DIY: Birdie Bread

Ingredients:
2 box/bag Corn bread mix
2 Egg with the shell, (wash eggs)
3 bananas, mashed
1 cup bird pellets ground up (I use Zupreem for Cockatiels, the pellets are very small so no need to grind them)
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup frozen veggies
1 cup apple juice

Preheat oven to 375F
Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add eggs, bananas and vegetables. Add apple juice as needed. Should be the consistency of cake batter. Spray your pan with nonstick vegetable spray and pour in mixture.

Bake for 35-45 minutes, Test with toothpick. When toothpick comes out clean it is done.

Cool until room temperature. Cut into serving size squares for your individual birds and serve. Bread can be frozen, if kept in refrigerator it has a shelf life of 3 days.

*Recipe found in The healthy Bird Cookbook by Robin Deutsch

TGIF

Happy Friday everyone! It's been a long week over here. Lots of little birdie idiosyncrasies to work around but it's getting better. Slowly getting better but I am just happy we're moving in the right direction.

The video I took this week didn't turn out, so I was looking threw my video's (being video Friday and all) and found a nice short one featuring Lou. Lou doesn't get a whole lotta love here so I thought it would be nice to post this video short.

So Here's Lou doing his Happy Dance. Why so happy? Cause he is inside, loose, and keeping me on the other side of the room. ;)

Kenya the Explorer

Kenya, the Congo African Grey, does not like new things. This is because my husband and I did not know much about Greys when we got her and did not introduce her to new things constantly as a young parrot. We have been paying the price for that mistake ever since.

I have taken it upon myself, since I am home all day, to try and slowly get her used to new things and become more adventurous now that she is inside again. I have never been a huge fan of Greys. Honestly, Greys and Macaws scare me. My worst bites have been from them, in fact, when I worked at the pet store I could guarantee that anytime I worked with the Greys I would be bitten, at some point, by all of them. So yea, I don't trust them. (Mainly because I haven't figured out how to read them yet.)

So yesterday I decided to open Kenya's cage and put the bird stand against the door. Otherwise she just closes the door until John comes home and I did not want her to have that option. In less then an hour she was checking out the stand. Not getting on it, but chewing a perch and overall checking it out.

I was excited. Not only was she hanging on the outside of her cage dealing with a new object but she ended up on the top of the cage playing with all the D-rings that hold her toys. She also started to dismantle the play top by pulling all the bolts out, but I digress. ;)

Here she is spying a bolt.

Everything went well until something spooked her and she careened to the floor and decided to take her frustration out on an antique trunk. I tried shooing her away from it but ended up having to catch her in a towel and put her back in the cage.

It was fun while it lasted though. :D

Favorite Foods

Normally when I put Duke on the play stand he finds the farthest corner away from me that he can and just hangs out or plays with the toys there. It's just his way, and has always been his way when it comes to me.

So how surprised was I when I sat down with lunch yesterday and as I raised up my spoon heaping with mac and cheese to take my first bite that Duke practically tripped over himself running to get as close to me as possible. He was hyper talking "hello" at me that kinda of got strung together like "hellohellohello" which is his way of saying "Gimmie what you got!"

Since he has -never- done this before, I have no choice but to conclude that Duke's favorite food is Macaroni and Cheese. Good taste that bird has. ;)

Calm

Things have been calming down slowly since we brought three of the birds in from outside. We still have three more to go and I am almost dreading it because it will get really loud when two of them come inside.

Duke still poses a problem when the sun comes up. His alarm clock is so annoying. It gets loud too, especially if I don't come talk to him. But I can not give in, will not reward bad noises, darn it.

Echo has become more relaxed with running about the house getting into everything. When the holidays pass he will have more access to roam because the house won't have "extra wires" laying around. My birds love holiday decorations, and not in a good way. If how they react to all the Halloween stuff is any indication, Christmas will be fun. I can tell. ;)

Bonus Post!

