Has anyone in the community had any experience in [re]powdercoating something? How much does it cost? Would a car detail shop potentially be willing to paint a cage, or is paint used on cars different than powdercoating? Would car-paint be parrot safe?

I'm just curious, because I'm thinking of buying a 10x10 chainlink dog kennel [for outdoors] and was wondering if it would be outlandishly expensive to have it powdercoated. I certainly don't want to put my birds in a galvanized metal kennel/cage.

I'm imagining it would be expensive, but I'm just wondering if anyone would have a reasonable idea how expensive.

Thanks in advance.

Probably a silly question, but is the African Grey version of flock calling consist of a lot of words and strange noise making?

Bubba only really has at it vocally when I leave the room, so I'm curious to know if he suffers from stage fright or if he's wondering where I went by squeaking and saying "HEY BUBBA BIRD" and "WHAT" a million times.



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I am new to this community and am happy to say i purchased my first cockatiel yesterday!im not exactly sure of his Breed title but i think he is a yellow pearl he has a yellow head,bright orange cheek patches and grey and yellowish white wings,i must say he is a Shy boy, ive only heard him make a small peep this morning,But he was sitting paitiently on my shoulder and nipping at my hair,So i guess we will see how things go tommorrow,i cant wait until i can give him head scritches and spoil him rotten!

Hi everyone *waves*! i joined this community about a month ago and it's been such an amazing resource, so y'know, thank you all already :) (A special thank you goes out to the wonderful person who wrote the Rational Parrot site, and the section on harmonious living between parrots + other creatures - my Siamese, my new parrot and my sanity all thank you muchly :P).  So anyway, the story goes like this: after a lifetime of cat ownership (on my end) and budgie ownership / obsession on my boyfriend's end, we both fell in love with this quirky little 1+ year old Quaker parrot at the Animal Rescue League in Boston. We adopted him exactly one month ago and we're madly in love with him! That said, i've got a question and it takes a little explaining...

So, Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Harry for short) is awesome: he's snuggly as all get out, extremely friendly, and all about being with us. i don't know if any of this is relevant, but here are the basics: he's got a nice big cage, lots of perches and toys, a fancy playtop, gets lots of time with us when we're not at work, and is in the process of being weaned off of seed (while also getting fresh fruits and veg, and eating his Zupreem pellets). His wings are currently clipped (by the shelter) and we're planning to keep it that way until his adolescence has passed / the cat gets more used to the flapping. Anyhoo, my concern is: Harry doesn't play much with toys. He has a VERY STRONG WEAVING INSTINCT and thus adores the plastic olympic rings / olympic rings he can shred (WHILE WEAVING OMG!!11!), but other than those, he's... unimpressed by toys. And we've tried a lot of them. We have tried to play with him / teach him to play / offer him foraging opportunities, but it doesn't work - he just does that baby begging / Quaker bobbing thing. We've watched him over Skype when we're not home during the day, and other than THE WEAVING OMG, he doesn't touch his other toys. He's not plucking or seeming otherwise upset, but we're a little weirded out by his disinterest in playing. Do you guys think this is just part of the adjustment-to-a-new-home thing? We've only had him a month after all... Or is playing something that we need to work on teaching him? Will he play more when he's not so focused on getting seed? He's had his first vet visit and she said he's a healthy, happy young Quaker... Could this lack of play be an adolescent thing perhaps? Does anyone have stories like this?

Oh, and so this is not just rambling text, here's a picture of The Sheriff bathing:

I had Sage out earlier today and I noticed something very odd going on with her feet/toes.  She looks like she's missing the little scales that cover her feet in some places.  It's mostly only on her toes, but does include little patches on her legs.  It's also mostly the tiny tiny scales on the sides of her feet and legs, but in one or two cases it's one of the big ones on top of her toes.  The skin underneath doesn't look irritated and she isn't chewing on her feet- the skin underneath looks like regular old skin.  I carefully checked the bottoms of her feet (she loved that) to make sure there weren't sores, and there aren't.  I have in the past noticed one or two missing at a time, and she does preen her feet like any other bird, but she hasn't been doing it any more than normal.  She's not acting any different at all in any way, her feathers are fine, her beak is fine, and her nails are fine (even the one that started turning white when she got her adult feathers).

I will try to get pictures, but she doesn't like the camera and since it's her toes, I'd have to get pretty close.  But I don't know if I should be be contacting the vet about this, or if it's fairly standard.  I know her beak gets raggedy looking when she molts, but it soon enough stops looking funky, and I've asked the vet about her beak before and she confirmed that it happens to a lot of birds when they moult.  So her beak, I don't worry about.  But this is the first I've seen of this happening on her feet to this extent.  Also, she hasn't been having any trouble with her feet- she grips onto anything just fine, and she has lots of different perches, but she does have a couple of the sandy ones- they're not a uniform width, and like I said, the bottoms of her feet are just fine.

