Thursday, June 30, 2011

Flighted Parrots/ Not Clipping Wings




I was recently asked by someone who is wanting a parrot that can fly if I ever have any trouble with my birds flying into things and getting into trouble. This was my response....

Hi there,
We haven't really had many problems with having flighted parrots. Though, you wont want to run the ceiling fan when your bird is out of its cage and occasionally when I need them to go back into their cage they will fly up to our ceiling fan where I cannot reach them because they want to stay out longer. Usually, they go back into their cage really easy when I give them peanuts and treats, but if I give them lots of treats when they are out with me then they are less motivated to go back into their cage.
One important thing you will want to teach your bird right away is to fly to you. Pretty much you just call for it to come and give it a treat when it does. So if it were ever to fly up in a tree or something, you should easily be able to call for it and it come back to you. My birds can go outside with me and not fly away, if they get spooked or scared they try to go under my hair or down my shirt. However, I don't recommend taking your bird outside without lots of training inside 1st and even after training it would be a big risk. A great place to fly your bird might be a church gym, big building, or just at your house. So your bird is safe from hawks and other outside hazards.
I have never had problems with them flying into windows or toilets or boiling pots on the stove, nothing like that. I took my birds to the windows when they were younger and let them tap on it with their beaks and see that they can't go through it, and I even taught my female about the stove being hot by heating it up (not hot enough to burn) and having her feel it. But you might want to use more caution than I did with stove stuff and just keep your bird away from a hot stove when its out of its cage. And make sure to always keep an eye on it when it is out of its cage. Sometimes my birds escape out of their cage, but they always find me wherever I am in the house. The link at the bottom has some good info-
The 5th article down deals with flighted parrots. A great thing about flighted parrots is that you can potty train them to fly to their cage to go potty. yay :) enjoy

http://theparrotuniversity.com/articles.php



Sunkiss and Pyro below

Friday, June 3, 2011

How to tell if your bird is going to lay an egg :) ?

Sunkiss below is a single factor, red factor sun conure and she is about to lay an egg!

Notice the big round egg looking bottom of the bird, and the wings are held slightly down. Sunkiss always holds her wings lower when she is about to lay, maybe its the discomfort of having such a large egg in a small space.

(Here is a tip video on how to get your parrot to stop biting for anyone who is struggling. Its not my video, but I occasionally get asked about the subject. So here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbXHrqqEIp4 )