What you actually need to know about parrot ownership.
As a first-time bird owner, I found many online parrot training guides to be… rather vague. It was hard to figure out how to create a tangible training process for my parrots out of abstract ideas.
Fortunately, I had a ton of guidance from the bird rescue where I used to volunteer, and now several years of the hands-on experience of rescuing five different parrots from varying walks of life.
Thus, I’ve created a list of suggested milestones for training parrots who are hand-shy to step up.
Do you? Do you really? They are unpredictable; they bite often, and bite hard. They are far, far from kid-friendly. So let’s face it; most birds, were they dogs, would be put down. Louie’s grandfather (or at least great-grandfather) likely flew the canopies of the Solomon Islands. And Ozone’s father is probably still terrorizing some…
Naturally, my status of ‘crazy bird lady’ meant that I just had to find the wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill on a recent impromptu trip to San Francisco. Here’s how I did it.
Oh, the holidays–friendship, cheer, the season of giving… What more could a bird want than a bit of pizza crust? Unfortunately, Louie acquired a mild case of toe-tapping to go with it. đŚ This performance brought to you by pizza: I gave Louie a tiny bit of pizza crust (standard practice when we feel like spoiling…
Is he sick? Does he have scabies? Is he dying?!! No, no, and no. Mr. Lou is going through the most intense mojo moult of his life right now, coupled also with a hard moult. He has to be beyond uncomfortable, but he’s still our cheerful little Lou! Our handsome boy is not so handsome. Warning:…
Louie met one of his kin today at the bird shop, a Red-Sided little dude who, at four months old (and still growing!), is the same size as Solomon Island Louie. Actually, junior might be a little bigger. That’s the closest I’ve ever seen a bird come to an existential crisis. Louie’s eyes got HUGE, he…
Decided to update Winston’s cage from the janky, rickety red one that always falls apart to a swankier blue one (this involved purchasing it from a neighbor on the other end of the development and carrying it waiter-style on my shoulder ALLLLLL the way back to my house, thus solidifying my position as the resident…
Can’t blame him. 140 graded essays and three hours of tech support later, I’ve barely glanced at the dude. Doesn’t help I didn’t get home until seven thirty last night due to late field trip busses… X.x This is the busiest week of my entire life, but I am so happy. đ So many golden…
…And then keep going until you match your initial definition! Hit a bit of a road block with Vi (extremely limited progress…) until today. I was headed to my local bird shop (Busy Beaks Bird Shop if you’re interested–I volunteer for them by maintaining their website) and decided to see if I could coax her into…
Trying to decide if Dr. Stanley’s placement of the bird on my head says something about my hair perhaps resembling a nest of some sort… Whatever, it was taken after a long day of teaching.=)
