Photo by Dave
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Shown: Galah “Bandit”

Whenever I go out of town and leave my birds behind, I always make sure they are housed in their own cage. I would hate for a fluke accident to happen and my birds to get in a fight that someone can’t break up, resulting in serious injury.

Even when birds get along really well, they all have fights. That’s why I’m writing this post because I feel it’s important that if you have multiple birds, you have multiple cages. My macaws, for example, shared an aviary most of the time when they were really young but any chance I got I would give them their own aviary, too. Then when they’d come back to share one they’d be happy to see one another. But as they have gotten older they’ve required more space away from one another. Which has made me realize the importance of having a cage for each bird. I even like to have an EXTRA cage “just in case” which has actually come in handy more times than I ever thought it would.

So for the safety and betterment of your birds, make sure you not only have enough cages to house your birds separately if needed but also keep an extra one on hand, too.

Filed under: Galahs, Housing ]]> http://jamiesparrothelp.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/how-many-cages-do-i-need/feed/ 0 Jamieleigh http://jamiesparrothelp.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/spotting-inappropriate-parrot-body-language/ http://jamiesparrothelp.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/spotting-inappropriate-parrot-body-language/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:11:21 +0000 Jamieleigh http://jamiesparrothelp.wordpress.com/?p=2238 ]]> My related blog posts:

• Parrot Body Language Tips and Signs
• Parrot Body Language Visuals
• The how to’s of body language in parrots

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Shown: Congo African Grey “Cressi”

Cressi is known for showing inappropriate body language of becoming horny and hormonal and, and, and! However, in this picture she is NOT showing any type of mating behavior, she is actually showing that she’s NOT happy with what one of my other birds is up to (namely Bandit) and is about to go over and show him exactly how she feels about him.

I know this by her body being puffed a bit out, the lower feathers being raised and the slight raise of her neck and very tip head feathers. They are all in a way to make her a bit bigger, and some feathers that are slanted mean business.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Shown: Camelot macaws “Tusa” & “Comet”

Tusa is the innocent by-standard in this photo. Although they may look all cute and snuggly, Comet is actually… there’s just no other way to say this… rubbing his butt on Tusa. His position is in the “about to do it” phase and this is very hormonal behavior.

It will be more obvious when you see the next image, obviously showing bonding during the whole thing.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Pictured: Camelot macaws “Tusa” & “Comet”

Obviously these two brothers love one another. We don’t make them stop doing this when they do it, as it doesn’t last long and it’s natural and doesn’t lead to any sort of aggression with us or each other, but it’s just another sign that they’re getting close and is often before or after inappropriate behavior of butt-pushing on one another.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Waynesboro, VA
In photo: Camelot macaw “Tusa” & “Comet”

In this photo Comet is showing significantly inappropriate behavior. He always puts his foot in front of Tusa, or Jinx in some cases, in order to get in the right position to do his very inappropriate behavior. This is something I always look for, “the foot in front” because I know it’s only a matter of seconds at that point, if not one second.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Waynesboro, VA
Shown: Camelot macaws “Tusa” & “Comet”

This is the worst one yet. This is the photo that really shows the most inappropriate behavior your macaw can be doing! Bad, bad, bad. Don’t encourage it on you, don’t encourage it on other birds. When you sexually frustrate your bird you basically piss it off, just like when it happens with humans or any other animal. No one likes that so it’s best to distract your bird with something else and never put it in the position to be able to do so as well as familiarize yourself with the signs that it’s about to happen so you can avoid it altogether.

However, if I offer for my macaws to step back rather than step up, they will 10 out of 10 times do it.

Maybe it’s less invasive of their space, maybe they feel less challenged, maybe it’s something else entirely… I’m not much of a “why” person if you haven’t gathered that yet, and so I gladly take it as it is. I try not to over-use it but if I need to wake my birds up in the middle of the night in the aviaries to get them inside before it gets too cold, this is the method I use. The step back instead of the step up.

