Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Jeffrey, As your budgerigars are still quite young, it should not be too difficult to accomplish their first flying training. Once their flight feathers are all grown out, you can encourage them to begin flapping on your finger or on a stick by raising and lowering the stick to get them to begin feeling their wing downbeats supporting their body weight. Flight training is all about landing skills, so you need to teach them to land competently. This we accomplish on the master bed where the bird can be encouraged to fly six or eight inches at first down to the soft surface--learning through repetition to brake with its wings, put out its feet and look downward to a feet-first landing. Make sure you do not allow them to over-flap and fly a long distance to crash to the floor. Such mistakes ruin their progress and make them fearful of bumps and bruises. From there you can progress to getting them to take longer two, three, four-foot flights to build up confidence on the soft surface. Once they get that down, a folded bath towel on top of their cage or the couch back, etc. can be another landing site. Flying to a perch can take place a bit later as it is a more precise skill and can involve a harder landing on the feet and leg muscles. You will know when they are flying better because most parrots begin to increase their speed. Make sure they learn to fly down, turn left and right and return, and of course are able to adjust and fly after a bath when still wet. Feel free to contact me with any specific questions about your pets' fledging. Cheers, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Sara, I am by no means a palm expert!

(Perhaps if there is one who reads this site, he or she might make themselves available to be our full palm resource:):))

As I understand it both those palms and most all the true palms are safe for parrots.

You might want to use a pruning shears to keep the spines on the date palm trimmed to a non-piercing level....

Cheers, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear S. Mylam: What you refer to by the common name 'Sago' Palm is in fact not a true palm at all (common greenhouse names can be confusing!) but is a member of the cycad family and related to the gymnosperms like ginkgo and the pines.

You are correct that this plant is not safe for livestock, pets, or humans and should not be in your planted aviary.

Though 'sago' palms produce edible starch, their pith must be processed to remove toxins before being safe to consume.

I would recommend replacing it with a small clumping bamboo, maybe a cluster palm like 'areca', or perhaps a mulberry tree so your birds could eat the fruits.

Cheers, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Debbie, Both crabapple and regular apple are safe trees. In fact, most temperate fruit tree foliage we have found are not toxic in moderate amounts, including plum, peach and cherry. A great time to feed crabapple and other trees is during and after first fruit set when tiny flowers and buds and green fruit starts make nutritious fare for psittacines.

Cleaning of foliage involves a brief visual inspection to make sure leaves are fairly free of wild bird droppings. Pluck or prune any suspect twigs or leaves. You can either hose the branch off in the yard or put it under your bath shower for a few minutes on warm. Boughs collected near considerable automobile traffic should also be rinsed for dust, etc. There is no need to bleach or sterilize tree chewing material.

Here is a picture of Chen, our hawkhead parrot, learning to eat in the apple tree!



Cheers, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Kit, That is a very difficult question. Flock dynamics depend on so many things. For example, how protective of their home cage are your three male conure/quakers? These birds can be protective of their territory, especially in threes which constitutes a sort of birdie "gang."

More to the point, it is never a good idea to acquire a new parrot and then place it in a cage with bird or birds already in the home. All sorts of things can go wrong until you are sure the birds get along--bit toes, competition at the food dishes, stress. An extra cage is essential.

As to cape parrots and other birds. We have had many capes here since first getting into the species in 1994. To a bird, they do not like other parrots (sometimes even their own kind if not raised correctly). Capes are one of the most jealous psittacines we have discovered, right up there with hawkheads and some large lories. Our cape young babies get along okay with others in the house, and if raised into an environment where other birds already are living. Capes are one of the few full sized parrots we have encountered that will go after budgerigars in their cage!

Without knowing the birds and seeing your home, I would give it a 20% chance of success to bring in a cape parrot and expect it to get along in a cage with strange birds. Still, you never know if you had two cages and went very slowly. What about a trial meeting between your birds and she...?

A healthy, active cape parrot should live to be 35 or more.

I would also like to add that there is never any guarantee that any of us keepers will outlive our flock. Some sun conures can live into their 30s and human life can be frail also! There is plenty of parrot love in this world to take care of pets that are left behind if any of us die. It only takes planning ahead and getting the right people or organization in your will so that you need not worry yourself about such time frames.

With aloha, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Kim, For a cockatoo you need to get very strong caging wire. Twelve or ten gauge twilweld from England is one of the best. Smaller the opening like half inch by three means less likelihood of rodents passing in and out. We normally do not put an extra safety space on the door area of smaller cages, since it takes up what the cockatoo would have as play space. They need the ground of course and lots of plants in pots or planted in the ground or cut branches hung from the ceiling. I would say it should be at least eght to ten feet high--at least on one end so the bird can experience perching up above human heads. Partially roofed for shade and open for sun and rain on the other side. A big food and water station, toys and logs and stuff to chew on, swinging ropes perhaps, or log on a chain. Some privacy boards in one corner for a place to hide out and nap if wished. Natural wood perches. Maybe a misting system for hot days. Good luck, EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Dear Sarah, It sounds like you will have room for many different plants in your new bird atrium. All varieties of palms will usually fruit different cluster styles of palm nuts once they are mature (usually seven or eight years or more) so you need not look for the really tall palms. We like cluster palms and arecas since they are easy to control and will take more chewing by large parrots without dying. We have used a variety of olive in the past and our birds showed no ill effects. They liked to eat the tiny green olives and buds. Passionfruit is not listed as toxic on any of the lists I have seen, but from years of having it here, we notice that our parrots, including the once wild adopted ones, never chew the vine or flowers. That prompted us to stop giving it and only offering the fruit which all our birds love dearly. I think other potential non-toxic vines and berry trees would be a better idea. Also consider the bamboos, prolific orchids, banana, juniper and some other evergreen like Norfolk Island Pine or casuarina. There is good information online if you google "safe plants for parrots" or "toxic plants parrots." Good luck in your endeavor. EB

Answered by E.B. Cravens:

Oana, Except in the cases of medical necessity or behavior safety (ie. mate killing, etc.) it is always more proper to leave parrots with flight feathers.

It increases their aerobic and athletic health, makes them safer from falls and attacks by animals, increases self confidence and alertness, decreases problems like egg binding, and basically makes birds like your Grey "happier" in a natural way.

There are some dangers with flight--glass windows, parrots that have not been taught to come to an arm or fly down can escape the house, aggressive and jealous species may take to "buzzing" humans they do not like, and so forth.

Also in limited indoor spaces, it is sometimes appropriate to trim two or three of the outermost primary feathers at the front of the wing (one feather at a time over a two week period!) to increase flapping exercise in parrots that seem to be lazy flyers or only have room to glide and land....

Cheers,
EB