Marc, the Quakers are amazing. Interesting that, immediately after fledging, they start manipulating nesting materials like twigs. These guys are avian architects, for sure!
I’ve never actually seen a Quaker’s habitat—it’s illegal to have Quakers in CA. (Agricultural conflicts) Marc, it would be great to see what your young ones come up with in terms of a “habitat”—they don’t have adults to teach them, right? I wonder how much is innate i.e., “let’s play with this stuff” vs. learned “let’s make a functional space with tunnels, entries, etc.”
Swinging toys are super important in well-provisioned avian spaces. Boings are a classic with our flock. Marc’s PVC swings are great, too. I’d like to see them made out of actual bamboo. hmmmmmmm. Sources in Phillippines?
Hi ,
You know speaking of quakers ( monks) I wish Marc ( Karen make him do it!) would share some of those great photos he sent me of the man made nests ( to keep them out of trouble ) that he built for the wild quakers and how they actually started using them!
Hi,
It is quite amazing to see the quaker babies nipping at the twigs, carrying them around and attempting to build something that they have no idea of but seem to have an instinctual “knowledge” of. I hope to have the outdoor part of their aviary ready for them in the next few weeks and we will provide them with our “monk-bunker” to build on. I will post the progress as it happens. In the meantime here is a photo of one of 14 artificial nesting platforms that we designed and build for the CT quakers. Only two of them were taken over by the birds but this may be due to the fact that the electric company did not perform regular maintenance on their poles thus making use of the new platforms unnecessary.
Photos of several new species have been added and include:
Black-winged Lovebird
Fiery-shouldered Conure
Mindanao Lorikeet
Orange-fronted Hanging Parrot
Red-fronted Lorikeet
An excellent series of photos of Short-billed Corellas and Imperial and Red-necked Amazons has als been added.
To view new submission look to the column listing the entry date that is located on the right-hand side.
One item in particular that you may want to review is the status of your email settings found in the Control Panel. The default setting for all new accounts includes ‘Smart Notification’ which means that you will receive only one notification when someone has posted a reply to an topic to which you subscribe. Subsequent notifications will not be sent until you visit the forum.
If you would like to change this to receive email notification on all replies then you need to deselect the ‘Smart Notification’ option. I have included the instructions below and at the link above.
To disable the Smart Notification in your email settings:
1) Go to the ‘Control Panel’. This is the ‘Member’s Profile/Settings’ link on the parrot.org pages and the ‘Control Panel’ text link on the top of the WPT Forum.
2) Click on ‘Personal Settings’ on the left-hand side navigation
3) Click on ‘Email Settings’
4) Un-check the last box ‘Enable Smart Notifications’
5) Click on the ‘Update’ button to save your settings
I am perplexed and very worried for one of my 5 Yellow-headed amazons. Four are 26 years old, and one (female, Gitana) is now about 14 years old. A couple of winters ago Gitana started pulling her feathers frantically and demonstrating that she was experiencing intense itchiness with flicking feathers, twitching, and squirming. I brought her to my avian vet and had many tests done, with no diagnostic results. The vet prescribed anti-biotics, fungals and Benedryl anyway in hopes of relieving her symptoms, which I gave for several months, with no improvement. Eventually she was featherless, except for her head, tail and wings. She was clearly in pain as she pulled, and cried out. Her skin was to the point of bloodiness in a few places from all of her over-preening.
When spring arrived, her problems diminished, feathers grew back, and she and I felt great relief. Eventually, I figured that even though my house is relatively humid (by dry winter heat in Minnesota standards) that she had been suffering from dry conditions and dry skin.
Last winter I bought a humidifier, and she did very minimal feather destruction. I kept the humidity at around 35 - 50%. I started paying attention to the dryness of my own sinuses and nose and if I noticed discomfort, I increased the house humidity.