Photo by Dave
Location: Orlando, FL
Drinking: Hyacinth Macaw “Hymie”

I was recently partaking in a game night at my neighbors house when the topic of water came up. My neighbors Dash and Nancy have been going to school for engineering at the university here and Nancy hates the sink water. “I can SMELL it!” she has always said which is the same thing Dave has always said about the water too.

Because of this and their constant buying of bottled water, Nancy decided to take some of the water into her school to a lab to have it tested. She did and TONS of metals were found in the water. “It was disgusting what was in the water.” she told me. Although we didn’t get into huge details, Dave and I looked at one another concerned for our birds. That night I looked up reverse osmosis filtration systems, for under $200 on Amazon.

Another precaution you can take is having your local water supplier test your water. Just call them to come out and test it and they will do it for free. Whoever you pay your water bill to will be the ones you call.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Pictured: Channel bill toucans

I’d been working out dates to come out and visit Emerald Forest for months and was so nervous something would happen to make it fall through. I was communicating back and forth with Jerry about the visit as well as my constant toucan-impulse questions that arise for sure reason of living with a toucan.

My main reasons for wanting to go out to Emerald Forest were:

1. To see Meaka, a Swainson toucan previously named Skittles sold to us years and years ago that we sold to EF for their breeding program (unfortunately the large toucans haven’t been breeding in captivity for about 2 years… they are very hard to breed in captivity)
2. To see Crash, our military macaw, whom we donated to EF knowing he’d be provided a good home to someone who knew how to properly care for him (he’s not being used for breeding but does live with the other macaws in his own aviary there)
3. Who doesn’t want to see more toucans and aracaris?!
4. To pick Jerry’s brain on toucans, whose better brain to have the opportunity to pick when it comes to ultimate knowledge on toucans!

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Silver cheek hornbill aviary

I saw much much more than I ever expected. As we drove up the properly to EF, peacocks lined the drive flying and running. They were magnificent and it reminded me of David Copperfield’s island with his one male peacock that used to lay on the drive to the house he’d stay out on, on the island of Musha Cay.

As we drove further up the drive we waited by Jerry’s house on the properly and heard a knock… knock… knock…

We looked around, puzzled. Knock… knock…

Photo by Dave
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Shown: Green Aracari

My parents were there with Dave and I and we were all looking around in every direction. Was it the peacock on the roof? Knock… knock… knock…

It was a bare eyed cockatoo inside Jerry’s house, free flighted and knocking on the window at us. We all started laughing and waving. Then Jerry pulled up and we all introduced ourselves. “Let’s start with the nursery!” he said. I hadn’t even though of EF having its own nursery though now it made sense. We walked into the building that was the nursery and saw all the new baby birds among one free flighted keel-billed toucan who was out and doing what he/she wanted. All the birds were stunning and we learned all about the babies from Jerry.

Photo by Dave
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch

Next, he took us to the aviaries all along the zillion-acre property (or so it felt!) with toucans on one side of the ranch and the macaws and parrots on the other. The aviaries were my favorite to see and the perfect use of space around the ranch. In California there’s rolling hillsides and Jerry had used his space perfectly. We had a pond in the front, and a stream that ran through the ranch with various self-made gardens of fresh foods and his employees living on site so someone was always around for the animals’ needs. We saw 2 of the 3 wells on the property with fresh water and and sprinkler system, and misting system for all the aviaries for the warmer days.

Photo by Dave
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Shown: Military macaw “Crash”

We walked through the aracari aviaries, the macaws, the cockatoos… all the flight aviaries with branches taken from the ranch and empty boxes and home made enrichment opportunities given to the birds to use to play with. I couldn’t imagine buying regular parrot toys for all the birds (the expense alone!) but seeing them make use of what they used on a daily basis anyway was great. A cardboard box goes a long way for a macaw! They love anything they can destroy.