It took a while but I just caught Kenya playing with the toy I put in her cage last week. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture, but I am so very proud of her getting over her fear quicker then normally.

She is defiantly coming out of her shell now, she's been yakking at me all day.

Yey Kenya! You go girly bird! :D

DIY: Dying Sticks & Wirlygig

Dyeing Popsicle sticks is a little different then dying regular blocks. First, you don't need as much liquid. Second, you need something flat to dye in,(like a pie pan) not like blocks where a cup will do.

Basically you use enough rubbing alcohol to cover the bottom of your dish, then add your food coloring until you get the desired color. You will have to stir in the food coloring because most of the time it does not mix on it's own.

Here is my set up.

Don't forget the newspaper, and learn from my mistake, use LOTS of newspaper. I only used 2 sheets folded in half and it bleed through to the counter top. :(

3 of the 4 colors I did last night. Remember, your sticks always come out lighter then your dye. Also if your dying a lighter color, like the green I used, you will have to use a whole lot of coloring to get anything decent.

Most colors, like the blue and reds that I did, (red not shown here sorry) only need to be dipped in for a moment, others like the green and the purple for some reason I had to leave for 5 to 15 mins to get a nice color going.

Like the blocks I let these sit until they were fully dry plus about 3 hrs to let the rubbing alcohol smell dissipate.

The Wirlygig

The size of your bird will determine how big you want to make this toy. I made this one for a small Peach Conure so I only used 24 sticks and 2 wood blocks.

Things you need:
Popsicle sticks
String or bailing wire
1 D ring
Scissors or Needle nose pliers (depending on if you are using string or wire.)
Drill
2 wood blocks

Drill a hole in the center of all your sticks. Don't worry too much if all the holes don't line up straight. You will be fanning the sticks out when your done and honestly, the birds really don't care if your toy is perfect. ;)

Thread your sticks onto your wire or string. I used wire here, but string is simple, just knot your end a few times and slide all your sticks onto it.

Use your pliers to make loops in both ends of your wire.

Now to cover your wire ends use your pliers to squeeze the loop, making it thinner and slip a wooden block over it, then using your pliers open the loop back up so the block does not move. Put a d-ring threw one loop, fan out your sticks and your done!

Sorry about the blurry pictures. It's hard to take a picture of something your holding. :)

Abierto - Cerrado

Fab Friday video time!

This week I thought I would give Kenya the spotlight, so here she is swinging on her cage door.




Have a great weekend everyone. See you on Monday.

Lazy Dayz

It was a quiet day yesterday. I slept in, did a little house cleaning and put a new toy in Kenya's cage. She is not happy with me for this. When she is not giving the toy an evil glare, she is giving it to me.

This is par for the course for her. Usually I have John take her out of the cage and out of the room before doing any "redecorating" in her cage. As long as she doesn't -see- it done, she is normally fine with minor changes. Major ones still are met with a WTH reaction, but she gets over it.

Right now she is backed in a corner staring at "the toy" waiting for it to do something so that she can scream at me for putting it in there. If she doesn't relax sometime today I will have to take it out and wait for John to occupy her so I can do come cage arrangement.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

Bringing the outside in

We moved Kenya inside Monday night. The living room is starting to get a tad crowded but I don't mind much.

Kenya is in the white cage by the windows. She likes watching the world go by. Duke is in the top of the duplex and Echo is the one hanging upside down in the bottom.

It seems Kenya has really picked up a variety of wild bird sounds. I know this because I thought I had a flock of house sparrows running a muck somewhere in the house when I woke up this morning. :D Noise like that I can get used to.

I had her cage door open all day and she never moved near it, in fact, she closed the door when I wasn't looking. I thought John had done it before he left, but no, he left and she shut the door. I guess since her "man" wasn't there she had no use of it being open.

Later that night though she came out of her shell and hung around with us.

"Back off lady, I am here for my man."

"Go on, shoo!"

