Blue and Gold Macaw

I do have a question for you about his cage. what brand is it and can they be purchased through the internet? Thanks!

-Terry

Yes, the cages we use can be purchased online. They can be found at www.CagesbyDesign.com. We are all big fans of these cages; not only are they beautiful but they come with full spectrum lighting and the whole nine yards! You can literally buy them with everything included except the bird and the food!

To see some our indoor and outdoor cages from them, you can look at our photos here. You can also find our photos used in their catalog and on their website in various places. We have three outdoor aviaries by them and five indoor cages total (as of now!) we prefer the Hybrid style.

Chet has the following cages at his house:

1. Two of these cages. You can view them, sort of, in this video of his called Tips For Training a Parrot to Talk. You can get a different view from the video on Macaw Training. Although the cages on the website look like one big one, Chet’s are separated and on opposite sides of a wall.
2. One of these cages. This cage is in Chet’s office mainly (though we’re all guilty of moving cages around from time to time so that might change).

Dave has the following at his house:

1. 3 Outdoor Aviaries with catch-alls.
2. One of these cages. Which you often see Bondi and Cressi sharing (African Grey Parrot & Galah).
3. One of these cages. You’ll see a lot of different birds from our flock come and go in this one! This is my personal favorite.

Congo African Grey Parrot

“I have a male african timeth grey who is scared, I have learned to let him get out of the cage on his own to the top, I try to give him the up command but, he rather bite lol, but then I thought of a soda cap * plastic* that he eyed and I got it and he looked as if wanting to get it, so I held it up over his head and moved my hand to his chest and told him to step up and he did, now when I want him to get on my hand I use the pop cap trick. I keep doing it hoping he will just get on my hand without wanting to take a chunk out of me”

- Linda

I love that you shared this, Linda!

This is a perfect example of a bird who found its own reinforcement. Where some people would use food or petting, or even praise, you are using a plastic soda cap!

My mom actually ended up teaching my cockatoo how to retrieve because my cockatoo was so interested in picking up soda caps. It came naturally and was the very first behavior Bondi was ever taught. Now I’m having a hard time teaching my other birds to retrieve because they just don’t have the similiar interests like Bondi did.

I think it’s great you found something you bird is willing to “work for” and it’s a great reinforcement to use to step up. I just want to say again that your bird’s reward may be different than what Chet, Dave or I am using on our own birds. Just because we use sunflower seeds or cashews, doesn’t mean you bird is going to respond the same way to those rewards.

Yellow Crowned Amazon Parrot

Hey there,

first of all, amazing video’s and talented parrots. I have recently got my new parrot from a owner that is getting too old to keep up with the bird. she is a yellow nape amazon 10 years old and pretty easy to handle.

I would like to train her to do tricks like bandit and bondi.

any tips on how to start? and also this family has been feeding the bird human food for 5 years . . so how would you recommend me convert to pellets?

- James Lui

I’ll address the issue of your Amazon’s diet, first. Human food can be healthy for birds as long as it’s pretty much healthy for humans – such as fresh, organic veggies, fruits, cooked meats and cooked grains like pastas, rice and beans. Whole grains are best. So as long as your bird isn’t used to greasy pizza, salty chips and any other high in sugar or salt items, it will be ok to continue feeding some “human food” to the bird.

If he’s only on the bad human food, I’d recommend cooking up some birdie bread and baking organic pellets into it so the bird starts developing a taste for organic pellets. You don’t want the bird strictly on pellets, though. Make sure it gets lots of healthy greens (peas, spinach, green beans) and the other foods I mentioned. Brown rice and cooked beans every day is great for your parrot.

A great trick I use at home is to feed the healthiest foods first – when your bird is at his hungriest so he is more likely to eat them. An example of this would be to feed the pellets plus enriched greens in the morning as your bird’s “breakfast” and then check back in a couple hours and add onto that with other foods.

