I really don’t like the word “desensitizing”, it sounds so…insensitive. It is an appropriate term, however, and sometimes necessary. If you’ve read some of my recent posts, you know that Theo, my goffins cockatoo,  is often overwhelmed by new things, sometimes by old things, and that I have been concerned about how she would handle the changes in Florida.  In no particular order, these are some of the bigger concerns I had and how she actually responded to them:

1) the chaos of packing up the house – didn’t care…….

2) the actual trip to …

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Ever since having another bird owner from a completely different background come stay with us for a month at our house with our own flock, it has been learning experience after learning experience and TONS of questions have surfaced.

One topic that came up between Patty and Dave was babying your bird too much. Now, I want to preface this post with the fact that it’s super hard to even begin to compare our birds (all raised by us from babies) and Patty’s birds who have all been adopted and/or rehomed into her care. So …

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Fights, falls and flight injuries can bring about beak injuries that can come in the form of fractures, punctures, breakage or crushing.  The part of the beak nearest the head contains a blood supply that may require cauterization.  Nerve endings in a damaged beak can cause eating to be painful.  Since a parrot uses its beak in everything it does this must be considered a very serious injury and requires the immediate attention of your avian veterinarian.

BUT…

The good news is that beaks are repairable.  The use of acrylics and dental bonding reform and replace broken, cracked or missing beak parts …

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We all love to spoil our pets, grand children and ourselves, too. I think it’s entirely normal to want to spoil someone. However, there’s a point where it becomes un-beneficial to both parties and in this case, I mean you AND your bird.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that their bird acts better when it doesn’t get spoiled as much as they are normally doing. For example, one lady wrote on the bird tricks facebook that when she didn’t give her bird as much time out where it wanted to be all …

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Thanks to all who participated in the Birdtricks.com Best Talking Bird Contest! We loved every entry and are looking forward to holding this contest again sometime in the future.

A big congratulations to Bella the talking lovebird who won first place with 1315 votes!

Coming in 2nd place with 1061 votes was an awesome African Grey singing the theme song to cops! Way to go bad bird!

And in 3rd place with 596 votes we have Kiwi the Amazon talking up a storm. Good job Kiwi!

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Most species of parrot are monomorphic meaning that sex can’t be determined by visual means.  Usually DNA testing is necessary to accurately tell if Polly is truly a she.  There are a few species, however, such as the beautiful eclectus, who are notably color dimorphic.  The female is red and blue, while the male is a vibrant green. But, this is not the norm in the parrot world.

The cockatiel is another species that can be visually sexed.  Using a standard cockatiel as the example is this comparison, the male standard shown here (Tinky, my first born) you will notice the …

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