We walked past some military macaws together and thought maybe one was Crash… but we had a hard time seeing because of the over-growth of trees and plants which provided many of the enclosures with a natural source of shade and play.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Shown: Military macaw “Crash”

We kept going until we came across some more macaws. “Actually I think the guy you sent me is that one there.” said Jerry pointing to a military macaw next to a couple of red macaws. Dave and I ran up the path and both said, “Crash?” and down came the military macaw right to us and began mimicking us. We saw his one missing toe and knew it was him. He blushed so red and got very excited to see us. The only thing was, when we walked away… he didn’t scream. Dave and I looked at one another and laughed, both realizing at the same time he wasn’t upset we were walking away without him. It made us both happy to know he’s happy. He’s at a place he can just be a bird – which is exactly what he needed. He loves to socialize from a distance with the others around him, yet have his space, and he needs to be outdoors with enrichment opportunities. We didn’t know of a single person-home that could provide what he needed for him, and understand him the way he needed to be understood, but EF is able.

Photo by Dave
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Shown: Peacocks

As we continued on our tour we went through the toucan aviaries… they were HUGE!! I mean, I thought the others were big, but these were 2-3 of those put together and the toucans flew loops inside of them.

I have to say after the tour I felt like my 6-foot diameter aviaries were NOTHING! And it all inspired me to want to build my own GIANT aviaries for my birds on my own land in the future. Obviously I still love what I’ve got, and it’s the best I can provide for what space I have in my Florida backyard. But my next ones on my own land will be self-build and huge like the ones I saw at EF. They’ve inspired me to do better by my birds in the future.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Shown: Keel billed toucan

Seeing the large toucans was fantastic and Meaka was there looking beautiful as ever, paired up with a mate. Hopefully she will help keep the population alive in captivity in the years to come, in the meantime it’s heartwarming to see her enjoying life.

Lastly, on our way out Jerry showed us the building that was his hospital. Again, something I didn’t think of or expect and I was so impressed. In the room before the hospital was a storage room for pellets and other foods for the birds in weeks to come.

Photo by Dave
Location: Emerald Forest Bird Ranch
Aracari aviary

There’s always something to learn from seeing how someone else does it.

Thanks again, Jerry, for a wonderful experience and offering a wonderful place for birds to be birds, including ours; Meaka and Crash.

To plan your visit, visit Emerald Forest Birds and book your tour for $35/person.

Photo by Dave
Location: Orlando, FL
With their stockings: Galahs “Bandit” & “Bondi”

Dave and I got married in July 2004 and immediately left for Japan followed by a tour of Oregon state. In entertainment, you never get the holidays off because that’s when people want to be the most entertained. We have performed every Christmas since being married, and have always been away from family unless they were willing to make the trek out to see us perform a show.

I recall countless holidays spent on cruise ships with strangers (though once Dave’s mom made it out to see us and brought a mini-Christmas tree with her that fit in our stateroom!) another we performed on the island of Saipan and had Christmas after our shows that night because it was the same time as Christmas morning back home.

One Christmas during our tour of the northwest we made the drive to my parents’ house in Idaho with all our birds and celebrated with them – I remember making waldorf salad with Comet, my camelot macaw, and taking pictures of the birds while they were still hand feeding in front of the tree.

Sometimes we celebrated later with family than the actual day, but we always had our birds with us no matter where we were. This is our very first Christmas parrot-less. We’re not used to it. We keep thinking that Christmas morning is going to come along and the birds will wake up and be disappointed. When really it will be just another day to them, and we’ll be the ones sad not to be using their extra “help” to open our own presents.

Our Christmas in Saipan was spent using the wrapping paper to cover Bondi as she walked around shredding ribbons and tags and finding her way out of the paper by biting holes through it and peeking out while Ninja would “hunt” her, trying to figure out which wiggling piece of paper contained the feathers inside. (Ninja is our cat that was raised with all our birds)

I even remember surprising Bondi (our female rose breasted cockatoo) with a Rudolph pinata which she HATED for Christmas. A few years later I got a giant pinata that she could care less about, big let down.