"Don't make me come over there."

She pretty much hung on the door while she open and closed it. It was fun for her so who am I to argue, just her coming out was a step in the right direction. I did manage to take this shot....

just a second before she took a suicide leap off her cage and onto my foot. O.O John had just left the room and apparently she thought I drove him away and was going to tell me personally just how pissed off that made her.

We won't go into the high pitched squeal I let out when she did that. Nor will we mention me yanking my foot up to my chest to avoid her beak and the possible loss of toes.

It's a work in progress...for both of us.

Things are perfect, until their not.

Yesterday morning was great. Duke and Echo got some time out on the play stand, and got some goodies. It was great. We all got along happily. Duke was happy to do as I asked of him, and let me scratch him and play. It was awesome, until about 4pm. Duke was aggravated with something, I don't know what, and went on a screaming spree for almost an hour. Then stopped for 45 mins then started up again for about 15 then all quiet until John got home.

Once John walked in the door he went ballistic. He would just not stop screaming so I finally had to give in and cover him up. I don't like to cover the birds, I feel like I am shunning them when I do it. But my migraine was at its maximum and I just needed him to stop.

He does this every so often, usually once a week, but on a bad week he can go off like this daily. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night, most of the time in the middle of the afternoon. I don't know why. I guess he just wants more attention, but I wont reward him for screaming. It's just not happening. He will have to figure out sooner then later that he gets out of the cage when he is being quiet and does not get out when he is screaming like a banshee.

I hope he picks this up soon, my ears need a break.

Gooey Bananas

Warning, this stuff makes a mess. I only make it for the birds when I have the time to clean up when they are done. They love this stuff.

Gooey Bananas

Needed:
1 peeled Banana
2 table spoons peanut butter, (crunchy or creamy)
1/2 cup unsalted chopped nuts (any kind will do as long as they are unsalted)
4 Popsicle sticks (or non pointy stick of any sort to use as a handle.)

Microwave peanut butter for about 1 min or until melted. Cut the banana into quarters and slide each quarter onto a stick, then coat with peanut butter. Roll Banana into chopped nuts.

I leave the sticks in when I give them to the birds, this way they can hold the stick and not the gooey banana. Like I said before, this is messy, so be prepared to clean up once they are done.

Cockatoo Quality Control

Here it is, as promised. ;) Trouble "testing" the blocks I dyed for Mondays DIY project. If you watch her, you will notice she is leery of the paper towel and doesn't want to step on it. She is like that most of the time, she has trust issues with paper like objects at foot level. I have no clue why, but she does.





Have a great weekend everyone, I'll see you on Monday!

What do I do, with a bird like you?

As I have mentioned before, not all the birds in my house like me. Of the five large birds, I have one that is indifferent (Duke), one that likes me fine as long as I stay away from her cage (Kenya) and one that's out to get me (Lou).

To tell you the truth, I will take indifference over dislike and hate any day of the week. Duke prefers my husband. Not that he has anything against me per say but he was hand raised by his first owner, who was an elderly man and Duke has not had good luck with women. So his trust factor is just more in tune to my husband. He has nibbled me twice, never broken the skin and both times were when I was putting him into his cage when John was home. But even though he doesn't really trust me, he lets me pick him up and scratch his head. He also talks to me all day long, so we really do fine for the most part. It also helps that I am the “Goddess of Goodies” so that wins me major points with him.

Lou hates me, and I have given up trying for anything more then a long distance relationship with him. I like my fingers attached to my body, thank-you-very-much, and I plan on keeping them that way.

Kenya is another one that prefers my husband, but unlike Duke, she bites me and draws blood anytime she gets a clean shot at me. Unfortunately Kenya is a special needs bird. She is supposed to have physical therapy on her foot 3x a day. My husband works all day long, so it's on me to do this. I hate to say it's been over a year since I have.