Getting started with trick training is super easy! We always start with teaching touch training first. It’s the first thing we teach you in our trick training course. Our training course includes EVERYTHING you will need to get started in trick training and will keep you busy for a while with your bird! We explain every step by step and show you how it works LIVE, in real time, with our own birds who, in the video, are not yet trained to do the tricks we teach.

To learn more about the types of parrot toys I’m using in this video, or to see other similar toys that can serve the same purpose…

Click here to check out our online store.

If it does, you need to get rid of it… literally, THROW IT AWAY!

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That’s what I did because that picture is of one that was in one of my cages.

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You see, there was this one spot on that perch that all three of my medium sized parrots loved to hang upside down from and after a while, they eventually ended up making the rope perch fray and come apart by unravelling. As I was spending time in the den, I looked inside to the bird room and saw my cockatoo, Bandit, playing in it and having a grand ‘ol time. Once I noticed how frayed the rope perch was I went running in and here’s why…

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I had a friend whose umbrella cockatoo, Abu, died from getting caught up in a frayed rope toy. He was left to hang upside down for HOURS before anyone knew he was stuck and even attempted to chew his own leg off to get out of it…

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As fun as rope perches and toys can be for our birds, they can also be deadly if you don’t pay attention to how destroyed they might be getting. It’s important to replace them once they start to fray so nothing happens to your birds.

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I was lucky I realized when I did because that rope perch went from perfect to looking like this in no time! Once that strand broke, they all broke and it unravelled like it did. When I went in with a pair of scissors to cut the excess fraying ends off in the hopes to salvage the rest of it… I was shocked to see Bandit had decided to step up on me and couldn’t free his other leg. I cut him free and easily pulled the ends off – he didn’t realize it was a big deal because of how it all had happened but I knew what could have been.

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I cut the ends and waited, sure enough, it came apart immediately again once stepped on by another bird. I HAD to take it out to keep my birds 100% safe.

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Keep your birds safe and REPLACE FRAYED ROPE TOYS AND PERCHES!

If you’re anything like me, you more than likely hate clipping and trimming your parrot’s nails.

Well, I have a pretty large flock so trimming nails takes me a while! And they can get insanely sharp if not looked after. I definitely know that… I’ve had my eye cut from my blue throated macaw’s toe nail. He was just trying to get to the highest place (aka, my head) and his nail pierced my under-eyelid of my eye and sliced right to the eyeball!

My eye was swollen like crazy and I was on the verge of panic because I thought maybe something serious would happen to my eye sight out of my one eye. Birds aren’t exactly the cleanliest creatures… so I knew what could have been on that toe nail!

I took some meds to it right away and sure enough, a huge black chunk came out of my eye almost immediately. I didn’t have any serious damage aside from the deep slice that healed over within a few days. However, it was scary and avoidable. My macaw wasn’t being aggressive or mean, he was going at normal speed if not slower and had no idea he even cut into my face.

Not only can you implement sandy and cement perches (though beware, cement sucks the moisture from everything) but there is now this awesome, one of a kind perch that is called the Go Green Bamboo Perch from Wyld’s Wingdom!

The great thing about these bamboo perches is that it’s all natural. There’s no cement to take the moisture out of your bird’s feet and there’s no sandy sores!

My macaws are so powerful that they EAT the sandy perches. And the sandy perches I’ve got – which I think almost all are the same – only have the sandy part as a thin lining around the perch. But the actual perch is made out of PVC pipe… which they end up eating. These bamboo perches are literally just that… bamboo and pumice stone… in and out, and all the way through!

So, instead of having to go through the annoying time of begging your bird to let him allow you to trim his nails, or taking him to that horrific time at the vet… get some bamboo perches like these and call it a day! These will naturally trim down your parrot’s nails so that you don’t have to worry about getting painful scratch marks up and down your arms.

To find your own bamboo perches, simply do a search on google for “bamboo perches for sale” or something similiar. With that, I found the following websites selling these perches: Option one, option two, option three.