Anyway, we decided this year that since we missed my grandma’s 80th birthday bash which everyone made it to but Dave and me (we were performing with the circus in which no one could replace our roles since they were designed around us) we decided to give her Christmas in California.

You see, ALL my family except for my parents live in California and they’ve always been begging us to come celebrate Christmas with them there, and we’ve never NOT been performing so this year we promised we would take the time off (Disney tried to get us to take a paid performing cruise instead but we resisted!) and so here we are… parrot-less in California.

But it won’t be the first time we celebrate on a different day! We celebrated early with our birds this year preparing for the Christmas promo we had – I created 3 original recipes for them to devour and we took Christmas themed pictures with them as well, put up the tree and had our own mini-Christmas in November.

Photo by Dave
Location: Moab, UT
On my shoulder: Blue throated macaw “Jinx”

So, I’m going around with my husband Dave in January and doing “at home” consults with him for needy bird owners. And today I was going through the many emails we received about people begging us to come to their home and help them with their parrot problems… trying to pick the lucky 10-12 people that we could go see in person.

I read some pretty horrible situations and I’m reading over the emails many times over before picking out the perfect candidates. It inspired this blog post.

By the way, if you want an in home consult, check out this link.

Onto the basics of living your life with the company of a parrot, or two. Or three, or more.

BASIC RULE #1 OF LIVING WITH A PARROT: Don’t boss your bird around. 

Step up. Step down. NO! Don’t do that! Ouch! Go back to your cage! Don’t touch that! You can’t eat that! I can’t believe you destroyed that! Get off! Get down! Shut up! Stop screaming! Don’t bite! That hurts, don’t be like that! I’m putting you away! You’re going in time out! You’re going back in your cage for that! Come back here! Get out of there! STOP!

Do you talk to your spouse that way? Your best friend? Would you want someone talking to YOU that way?

I get that a bird is an animal, and it doesn’t speak English like you or me so communication can be hard. But just because you are a human and the bird is an animal doesn’t mean that you have to control everything the animal does. Most people take control of their birds by clipping their wings – you’ve already stolen enough by doing that, that you should be understanding when your bird is frustrated about not being able to do things for itself. Think about if someone made your mobility 10x harder than it is right now, wouldn’t you think “Eh, why bother? Too much work.”

Demanding or commanding your bird to do things on a daily basis is just annoying. I would get mad at someone doing that to me all day, and if the only way for the person to get the point that I was mad was to bite them, well, I’d do it to get MY point across, wouldn’t you?

Think about everything you ask your bird as a question, or request. Think about performing tricks as ‘cues’ rather than demands. Think about ‘step up’ as a QUESTION, not an ORDER. “Would you like to step up? Would you like to spend time with me?” rather than, “STEP UP. Come here! Get over here. Step up!” we hear it in marriage and relationship books all the time… the more you nag the man, the less he will want to do with you. The more you respect him and give him the option, the more likely he is to come to you and want to do anything he can for you because you’re now making yourself deserving.

BASIC RULE #2 OF LIVING WITH A PARROT: Punishment is useless.

Time out and spankings might have worked on your kids in some way or another but they WILL NOT work on your parrot. If you stand up to your bird by hitting it back when it bites you, smacking its beak, or putting it back in its cage for “time out” after he has been bad… you got it all wrong and are damaging your relationship with your parrot.

It is natural for us to get hurt and react, and I’ve heard from a lot of guilty faced bird owners that they hit their bird in reaction to being bitten but if you’re actually using that method to stop biting, screaming, lunging, or any other unwanted behaviors… you are making things MUCH worse for yourself and your bird.

