Is an Indian Ring-necked Parakeet the Right Pet for You?
Tag Archives: birds
Baked for Birds
This past week, we made a batch of birdie bread for the birds!!! I really had a blast shopping for ingredients (mostly the organic stuff that I don’t use for myself….but ya know, the birds deserve it) and baking the bread.
Here is what the final bread looked like, after it came out of the oven and had time to cool!
Before we got to this, of course we had to make the bread. The mix used was Harrison’s Bird Bread (original), and it worked really well! Here’s a link to it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2CeOPAG .
Sydney, our cockatiel, admires the bag of Harrison’s Bird Bread
There are other varieties of this bread that you can try as well:
Hot Pepper: https://amzn.to/2PGPHRW
Millet & Flax: https://amzn.to/2PGPHRW
Omega: https://amzn.to/3kpJrvM
As you can see, Sydney was in the kitchen, “helping” along the way, as the bread came together. It really was simple to make and baked quickly. Here’s what we had to do:
The hardest thing, really, was finding organic vegetable oil to use. The brand below worked very well, and although it was a solid shortening, I was able to quickly melt it in the microwave so I could incorporate it into the recipe!
It’s so nice to have fun making new things for the birds to eat and feeling good about giving it to them (ingredients are certified organic)! Check out the video about making bird bread on our YouTube channel for a more detailed walkthrough of our fun time!
about that new bird
Last week we told you about the intro vlog featuring our new parrot, Ceylon. This week, I wanted to share a little more about this amazing new bird.
Ceylon (formerly Zazu) landed at our local animal control under the watchful eye of my friend Dianne, who knew I had several parrots and loved them dearly. She contacted me almost immediately after the bird was dropped off with its two budgie roommates. Sadly, all three birds were housed in budgie cages, even though the ringneck was clearly much larger than his friends.
Although Ceylon was in cramped conditions, he was still active and vocal, suprising the animal control staff with some of this loud calls! When I came to meet this bird, I was in love.
Since bringing Ceylon home, I have found out that he is pretty different from my other parrots. He vocalizes in a much higher pitch, he is actually a bit more reserved than most of my other birds, and he LOVES FRUITS AND VEGETABLES! He also is an active climber and prefers to be at the highest point of his cage (which has been upgraded). Finally, he loves to bathe and receive a spray down (as you can see in the last picture). This is pretty in line with what I have learned about Indian ringnecks as a group. Soon, I hope to train him and see what kind of tricks and behaviors he enjoys doing for rewards. I am hoping he will be the first bird in my flock that can be trained with fruits and veggies (how awesome would that be?)!
For now, I will continue to just bond with this sweet little bird and let him settle into his new routine. Make sure to keep an eye out for more videos and posts featuring this new superstar!
Somebirdy new, somebirdy blue
Do you know what has landed at the perch? Find out more in this Thursday’s vlog post on our YouTube channel. We can’t wait to tell you more about this sweet birdy!!!
Fresh food fun
One of the things I really enjoy doing for my birds is preparing fresh food diets for them each morning. Especially right now, because cherries are in season…yum!!! I am lucky in that almost every parrot in my flock will eat at least one or two types of fresh food to supplement their diet components of seeds and pellets (not offered en masse). For this blog post, I thought I would share what fresh diets my birds got today. I am hoping this will give others an idea of what might be popular with their birds and how to offer items in a way that will make them enticing.
On the menu today, we had:
- Cherries
- Grapes
- Peppers
- Corn
Yes! Corn is a nutritious food to feed to your parrots (oftentimes it is said to be a poor diet component, but it is a recommended vegetable for birds). As with everything, moderation and variety is key to making sure your bird gets all of the nutrition it needs from its daily diet.
The largest bowl is for my macaw, the medium sized bowl is for the conure, and the smaller bowls are for my budgies/cockatiel!
I will end by saying that variety and persistence are the key to getting a parrot to be enthusiastic about fruits and veggies. Sometimes it is great to chop items really small, at other times, large chunks are more interesting to hold and eat or nibble on by companion birds. Skewers are also a popular thing to use so that fresh food can be hung in the cage and enjoyed from a perch. The key is…don’t give up! Fruits and vegetables are an important component in parrot diets, and it is well worth it to find a way to make them exciting to your bird!
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!!!
Courage in My Cupped Hand
After several failed attempts, I finally got Mango to enjoy getting under the running water faucet in the kitchen today! The trick was to gently let the water run into my cupped hand so that he could drink it and then eventually walk underneath the stream of water from my arm, when he felt ready. After that, it was full-on birdie bath time!
As you can see from the picture, he got himself really wet, and I was thrilled to be able to get his very first “wet birdie” picture. For those of you who don’t know, those are classics and the world of parrot ownership!
If you have a bird and you are having difficulties getting it to enjoy baths, try different approaches. Some birds will see a dish of water and jump right in. Others prefer a more creative approach, such as being offered a wet piece of a green, like kale, which they can roll around on. This also usually makes for healthy snacking for the bird! Using a spray bottle containing fresh water and misting your feathered friend is also an option. Ensure that your water is room temperature, and never spray your bird in the eye. Our cockatiel loves this approach, and it’s fun to watch him spread his wings and walk around as he is being spritzed.
Soda Pop Birdie
Our little Sprite.
Grapes Are Neat and Turning up the Heat
As Mango is settling in here at the perch, we are trying to make sure that he gets used to (and fond of) having fresh foods in his diet. Parrots, just like us, need fruits and vegetables in their diet in order to enjoy a good nutritional balance.
Here Mango is enjoying 1/2 of a grape. He ended up licking this more than eating it, so I cut it in quarters and he was able to chew it much more easily. In many instances, if your bird does not enjoy a larger piece of fresh food, you can make it smaller and they will readily eat it!
Many bird owners also do not know that parrots can eat peppers (even the hot ones!). They have very few taste buds and are seemingly unaffected by the capsaicin in peppers, which is the chemical that produces the hot taste. Just to put this in perspective…
Birds may be able to eat peppers because they have so few taste buds: Chickens have just 24 taste buds, and pigeons have 37, Pidgeon says. Humans have close to 10,000 taste buds, and rodents and other mammals likely have a similar number…
-https://news.wisc.edu/curiosities-why-can-birds-eat-hot-peppers/
We haven’t given Mango the ultimate taste challenge yet (hello, Ghost Pepper and the like). Hower if you would like to see a fun pepper challenge, you can watch this one:
Hope everyone has a great week with their birds!!!
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!
The Parrot Perch 