Is an Indian Ring-necked Parakeet the Right Pet for You?
Tag Archives: bird tips
We Made the List!
Are you looking for find more good information on all things parrot? Well thanks to windycityparrot.com, you won’t have to do much searching! Click here to find their recently compiled list of “12 YouTubers For Parrot Lovers You Need To Know”:
The list contains some really great channels. Want to know how to free fly a bird outside….there’s a channel for that! Want to know how many times Caiques poop? Don’t know what a Caique is, but you are dying to find out? Yep, there’s a channel which can help you out! How about a video depicting a bird which takes care of a baby in front of David Letterman? Uh huh.
Shameless plug….our channel , The Parakeet Perch, made the list (and we are so proud). What’s cooler, though, is to know that there are quite a few people out there who share our passion for birds and education. Check out the link and see some of these cool people in action. If you aren’t a bird lover already, you are sure to become one soon thereafter!!!
Our Birds Get Sushi
In running a YouTube channel about birds, one always thinks about content. Content. Content. Content. What do I post about? What do my viewers want to see? What will make my stats get better? I realized, in my most recent contemplation, that I had sorely neglected sharing recipes with my audience. Bird recipes are so fun and often easy to do. Alongside a little research into what’s appropriate to feed birds, there exists an endless number of possibilities for birdie treat diy projects.
So this week, I decided to try bird sushi! I personally have a huge love affair with sushi, finding it both beautiful and very pleasing to the palate. Although I couldn’t fix my birds a lobster roll or a spicy tuna, I did find that there are several ingredients that birds enjoy which would make a really mean looking sushi roll. So I “rolled” up my sleeves and played around in the kitchen with some turnip greens, peppers, cucumbers, carrots and brown rice. Here’s what I came up with! The birds really enjoyed it, and you can check out our YouTube video featuring the birds eating their new treat and also ending with bonus footage of our conure inspecting some of the ingredients. Keep being creative out there!
Sexing Your Budgie
We’re so excited to say our new video is up on YouTube! It’s about determining gender for a budgie. This can sometimes be a pretty tricky endeavor, so we hope you enjoy the little tips and tricks that we’ve added to the video along with a few surprises. Check it out!
Berry Christmas
This week we are bringing you another great budgie holiday enrichment idea. How about edible presents!!! Just go to your local hobby store or craft/wedding section of most discount retailers and get some plain boxes. No dyes, no embellishments…just plain. Don’t worry, you get to fun them up in just a minute.
Next, get some jute string or other means to tie presents which is safe (undyed/untreated) for budgies (raffia and sisal also work nicely).
Once you construct the boxes, place a fun treat inside (millet works well, as can Nutri-Berries) and wrap the presents in plain paper, black and white newspaper, or even kale! You can then tie them up and present them to your bird(s) for some edible Christmas fun!
EXTRA TIP: If you budgie doesn’t want to get inside the boxes, you can punch holes in the side before wrapping them to help your bird smell and see the treat inside! You can also present these boxes plain, without wrapping them, to make it easier for your bird to get inside!
Fruity Fun
I am so excited because I recently received some stainless steel skewers I ordered for my birds.
These things are AWESOME!
They can be used to skewer different fruits and vegetables so that they may be hung in the cage and enjoyed by birds as they get in the mood to snack. Since it’s very important to include fresh foods in birds’ diets, this is a great addition to any birdie lovin’ household.
As far as what can be placed on the skewers, the possibilities are endless. You can add a big chunk of one type of fruit (like papaya) or cut fruit into smaller chunks and make a fun, colorful kabob (apples, pears and bananas are a fun combination).
Just make sure to remove seeds from the offerings, as these can be very bad for budgies! Here is Soma, enjoying his first kabob!
Make sure the food on the skewers stays fresh in the cage. Once it gets brown, wilty, gooey and/or yucky, you’ll want to toss the fruits/veggies in the trash (or better yet, the compost pile…your flowers will thank you). It’s also important to clean skewers properly in between uses to keep things santitary!
If food becomes boring, you can also try adding some toys or things for your budgies to play with. Paper, wood and other things can make great toy components, as long as they are safely used!
It’s so important to give our birds a variety of things to keep them healthy and entertained. Skewers can be a large part of this…how creative can you get with them?
Putting in a Nestbox
Have you ever wondered how to install a nestbox in your budgie’s cage? We have a great video that shows you exactly how! Check it out:
Flying to You
One of our first, and still most popular, videos on YouTube is the one below. In it, we show how to teach a budgie free flight to a hand. So much fun! Budgies are quick and eager learners, so this can be used as a starting point for other flight tricks including retrieves! Enjoy the video, and be sure to check out some of our other fun budgie videos.
Goodness Grapes
Here at the perch, we get a lot of questions about what fresh foods budgies can eat. There are lots, and they are a great addition to your bird’s diet! Instead of just listing them off, however, we thought it would be much more fun to start sharing some fast and easy recipes utilizing fruits and veggies budgies can eat. The first is for a fun salad we have named “Goodness Grapes.” We just had to start with a tribute to grapes, since it’s a favorite of both Siri and Soma.
Goodness Grapes Budgie Salad
Ingredients:
Grapes
Apples
Kale
Directions:
Wash all fruit and kale thoroughly. If you can buy organic, it is better for your bird(s). Then take the seeds out of the grapes if necessary (or buy seedless….hello!) and cut a pretty good sized chunk of apple which has no seeds in it. Next, cut each ingredient into very small portions. As you can see from the photo below, the pieces need to be pretty tiny for a budgie. Mix even amounts of each ingredient and serve. You can give it to your bird(s) in a bowl or scatter it on a surface, if your budgie(s) like to forage. Also, don’t become discouraged if your birdie doesn’t try it right away, or even on the same day. Parakeets can sometimes take a while to warm up to something new. Keep experimenting with ways to present the salad and be patient! I like to keep a few large leaves of kale to serve whole, as my budgies like to bathe and nibble on them! If that is the case with your bird(s), you can try sprinkling the salad around the larger pieces of greens to entice them. Enjoy!
Subscribe to Our Channel on YouTube!
We love budgies around here! So much that we have a whole channel dedicated to this wonderful, little parrot on YouTube. Check out our channel trailer and then go watch, enjoy, and subscribe. We can’t wait to share what’s going on at the perch with you here!!!
The Parrot Perch 