Even though your bird can inflict enormous amounts of pressure (equalling pain) you have to remember it’s MUCH smaller than you and over all, you are the one that can do more damage. Even in my case – 300 grams vs. 110 lbs? Not fair. You don’t FIGHT with your parrot. Not physically anyway, and not in a screaming fit either.

Parrots don’t understand punishment. When it bites you and you yell at it, that’s exciting. When it bites you and you put it back in its cage, that might just be what it wanted. When it bites you and you hit it back or spray it in the face, it either wants to take you on 10x more now, or does not understand why bath time has because so un-fun. You develop phobias in your parrot, aggression tendencies, reactionary behaviors and unpredictability.

Think about how every interaction with your bird can be something positive, vs negative even if it has to be a shorter amount of time. If your bird is biting you after a few minutes of scratching the back of its neck, scratch for shorter amounts of time more often. Learn your birds limits and don’t push past them so far.

BASIC TIP #3 OF LIVING WITH A PARROT: It’s not the bird’s fault. 

I’m not saying it’s your fault either but don’t blame the bird for everything. The bird is just doing that which is instinctive. What are YOU doing? Are you reacting emotionally? Think it through.

If you know me, you know I truly don’t believe in clipping a bird’s wings and I feel that wing clipping leads to a ton of behavioral problems. When you take away flight, you get a lot of other behaviors that are compensating for the bird not being able to get away. I’d much rather work with a fearful bird which whom you can build confidence, than a pissed off bird who just wants to get at you any way possible. Being able to fly builds confidence in a scared bird, while it feeds aggression to a mean bird who will the use it to fly after you and attack. But if your bird is clipped already, you can work through the issues while it’s clipped until the feathers come back in… do you know how long that even takes? In macaws it can take 6 months or even longer! It’s a long process to get those feathers back which gives you plenty of time to work on the relationship side of things while it’s happening.

Your bird needs to have a way to communicate with you. If you think your bird is randomly biting you without warning, you are missing the warnings. In some species they can be harder to read than others, but it’s always possible.

BASIC RULE #4 OF LIVING WITH A PARROT: Never use positive things in your bird’s environment as negative.

What I mean by this rule is if your bird enjoys bathing with a spray bottle, don’t use that same spray bottle to shut him up when he goes into a screaming fit.

If your bird loves new toys but is nervous about one at first, don’t use it to scare your bird into stepping onto your hand.

If your bird loves one person in the house, don’t use that person to the point of the bird not trusting them for what could be seen as negative situations for your bird like always putting it away or taking things away it wants or has. Everyone in the house should be taking the bird out, putting the bird back and feeding and caring and loving on the bird to keep a 60-40 balance.

BASIC RULE #5 OF LIVING WITH A PARROT: Always seek help, admit your mistakes and help others without judgement. 

Be open to help, influence, guidance. Don’t believe everything you read online, sometimes it isn’t updated. I probably have posts on this blog that I should update as I put out newer and newer opinions I have gathered. Take everything in and use what your gut and feelings tell you to use for your situation. Everyones situation is different, one thing won’t work for everyone.

Don’t be afraid to say you need help, to admit what you’ve done to get you to the situation where you do need help and to take it and offer help to others based on what you’ve learned from. Just like you don’t want someone jumping down your throat and making you feel worse than you already do for your mistakes, don’t make someone else feel bad or stupid for the mistakes they have made or are currently unaware that they are making.

For advice from other bird lovers, check out the BirdTricks facebook. I am constantly on there replying to fellow bird owners and lovers, and working hard to keep it judgement free.

Photo by Dave
Location: Sedona, AZ
Freeflying: Blue throat macaw “Jinx”

When we moved from Saipan to our house here in Florida all we cared about was space for our birds. Our house has a bird room that is 200 square feet and tile floor, and room for 3 6-foot diameter aviaries outside in our backyard. We back up to 100 wooded acres of nothing-ness with neighbors on either side of our fence. We kind of didn’t think about the whole “having neighbors” thing as our flock began to grow…

As all parrots do, ours would make noise as the sun came up and as it went down. We would often feel guilty about this knowing that many people around us were attending classes and studying, only to sleep in whenever they possibly could and we were sure our birds were hindering that ability.

