Sunkiss and Pyro this week flying around

my pretty birds

Sunkiss celebrated her 2nd Birthday July 24th

Happy Birthday Sunkiss!

Father's Day Special

Happy Father's day to all! I'm dedicating this post to my wonderful husband, who is a great Bird Dad. I Love You Honey!
You know you've found a wonderful man when he can be biten, pooped on, and still marry you - and love both you and the birds. I'm so thankful and blessed to have Aaron in my life to help me through all the challenges and adventures life brings. He's my best friend, soul mate, and Love of my life. I enjoy growing closer to him each and every day. I am so proud of him for all of the work that he does everyday. His disign work that is out of this world (http://www.vancegraphics.com/ ), his compasion for his work at the children's special needs facility, and especially for his Spanish preaching :) . His passion to tell others about Jesus Christ is so sexy (am I able to say that on here? since I'm married to him it should be alright). I'm just so thankful that he is mine, my one and only forever!



Happy Father's Day to the Dad that I grew up relying on more and more, God. I didn't have much of an earthly father when I was young, (...I guess I should send my mother a father's day card too, lol), but the Lord God our creator took care of me. I relized that I wasn't perfect and made lots of mistakes when I was around four years old. I understood that I had sinned and needed to ask God for forgiveness of my sins in order to go to Heaven when I died. I knew that Jesus died on the cross and rose again 3 days later and his blood covered my sins. So, I asked Jesus to save my soul and be my Lord. Since then He has been my great help and guide throughout my life. Thank you Lord for being with me always, Happy Father's Day! I Love YOU

More Bird Talk:

The 1st egg should hatch on father's day or the next couple days after. We really can't wait for them to come, I can here Pyro now still celebrating over the eggs (ha, he's screaming his head off). We still have 3 eggs, and they are doing fine. I did not candle them to see if they were fertile, I thought it could benefit my patience skills if I waited- ha, not really- I just didn't want to touch the eggs or bother Sunkiss and Pyro.

WARNING 'Doubles' -- Up Date

Pyro,

To the right, is standing guard at the entrance of the nestbox where Sunkiss is incubating their 3 eggs. He is still quite friendly and nice as long as Sunkiss is in the box, when she comes out he becomes very protective of her. He spends much of the day taking food into her while she's in the box making little whimpers :). Their 1st egg should hatch on Father's Day, how exciting!

As for the WARNING*CAUTION

-Single Factor sun conures crossed with Single Factor sun conures have the ability to produce Double Factor sun conures. These Double Factor Sun Conures have a reddish-bronze color covering much of their bodies. Cool right? Not exactly quite yet, it has been discovered that Double Factor babies do not live much past weaning, just several weeks old they die without a known cause. Necropsies have been done on such babies, but all they could come up with is that it is a cumulative gene, possibly too many red factors breeding. Currently we are trying to find the root cause and possibly a solution that could help save these babies.

The chance of a Single Factor sun conure pair producing a Double Factor sun conure is 1 out 4 chicks.

Please think about it before trying to breed two Single Factor sun conures.

Red Factor Sun Conure Eggs

Sunkiss and Pyro are up to 3 eggs!

The 1st egg was laid May 28, 2nd egg May 31, and the 3rd egg June 3rd.

Sunkiss eating like she's starving

SUN CONURE BREEDING

Single Factor (red factor) Sun Conures expecting parents (Sunkiss behind Pyro in pict)

Proud soon to be parents :) Sunkiss and Pyro have their 1st egg as of yesterday morning! Thursday May 28 :) whoohoo

Sunkiss' bottom is still bulging so we are expecting another egg real soon. First egg should hatch June 22-24

The day before she laid her egg

As both parents being Single Factor sun conures they have the ability to produce a Double Factor sun conure which has red covering about all of its body. One out of four babies should display this color mutation (25%).

Currently feeding my breeding pair: leafy greens, steamed vegetables- corn, peas, grean beans, carrots, roudybush pellets, grapes, blue berries, apples, bananas, boiled eggs mashed, beans, rainbow pasta, and quiko egg food(in separate treat dish- don't seem to be eating it)

>plenty of fresh water, vitamin block, two cuttle bones, added calcium vitamin to their water

My pair are using a stainless steal boot box, with aspen pine shavings as bedding in their nest box.

Potty Training Parrots

Sunkiss' good potty training example,

Ask if you have any specific questions :)

Few Training Tips

1. Start in the morning, before your parrot has done its 'big' potty

2. Take your parrot to the desired location you want in to go potty

3. Tell your parrot to 'go potty' or 'tinkle' or whatever command you want your bird to go potty to, I use the made up word 'brons'

4. It shouldn't take your bird very long to go potty so keep your bird there until it goes

5. Praise your bird tons, make it feel like he/she has done the best thing in the world!

6. Repeat this every morning, and when you have it out of the cage try to take it to the potty location every 15 minutes or so... or just watch for it to do its potty dance and take it to the desired location. If you pay close attention you will soon be able to recognize when your parrot is ready to go, and if you notice fast enough you can hold your birds tail down and take it to the potty location before it goes and repeat steps 2-5

have fun, your bird should get some grasp on this within 72 hours or less, and become a pro in a couple weeks.

My girl flies to her potty location when she has to go potty, so now I don't have to even take her there.

Turn Around and The Wave

How to teach your parrot some easy tricks with positive reinforcement. My girl learned the 'Wave' in about 2 minutes, though it took her a couple weeks to become confident in doing the trick every time. About the same for the 'Turn Around'. Its important to have a vocal cue and a physical cue when teaching your bird tricks.

* Make sure you have plenty of treats and praise with you to give to your parrot

1. 'The Wave' - Bring your hand up to your bird like you are going to have her step up on your finger(Use the Vocal Command- WAVE, and With your other hand wave your index finger), but be quick and don't allow your bird to step onto your finger- just lift up its foot. When it lifts its foot to step up, give her a treat and praise her 'Good Girl'.

2. 'Turn Around' - Have your bird follow a treat in your hand around its body a little above its head. Your parrot should follow your hand in a circle, use the 'verbal command TURN AROUND. The physical command is your hand going around the birds body with the treat. After a few tries you can take out the physical command and just ask your bird to turn around like in the video. Don't forget to give a treat each time your bird turns around when asked or waves on command, this will really enhance your birds willingness to learn.

Training time should be something your parrot looks forward to, time to play with its human mom or dad. Birds do have short attention spans so short lessons 2-10 minutes a couple times a day should work better than several hours in a row.

Next lessons to come:

-Potty training your parrot

-Bobbing on command

-Coming when called