I can't get her out of her cage. She throws herself around and ends up hurting herself. I have tried letting her come out on her own and she throws herself to the floor and attacks if I get to close. We won't even get to the part where if you actually touch her feet she throws a hissy fit.

So I have been looking up training tips on how to try and get her to accept me. I am the one that hand fed her gosh darn it, she should at least tolerate me somewhat. So I am on a mission, and my google-fu is ready, and I find this little snippet.

African Greys can be more challenging to befriend than other parrot species, because they're smarter and very cautious by nature.

I foresee a whole lot of fun in my near future. Yey. I can't wait. rolls eyes

It gets Loud in here.

I have talked before about how Cockatoos can be loud before, but they are not the only ones.

”Whose loud? Not me.”

There are quite a few species in my flock, and all of them have their moments. It can get loud here, especially at dawn and dusk when everyone has to say hello/goodbye to the sun. There is really no sure fire way of combating the noise, but there are some things that can be done to tame it down a bit.

Since my Too had the capability of being the biggest problem in the flock I'll talk about her. When she was a baby she hardly made any noise. I showered her with affection, letting her roam around as long as I could keep an eye on her. She was a serious cuddle muffin so she was always close to or on me.

When Trouble screamed for the first time she scared me out of my skin. She was so loud that it actually echoed through my house. It was at that moment that I knew I was going to have to do something to train her to be quiet before this became a regular occurrence.

Trouble was actually relatively easy to train because all she wanted in the world was to be with me. If she got loud, I would put her in her cage and walk away. Sometimes I had to go to my bedroom and close the door because she would scream continuously, trying to get me to come back.

This went on for about a month or two. She would scream, get put in the cage where she would scream some more. When she calmed down she would come back out again. Slowly over time, the time she was in the cage due to being loud was shortening. Her vocal tantrums became shorter and shorter, to the point that now she only lets out a protest scream if she feels ignored. These don't happen often, but when they do I do not react to it. I ignore the outburst and only give her attention when she is being quiet. So far this has worked beautifully and my eardrums are thankful.

I have found this technique works better for younger birds. I am still trying to make this work with Duke, but he has this alarm clock noise down to a science and does not seem put off when I ignore him. He is rather indifferent to my presence and that is putting a cramp in his training. So I may have to find something else to try and see if that works.

Have any of you had to train your parrot from doing something? What have you tried? What worked and what didn't? Let me know in the comments.

Bird Inspector

As I was prepping for this weeks DIY post, I had some unexpected "help" from Trouble.

Block inspector #12 arrives to approve the latest DIY project.

Trouble loves to get into things, hence her name. She loves to chip blocks into kindling and rip apart just about anything so we really have to watch her when she is loose.

"I'll just keep this one here, you may use the rest."

When I got her I was told that owning a Too would be like having a two year old child for the rest of my life. They were wrong, Two year olds are not as smart as she is. I have yet to have a two year old figure out how to unlock their cage door and liberate their friends.

I took some video of the DIY cuteness and will post it on Friday for all to see.

DIY Dying blocks/easy swing perch

Dyeing
Dyeing your own blocks is really easy and inexpensive. Here is what you'll need.

Food coloring
70% alcohol (The over the counter rubbing alcohol works beautifully.)
Wood blocks
Cup or glass
Newspaper or some kind of cloth to work on

I used 1/2 a cup of Alcohol and 1 tablespoon of food coloring(red) and mixed them in a cup. Then I dunked the blocks in and stirred them for a moment in the liquid. When they were coated I pulled them out with the spoon and let them dry on a layer of news paper. They dried very quickly but I left them over night anyway.

The next morning they no longer smelled like rubbing alcohol and were ready to use.

Perch Swing

1 wooden dowel (I used an old perch)
2 equal lengths of rope
Assorted blocks and beads
2 d-rings

Drill a hole on each end of your perch.

Take your rope and knot one end of each piece. Try to make the knots approximately the same length from the bottom. Slide a bead or block onto each piece of rope pressing snuggly against the knot.