As it turns out, all our neighbors love our birds and love the natural noises coming from the backyard (and unnatural ones too!) and luckily master bedrooms are on opposite sides so they really hardly ever hear a thing unless a stranger cat hops the fence and the birds want you to know about it.

However, this didn’t stop me from getting clever on how to naturally quiet down our flock.

I began learning their behaviors at night, since in the morning they were alright but compared to the night time they would get really loud as the sun went down. I began to think about what I could do to prevent the screaming. I didn’t want to have to be out there training them or working with them because it’s a terrible time to train (just before bed, bad idea! All they care about is roosting.)

But I had to think of something, an incompatible behavior – something they couldn’t possibly do at the same time as scream that I could occupy them with. So I thought… eat! They can’t eat and scream at the same time, right?

That’s when I started serving them dinner and in the time it would take them to eat, it would be dark and there was no longer any sun to holler goodnight to. Ta-da! Tricked!

I was rather proud of myself tonight actually for remembering to do so. I don’t like to have a “routine” with my parrots because then they can get pissed off if you don’t always follow it. If there’s no routine to follow, there’s no reason to get mad at me for not following one, right? So between certain times at night is when I try to feed my birds, tonight it was just pellets, and sometimes I will even toss them on the ground of their aviaries to make them work just a little harder and also so that they miss the sun going down as it goes down behind the fence and once they’ve looked up – it’s gone. No time to have the last word!

Just another reason it’s a good idea to have an outdoor aviary for your pet parrots! I get mine from www.CagesbyDesign.com.

Photo by Pet Pawtery
Of: Galah “Bandit”

I was recently super pleasantly surprised to see Pet Pawtery hand painting bowls after my very own flock members. I was so flattered and so excited. I feel like a girl at Christmas… (wait a minute…!)

Photo by Pet Pawtery
Of: Congo African grey “Cressi”

Not only does Pet Pawtery share the latest updates publicly so I get to see each bowl, each hand painted outline and coloration and each final glazed product… but she’s constantly giving away free bowls to people as she continues to get more likes! I have loved hearing what other types of birds people want to see her paint, and she even lets them tell her which one of my flock members to paint next which everyone throws an opinion out on. It has made it even more interactive and fun to see them as they progress.

Photo by Pet Pawtery
Of: Toco toucan “Rocko”

So if you’re looking for an awesome serving dish for your bird, or maybe a unique bathing bowl… or maybe you plan to keep it for yourself? Or even as a gift for a fellow bird lover and friend… I highly recommend heading over to Pet Pawtery and seeing what she can paint for you!

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Orlando, FL
Movie date with: Congo African Grey “Cressi”

Somehow the other day the subject of having a movie night with your parrot came up between Patty and I and we looked at each other with the expression of, Hey, why NOT have a movie night with your parrot? Everyone should try it! 

So here I am writing about it.

I’m sure plenty of people bring their bird out to train or for play time, but how many of us attempt to “relax” with our birds around? Did you know if you chill out, it’s likely your bird will too?

Dave and I always laugh because we… errr… okay, I, always take them out to play and we play HARD and since our birds are fully flighted they end up flying all over the house and landing back in the den, out of breath with their crests up, exhausted and happy. After that, they’re happy to just hang out, lay low and relax with us over a movie. They’ll likely start relaxing in their own space as you see Cressi doing in the picture with Dave… she started preening while he was watching a show.

Most of the times our birds are mirrors. If you are excited, they are excited. If you are sad, they are sympathetic and if you are pissed well, they are quite pissy too. But if you really sit down and take the time to relax and show them what it’s all about – you might just be surprised how quickly they too relax and find comfort in the time spent with no expectations.

So make it a date with your bird; a movie night.