Do you know there are not just birds at The Perch??? Meet all of our pets in our newest YouTube video!!!!
Tag Archives: pets
Back to School or Work with Birds
NEW video!!! Going back to school or back to work after being home for the summer or during quarantine? Here are ways to help your bird adjust and enjoy spending more time on its own!!!
Why care about parrot conservation?
Oftentimes, when I interact with my pet parrots, I wonder about their wild counterparts. I have five species of birds, specifically budgies, a sun conure, a cockatiel, an Indian ring-necked parakeet and a blue and gold macaw. So there are a lot of different areas of the world to think about, many different habitats to ponder, and an array of plights that are faced by my birds’ wild cousins.
When it comes to the budgies, cockatiels, and Indian ring-necked parakeets (rose-ringed parakeets), there is currently not much concern about their status in the wild. Their populations are healthy and thriving. However, this is not to say that they might not someday face some of the challenges that many other parrot groups face. Loss of habitat, demands from the pet trade and climate changes seem to be more and more far reaching, and so even a thriving population deserves to be considered by a watchful eye.
Now the situation gets more concerning. Although macaws are currently listed as a species of “least concern,” their populations are declining. Habitat loss and poaching are weighing heavily on wild macaws, and help is needed to turn this situation around. The following video is a good snapshot of what wild macaws face in areas like Honduras. Luckily, partnerships with the local population of people have helped turn some of this around, but more assistance is greatly needed, as you will see:
Unfortunately, the story gets even sadder when it comes to the sun conure. This species is listed as endangered, with populations decreasing. Shockingly, there are now more sun conures living in people’s homes than there are in the wild! The pet trade is one of the greatest pressures on wild populations, and more controls are needed to prevent the wild trapping/acquisitions of this bird.
Many other species of parrots are facing a grim future in their native habitats. There are only three small populations of Hyacinth macaws left, the largest being in Brazil (fws.org). Also per the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “there are estimated to be less than 6,000 yellow-crested cockatoos left in Indonesia and Timor-Leste.” And who can forget the Spix’s Macaw famously featured in the film Rio? This bird was actually considered extinct in the wild due to, yep, you guessed it, the pet trade and habitat loss. However, a recent introduction project, has placed this bird in its’ native habitat once again:
https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/world-sensation-the-spix-s-macaw-is-back-872013636.html
It is imperative that wild parrot populations receive our help and attention. As much as we enjoy having these birds in our homes, their wild counterparts deserve to roam their native habitats and thrive. Here are some resources to find out more. If we all do even a little, collectively we can achieve a lot!
http://www.macawrecoverynetwork.org
************************************************************************(cover photo of perched sun conure credit: James Lee via unsplash.com)
To see more of our birds, please visit The Parrot Perch on YouTube:
Training challenge
I recently trained my macaw to give me a high 5 with his wing, and I explained how I did it during one of my most recent Youtube vids! I also talked a bit about the training process called shaping. When you use shaping, you can take an already existing behavior and put it on cue or modify it and create a new behavior that you can then put on cue. This week I challenge those of you with birds (or other pets) to train a high five or use shaping to get your bird(s) or other pets to do something they are already doing, on command. Let us know what you can come up with, and have fun!!! I will leave you with the video showing off Curacao’s high 5!
S.
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!!!
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!!!
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!
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!
The Parrot Perch 