EDIT: Added some crappy pictures, but they're the best I could get.

Here, you can see the missing scale on one of her toes- this is one of the big ones that's missing.  But none of the others are sticking up.

Another toe- on the longer toe, that last big scale is coming off- she's not picking at it, it's like it's just... shedding.  The skin underneath didn't look irritated from what I saw.

A better view of the same foot- a lot of the scales are gone on the shorter toe, if you can see.

Regardless, I will be calling the vet tomorrow and if I have to take her in, I definitely will, no worries.  I just figured in the meantime, I'd see if anyone had run in to this!

I have had my Amazon for a couple months now and she is very sweet and loving. She is about 2 years old. She use to step up and snuggle with me and not want to go back to her cage. But for the past couple weeks she has gotten excited when she sees me and talks to me but she will not step up she runs away from my hand. What can I do??? Does anyone know what might be going on.

http://www.santaferadiocafe.org/podcasts/?m=201007
look for the one on the 27 3 one down.

Sully has been trying to fly lately. Flapping his wings and jumping up maybe 1 foot off the ground. His previous owner and the one b4 that and the one b4 that have always kept his wings clipped really short and told me he never attempted to fly. Well he is trying now! And he will have wings as long as he is with me! I can't wait until they grow out. :) XD We will get him in shape in no time!

Both Sully and me need to go on an exercise regiment! <3


Hopefully we will both be in shape in no time! :)

I have a feeling that I'm not going to like the answer to this, but I need to know what's going on.

Stella, my 8 month old female cockatiel, is obsessed with my hair. Every now and then, she'll scurry through it and tangle herself up in it - sometimes to the point where she gets stuck with it looped around her neck. She just had a screechy panic, because I turned my head whilst she was attached to my hair, and it pulled on her. Even if I have it up in a ponytail, or a bun, she manages to find trouble.

Is this some kind of female cluckyness? A sign of something? She's not backing up against my hair, just tugging on it with her beak and tangling herself up in it.

In other news: my 6 month old quaker parrot, Littlefoot, is in a BAD mood today. :( It really is so disheartening when your birds are grumpy - feels like you're not making any progress, right?

I went to have him step up on my finger today, just like we do every morning, and he was all CHOMP STAY AWAY FROM ME YOU. I've had him for three months, and he's never bitten me with any true angry intent. He's nibbled on me, and warned me with body language, but today he is ticked off. I was wearing a jumper in a colour he's never seen, with very long sleeves, which I never wear, so he might have been thrown off.

I'm letting him cool off in his cage. As soon as he bit me, he went right in, and I walked away to show I was ignoring him if he's going to behave like that. I'll take him out again in an hour, and see how we go.

Our gardeners were trimming the sea grapes and date palms of their fruit as part of keeping our complex clean. Fortunately we are a member of the strata (condo) committee and the other members were quite happy to have us instruct the gardeners to leave the fruit for the local bird life.

Been a while since I had seen Cayman parrots in our complex and just the other day we heard some familiar noise while we were headed to work and there was a pair in the trees. The parrots have returned! I like seeing parrots in the wild.

Cayman parrots are a subpecies of the Amazon. If anyone is interested here is a link on Cayman parrots from the Cayman national trust:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.ky/info/parrots.html

I have bought a house with a very large screened porch. My house backs up to a creek with woods. I live in Florida. Do you envision me having any problems with keeping my birds on the screened/covered porch? Thanks for your wise help

This is my bird, Rommel, playing with a paper accordian thing I made for him and tied to his window perch:



Do any of you make toys for your bird(s)? What do you make?

Sully enjoying a blueberry. <3



ETA: A picture of Sully and myself. :)

Fruit flies, anyone?  I did the funnel trap thing below and have finally rid myself of them:

"Removing the food source is the first step to eliminating fruit flies. Some non-food items, such as wet mops, dirty dishes, and old sponges, are able to support fruit flies, so be sure to clear these from your home as well. The remaining fruit flies can easily be trapped by constructing a paper funnel and placing it in a jar or bottle containing a small amount of wine, beer, or decaying fruit. The fruit flies will enter the funnel to reach their feast and will not be able to find their way out."

Sully, the blue crowned conure is 227.5 grams... on www.avianweb.com it says BCCs high side is 130ish, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he is just a huge BCC but he still shouldn't be 227.5 grams! Silly me forgot that I had to work tomorrow as Wednesdays are my normal day off so his vet appt is rescheduled for next Wednesday.