Living conditions:
My amazons get a lot of fresh food, mostly organic. In summer, they get many just picked fresh veggies that I grow in my organic garden. Some protein… usually a small amount of lightly cooked egg with a lot of veggies mixed in, or a couple of nuts or a small touch of cheese. Rarely, they get a small taste of a chip (salt rinsed off) or a little taste of toast with peanut butter. Evenings, they get a couple of teaspoons of mixed seeds (including fresh refrigerated flax seeds), organic human grade, purchased from a co-op, plus each gets 5 Harrison’s pellets. Then a small (one TBSP) piece of fruit. Filtered water, flying exercise everyday. Large stainless steel cages. In the summer, I try to get them outside at least once a week, and they get hose, full-drench baths. (In the winter they get spray bottle baths).
Gitana lives and shares a cage with a male YH, Jake, who has always been very kind to her. No signs of any problem with him. Though I formerly bred my small flock of YHs, I have not provided nest boxes since 1999. Gitana has a difficult early history, as she was bred in captivity and lived with a mentally and chemically challenged woman for the first four years of he life. She came to our flock after another female died. Gitana was too young to be involved during the years that I bred them, so she has never had chicks.
Summer in Minnesota has been very warm and humid this year. I very rarely run my central air though, preferring open windows and fans whenever possible. So I was very unpleasantly surprised to find Gitana extremely itchy again this week, and wildly picking at her feathers, belly, back and legs are bare. She is trying to get out of her skin… flicking, jerking, picking, looking very tired from the stress. She stresses and picks even when all of the others are fast asleep for the night. Cages get covered for night by dark colored sheets (old and very well washed with eco-friendly soap, line dried).
The only thing that I can recall that has changed in her diet is that I ran out of flax a couple of weeks ago, and did not buy more until yesterday. I also bought hemp oil and have put a small drop on each of their five pellets. This is just the second day, so I still have hope that these essential fatty acids will help, though so far, she is not improving and I am so worried and feel so bad for her because of her extreme discomfort. I hope that you can offer some very quick ideas and help this lovely bird who is suffering so.
If it’s an allergy, I just don’t know what to think. Much of the seasonal food she’s been getting now… organic plums, grapes, tomatoes, beans… garden stuff, she was probably not getting when this occurred last time, in winter. Other foods are not new. This is an acute reaction… she was pretty happy one day and frantic the next. I think that I will withhold peanuts, because they MAY have varying levels of aflatoxin, though I buy nuts from the Wedge Co-op, which is probably the best source. I wish that I were one of those really organized (OCD!) record keeping types and knew exactly what she had eaten for the last few years, but I am not.
I am giving her a lot of baths, but with no feathers, she shivers so easily, so I have her and Jake in a small cage outside today and yesterday because the air is on inside when we’re in the mid nineties or above. The outside temp is 93 today, well within their normal habitat range.
It is a tough one to deal with from afar. First thing I would suggest is get her off any and all foods that have anecdotal instances of allergies--the peanuts and Harrison’s pellets and tomatoes all come to mind, but your avian vet may suggest others. Dry foods like pellets can exacerbate dry skin, so I would immediately begin to cook for her. Beans, brown rice, lentils, buckwheat, peas, oat groats, mung beans, quinoi, sesame seeds, etc. are all in the mix we use daily. Sprouted peas and beans from health food store also--mix in a lot of green stem veggies such as chard, carrot and beet tops, watercress, celery chunks, etc. Veggies are much better than fruit since the fructose can be problematic with allergies. Seek out organic fruits with pips as a substitute--figs, pomegranate, papaya, passionfruit and guava are the best fruit seeds usually available. If you find one she likes...give her lots! Drop the flax oil if she has been on it a long time and perhaps just use a little bit extra virgin olive once every week or so, but truly we have found our amazons are not like some other oil needing species, they do fine on fresh salad fare, veggie proteins like pulses and a bit of tofu, and some small measured organic in shell sunflower at night. If she is getting safflower seeds, stop that right away as safflower has been known to cause dry skin in conures and eclectus. Sunflower is much better and with a feather mutilation condition. you do not have to worry about an overweight bird so she can have sunflower safely. Amazons do like palm fruits and if I can find some, will try to let you know if possible.
