dLlSDs Great commentary by Stephen Fry.

You have a sweet little parrot who overnight became a raging sex machine? Yeah, it happens. Here’s a good tip sheet on how to avoid that with your pet. http://www.tailfeathersnetwork.com/birdinformation/hormones.php And as everyone who reads this blog knows, my Amazon parrot Maynard is over-bonded with me. This link shares an important story about such situations, but I must point out that I disagree with the statements regarding owning parrots and hand-feeding them, to some extent. http://www.islandparrotsanctuary.com/over-bonding.php

Dr. Larry Lachman has good points here about not getting another bird to keep your parrot company. I just met someone who did this, and he is lucky that things are working out with his two birds. But parrots are different from cats or dogs, and won’t always enjoy being with another feathered friend. http://www.drlarrylachman.com/pets/bird-to-bird-fighting.php

I have entered as many different search phrases into Google that I can come up with, and have no information to point to regarding same sex bonding with parrots. I know cockatiels can develop this way. I had two bonded pairs of males. One of the elder males died, the remaining male of that pair started chasing a hen. I think she likes being the center of attention from two males. So outside of my own experience, I cannot relate any statistics on this situation.

Now, back to courting, what do parrots find sexy? Bright colors, intense fluorescence on feathers, talent in building a nest or courting ground, health to guarantee they can take care of a family. You know, just like when your kid gets married. A job, a car, and a house are important things for them to have or to be able to obtain. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/parrots-in-the-land-of-oz/what-do-parrots-find-sexy/709/

For love birds, according to National Geographic, courting and copulation go hand in hand. Er. Well, just watch the video. http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/lovebirds

Another important thing to know about parrots and courtship is that the birds can tell if the mate that attracts their eye is male or female. They may look exactly alike to us humans, but the extended range of parrots’ ability to see colors gives them the advantage in this. http://zoologica.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/the-behaviour-of-wild-amazon-parrots/

Whether we mean to or not, humans duplicate lots of the courting behaviors that signal interest in breeding to our parrots. Here is an awesome article that explains clearly what we do wrong, and why our parrots are completely confused by it. http://www.rationalparrot.com/tease.html

Parrots love to play footsie, while courting, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9s8tiYiEz0

Well, now that you and your flock are all wound up with what you are doing wrong and what it means when your parrot bites, here’s something relaxing. Eleven hours of natural rain forrest sounds. Most of these relaxing sound videos are of song birds and so on. This one has some parrot-like calls in it. Am I the only person who thinks parrot calls are nice to listen to? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IAfg_Iy7n8

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Greys in the Wild

African Grey Parrots aren’t the most colorful parrots in the world. You would think that might protect them from poachers and the pet trade, but due to their higher intelligence, they are in demand. I love this video because it has a natural sound track, and look at the greys’ coloration. The white around the eyes is distinctive, the flash of red tail immediately noticeable. There is no question on whether the bird is coming or going. Very important for the flock to know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnnOx178Z64

Here’s a real tear jerker, the return of greys to Uganda. Rescued from smugglers, who kept the birds in appalling conditions and caused the death of many of them, the birds were rehabilitated and released. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn18yxEWfhQ

Pretty much all the videos on wild greys look at the smugglers and illegal trade. So you may or may not learn anything new, but here’s a good video on the subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TewGxvKxQpw

ARKive deals more with wild behavior and again has no voice over for the video. http://www.arkive.org/african-grey-parrot/psittacus-erithacus/video-00.html

This video starts out blurred, but gets better. Just a normal morning in the jungle, time to get up and go look for food. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL1d9eXafKU

Not a wild baby, but pretty sure no one is bothering to video greys hatching.

Greys eat primarily palm nuts in the wild, and here’s footage, again from ARKive, of that activity.
http://www.arkive.org/african-grey-parrot/psittacus-erithacus/video-08.html

Just a collection of photos, really, but more greys released into the wild.

And if you have nothing much to do for a half hour or so, here’s part one of a series on Where The Wild Greys Are, produced by World Parrot Trust, so there’s lots more on the illegal pet trade.

Happy March, see you on Sunday!

The Bite Of Love

I have written before on bites from birds, looking at the problem from the point of view of not being able to read parrot body language. I posted that just a few weeks before Maynard came to live with us. I have learned more about bites since then.

I’m lucky that Maynard doesn’t bite me in a hurtful way. He loves to play with my fingers and my rings, hold my finger with his foot while he tries to get a ring off, and if we are sitting in my comfy chair, he will get in my lap and roll on his back while beaking my fingers.

However, if his arch enemy, also known as my husband Mike, should intrude on our festivities, I am in danger of a real bite. All in the name of love, you see. Maynard attacks Mike at every opportunity, going a bit nutty in the process. It’s every finger for itself then.

I occasionally take Maynard into the shower with me, which event he hasn’t quite decided to like or dislike. He bites the water, sings with me, always poops, and is happy to get out. Then he attacks the towel. I can get him on his back with caution so the bath mat absorbs some of the water from his feathers, but eventually I need to take him to the other bathroom so I can blow dry him. Yes, I never thought I would be blow drying parrots, but I admit I have. I tried towel drying Maynard once. Once. That was a bite I didn’t expect.

Maynard’s eyes are always pinning. You know, the pupil contracts suddenly. With him, it’s not such a sign that he is going to bite. Often it just means he is interested in what he is seeing.

Petfinders has a great article on general bird biting behavior. http://www.petfinder.com/pet-care/bird-care/bird-bite/ and especially address Amazons as having an overload behavior. Guess I should have read that before bringing the big green boy home.

The Parrothouse has a great list of Dos and Don’ts with biting birds, very informative. http://www.parrothouse.com/jh1.html I like the term, recreational biters. That would be my love bird Jake, who bites out of excitement and joy, as well as to get me to put him back in his cage when he wants a drink of water. He’s perfectly capable of going there himself, but it’s more fun to bite mom.

Cockatiels are tiny parrots, but their bites can hurt worse than some of the big birds. Luckily they have very clear signs that they are about to rend your flesh. Unfortunately, if you have to pick one up to prevent it being in a dangerous place, you have to ignore the signs. Cockatiel Cottage is a fun blog and site for great information on these little Australian immigrants. And as if there weren’t enough clues about birds descending from dinosaurs, they will hiss and sway from side to side to warn you off. http://www.cockatielcottage.net/bite.html

This cute video shows bonding with parakeets, or budgies as I call them. Great information, but they describe budgie bites as wimpy. Well, unless you get a female who is defending a nest. She will latch on and not let go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3d8tRCcjH8

A side note, I found this cute video of a less than a year old budgie named Mango, and hope you like it as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQd_GIX_Vhc

I post the link to this site with some trepidation. The author explains pretty clearly why some people dislike the word Fid (furred or feathered kid) to talk about any pet. We should not treat our companion animals like people. We are different. But he gives an opinion on Dr. Irene Pepperberg’s work with the African Grey Alex, and I don’t exactly agree with that. Still, there is great information here. http://www.2ndchance.info/tameparrot.htm

I will leave you with this presentation by Steve Martin, not the comedian, actor, and musician, but an animal behaviorist who I have had the pleasure of watching at the former Wild Animal Park, now named the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. He talks here about people who don’t do their research before getting a companion bird, and why sanctuaries are growing everywhere, and are so important. http://www.naturalencounters.com/images/Publications&Presentations/Understanding_Parrot_Behavior_Naturally-Steve_Martin.pdf

Hug your parrots, and I will see you on Wednesday!