Poor Sully, he is a fatty. :(

For having been on a crappy all-seed diet for the past 17 years or so, Ananse is probably the prettiest PFL I've ever seen. He is super shiny.





You can tell he hasn't done a lot of flying in his life, because he is pretty bad at it, and gets tired easily. He's getting better, though, and definitely enjoying it! We've also got the dowel routine down now.


And another video of Ripley playing video games, but this one is mostly screenshots. We've been having a cute conversation this evening, some of it consisting of him using words in new ways, most of it consisting of him making demands:

Him: Cuddles! Cuddles! Cuddles!
Me: Okay. *scratches*
Him: Kisses! Kisskisskiss.
Me: Okay. *kisses*
Him: Good boy. You give good kisses. Toes. TOES!
Me: You want me to get your toes? *tickles his toes*
Him: *CHOMP*
Me: No, that's rude.
Him: Kisskisskiss. Hiiiiiiii. I love you.
Me: I love you, too.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Excuse me Bloolark. I was just looking through the post about the new cockatiel Mochi and your page "The Rational Parrot" was put up as a good link. I have used this page several times for wonderful reference by the way, but when I try to use a good many of the links that are on the main webpage, they are broken. Is there any way for you to update the links? The ones that do work I have found to have wonderful information and I would like to explore the others.

Hi there, a brief question.

As I sit looking at the barren state of Stumpy's cage I feel remorseful and ashamed.

But sadly I find that nearly all of my local pet shops have either a very limited supply of toys or none at all!!

So I ask does anyone know of a good, strong, reliable source of good, strong, reliable toys for both the cockatiel and the lovebird!

Also perches seemed hard to come by and whilst I live close to a few good wooded areas I'm kind of worried about what pest/diseases I may find by hacking off a few wild branches!

Thanks!

Hi,
I've been working on Rafe and Loki's, err, friendship and it's going great guns. Of course, Loki being a grumpy quaker I don't trust him an inch and keep a close eye on the pair of them. Won't be so fraught once Rafe can fly again and do his own escaping, but we've had no 'incidents' just the odd three-second squabble. LOL

So I thought... pics.









Oh, did I mention there's been regurgitating. Charming......

Does anyone else here on the community suffer from migraines? If so how in the world do you bribe your birds to just shut up and stay quiet? I don't get really really bad ones often but when I do even just their little talking chirps are extremely painful. Let alone if they decide to scream.

Is it ever ok to leave them covered up for the day? I never have but today both my boyfriend and I just want to die because we both have migraines that bad and if I am contemplating birdy homicide just for talking chirps I can't imagine what he wants to do.

Its just a question of learning how to get everyone to live peacefully together on days like this. I got my first cockatiel Serino years before I started getting migraines so I had no idea what this was going to be like. Lol. Any advice for me or should I just continue putting a door between me and them and quietly reciting poultry recipes to myself?

Hi, parrot_lovers! I've been lurking here for a few months and finally stepped up with a picture and some questions...




Just kidding. Her name's Mochi and I've just adopted her three days ago! She's 9 weeks old and seems to be pretty mellow... She seems to be content with just perching on people and having her head scratched, and for some reason she seems to really dislike being put on flat surfaces (tables, counters, etc) and will usually try frantically to climb back up on someone immediately, to the point where she'll run straight off the edge of the surface. I'm guessing since she's very young she might not understand the concept of ledges or height yet--is there a way I can show her or is it something lil tiels'll figure out on their own?



Here's her cage--I moved the top apple branch and her food cups out and put the blue cup straight on the floor, because she couldn't figure out how to perch on the edge of the transparent seed cup to eat. ;;;; She'd wade straight into the cup, showering seeds everywhere, and then wouldn't have enough room to actually bend down and peck orz ... but with the big blue cup on the floor, she's been able to perch/eat.



annnd here's a picture of my mom feeding her lettuce. (She tried a little blood orange and made a vague attempt at eating a grape, but I don't think she liked either of them.)

What I am kind of worried about is that Mochi seems to go to sleep very often when she's out on my shoulder... her poop looks healthy, and she seems active in the morning (eating, drinking, chewing on her toys, pacing around and chirping to be let out), but when we have her out she usually grooms herself for awhile and then tucks her head in. I chalked it up the first day to her not getting much sleep because the neighbors were throwing a loud party the previous night and it being her first time in a new cage (which she didn't like being in at first either, I think), but... yikes ;;;; Should I write it up as afternoon napping-time, or should I take her to see a vet? (though I have reservations about the only avian vet we have in the area from a previous lukewarm experience... orz)

Thanks for your help!