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!!!
Somebirdy new, somebirdy blue
Tag Archives: parakeets
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.
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!
Like Mango?
We spent a wonderful weekend at the Nashville Exotic Pet Expo talking about our YouTube channels and educating people about bird ownership and care. Of course it is very difficult to go to an expo and not fall in love with many of the animals represented there. Hence, our flock got a little bit bigger yesterday. Meet our new sun conure, Mango!
Mango is already proving to be such a sweet and smart bird, so we can’t wait to share more pictures of him with you and hopefully train him to do some fun behaviors as well, which we will share on our YouTube channel. Here are a few more pictures of some of the fun things we saw at the Exotic Pet …
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!
Blue Bird New Bird
Have you met Sango and Sprite? These two are the newest additions to our flock here at The Parakeet Perch! Although we easily figured out a name for Sango, we were stumped on Sprite, our first green(ish) bird! I say greenish, because, she’s actually got a mixture of blue and green on her abdomen. Here she is with Sango and you can see a bit of what I am talking about.
We ended up running a naming contest on our YouTube channel, and one of our viewers suggested Sprite. We love it! The name actually fits both her color and her bubbly personality. Sango, on the other hand, could have been named Scary. He came to us very shy and nervous, hyperventilating often when I would try to handle him or he wasn’t near Sprite. Thank goodness we got them in a pair! He is coming around, now that he’s housed with my other two male parrots who have shown him a bit of confidence. We can’t wait to see how these two birds turn out as they move towards adulthood. Check them and my other birds out on my YouTube channel, The Parakeet Perch!
Lucky-Lou
What a lovely story about how charismatic a female budgie can be and how an owner can be a trusted friend to their bird. I hope you enjoy the share!
Photos of Lucky: Stephen Kenny (my brother-in-law)
The years after my divorce were pivotal ones for me. I came out of my shell and into my own. It’s not really that I learned to stand on my own two feet, so much as I learned that I had always been able to take care of myself.
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We’re Baaaaack
Hi everyone! Whew, it has been a minute since we’ve published much from the perch! Over the last year, we have flown to another home and have been adjusting to changes in jobs and family. However, 2018 promises to be bigger and better than ever for the birds. Their new bird room has lots of space for add-ons, so stay tuned for some exciting new surroundings for the birds and some new additions of other kinds (shhhhhh…it’s a surprise). Thanks for continuing to share our journey with us. We love you all!
Siri, Sunny, Segoe, Sydney and Sophia
The Parrot Perch 