I would contact China Prairie Co. online and order some Micracine Enhance. It is a good probiotic formula based on a glacier clay base which has a wonderful array of trace minerals in it. She may have a mineral imbalance. Did the vet run a full blood panel? It is a powder that you sprinkle on wet cooked foods daily for 30-60 days.
Showers do in fact dry the skin, as water is not a moisturizer. I would take her into the shower when you shower for the humidity, but do not get her wet so often--certainly not if she has shivers. A leafy bough (she needs to chew on tannnic branches to substitute for feather mutilation and to provide more trace mineral nutrient) wetted and offered dripping wet will offer her a way to bathe if she wishes without stress of a spray bottle. I would expect Minnesota to have maple, beech, and other safe trees. If you can get access to a fresh aloe vera plant, slit a leaf, gather the gel, rub it around on your hands to warm it, and rub it gently on her bare and injured skin areas if she will alow. Wonderfully soothing and it is a skin sealer and anti microbial at the same time.
Good luck. Amazon parrots are not known to feather pluck often for behavior reasons--I suspect it is indeed a medical situation.
Hi Marie,
Be sure and join the yahoo list FeedingFeathers they are wonderful and will help you asap.
If you want any aloe vera just let me know and I will send it to you but if I remember correctly I think it is no longer recommended and there is a spray mist formula that is recommended on the list ..but anyway if you want it , I sure have a HUGE aloe plant in my California garden that you are welcome to some of .
[Yellowfronts writes]
If you can get access to a fresh aloe vera plant, slit a leaf, gather the gel, rub it around on your hands to warm it, and rub it gently on her bare and injured skin areas if she will alow. Wonderfully soothing and it is a skin sealer and anti microbial at the same time.
Good luck. Amazon parrots are not known to feather pluck often for behavior reasons--I suspect it is indeed a medical situation.
Here’s something for discussion about Quaker Parrots / Parrots in the Cities / Invasive Species… It’s a film clip about the recent rescue of baby Quakers from the Bronx this past June. I wanted to put a live link up, but I don’t know how to do it, so you’ll have to copy and paste I’m afraid. But it’s kinda cool. Many thanks to Steve Baldwin of “Brooklyn Parrots”!
We are now taking order for a new 2008 parrot calendar - due to ship in early November. Its a full-sized 12 x 12 in. wall calendar and the photos are great!. Holidays for the US, UK and Canada are represented.
Requesting participants for scientific experiment to examine referential communication in African Grey parrots:
Posted on behalf of:
Nicolas Giret, PhD student
Laboratoire d’Éthologie et de Cognition Comparées
(Please note: The WPT has no affiliation with this effort and interested parties are advised to participate at their own discretion).
Hello,
I am a PhD student working with Dr D. Bovet on referential communication in African grey parrots. We would like to invite forum members to take
part in an experiment. It involves listening to some of our parrots’ vocalizations and specifying whether their parrot(s) produce similar
vocalizations and in which context. Our study could be very useful for the understanding of parrot behaviour and vocalizations in order to
improve their well-being and their relationships with their owner in captivity.
We are interested in African greys and other parrot species. We would like to thank you in advance for your help. We would be very
grateful if you could diffuse this information to your forum members.
Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.
Best wishes.
-Nicolas Giret-
--
Nicolas Giret, PhD student
Laboratoire d’Éthologie et de Cognition Comparées
BSL - Université Paris X Nanterre
200, avenue de la République
92001 Nanterre Cedex
France
tél. (33) 1 40 97 74 80
fax. (33) 1 40 97 74 74
e-mail:
http://www.paradoxe.org/lecc/