Slide one rope threw each side of the perch, again pushing down gently against the bead. (This helps make sure the knots are tight.)

Fill the rest of the rope on each side with beads and blocks. Keep them even.
(I filled mine a little over half way.) Then tie a loop in the end of the rope.

After both sides are complete use 2 of the same size d-rings to attach to the cage. My birds love it.

Yum!

I talked earlier this week about bringing Lou our Green-wing Macaw in for dinner bonding. I took some video of him being all cute to share with you today.

Here is Lou trying to say Yum after each bite of Pasta.



And here is Lou waving at me and acting all cute as he tries to lure me closer.



Have a great weekend everyone!

Who is that handsome bird?

Amazons are natural born clowns. It's one of the reasons I love them so much. Echo embodies this characteristic to the utmost degree. He loves to get me giggling and seems to have that marker set as his goal every time I bring him out to roam around the play stand.

Today he found the metal mirror. He was so stunned. He could not figure out why the other bird tasted so funny. He tried to preen him, talk to him, even attacked him a few times and still, that silly metal sheet got between him and his objective.

"Who is that beautiful bird?"

He was so preoccupied with the “other” bird that he ignored me as if I wasn't there. Something he never does. He even ignored all the people food I put out for him, and let me tell you, his feathery butt really gets moving for people food.

"Come here."

I find this interesting mainly because he does not like Duke, the other amazon, anywhere near him. So much so, that he will throw a tantrum about it. Duke, on the other hand, wants to know everything he can about Echo and stalks him. It's an interesting thing to watch, though I never let Duke get too close because I still don't know what his motives are.

"Target acquired, I'm going in!"

Dinner and a Birdie

Last night we brought Lou in for some dinner bonding time. Lou normally doesn't some inside much, or at least loose inside much because he hates me. Well maybe hate is too strong a word, he actually wants to kill me and keep John all to himself. But he loves John and that’s all that really matters...Right?

Thing bravely offers Lou some broccoli.

So, since getting too close to Lou is really out of the question for me, I take pictures from a distance while John interacts with him. Some times Lou will allow me to be the bearer of yummies, but those occasions are relatively rare.

"You just wait til I figure out how to use these Lady!"

"Okay. Who brought home the phoenix?"

Despite me lurking around with the camera, Lou had a good time. We had chicken, one of his favorite foods, with broccoli and macaroni. (No cheese for Lou.)

"I'm imagining this is your finger Mommy."

"Yum!"

He loves chicken bones, he likes to lick the marrow out of them before trying to throw the rest to the dogs. (We grab em up before puppies get them.) Lou behaved himself for the most part, only lunging at me once or twice, but giving me the eye the whole time I was in the room... Have I mentioned that he doesn't like me?

Dinner and play time.

Echo decided to have dinner with us the other night. We were having one of his favorites, broccoli.

Nom nom nom nom

Then it was play time!

Got your beak!

Got your thumb!
It was a fun night for all of us. Maybe some slight bruising to our thumbs from an over excited Echo, but no real harm done.

Pizza night

Parrot Pizza

Ingredients

Rice cake, plain (low salt/low sugar)
1or 2 tbs of either tomato sauce or peanut butter
Copped/grated veggies and nuts

Take a rice cake and spread either tomato sauce or peanut butter on top. Then add your birds favorite veggies and nuts. Example: grated zucchini and carrots with some finely chopped walnuts.

Be creative. Use your birds favorite foods and add some that they haven't had before. For instance, my cockatoo's favorite food is broccoli but she is not super fond of carrots. I grate the carrots very finely but chop the broccoli in larger chunks. This way I can hide the carrot under the broccoli and she knows no different.

You can also use a bagel or even toast instead of a rice cake, use what you have handy.

Hint: for smaller birds cut the rice cake into quarters for easier management.

Refrigerate any left over pizza until ready to serve.