New to this

[Fats1963]

Hi everyone, I am new to parrot forum and am looking for information to better interact with my Galah Gus.

[Fats1963]

Hi again, we have had Gus for approx one year. Got him from a breader. Not very well hand reared. Got a professional in to help and that was good. Confused on what toys to get him as ones from pet stores are expensive. Also at the moment he gets cut up cauliflower, corn, beans, carrot, broccoli, and sometimes, sugar snap peas. Is there any foods he shouldn't eat. Also how far up should we clip his wings. He can still fly across the room. Afraid to take him outside I case he flys off. Also are perches with a light weight chain ok to use? Sorry for all the questions but I really want to make him happy.

[Wolf]

I don't have a Galah, but many of the things involved are not dependent upon species. Like many of the first time people who ask for help you don't give much information about your bird or what it is that you desire to accomplish. Parrots are a bit different than other types of companion animals and because of their intelligence and emotional abilities there is so much more that affects their behavior. Diet, amount and type of lighting, amount and quality of sleep, physical environment, amount and quality of interaction with their human and amount of time spent in and out of cage are all factors that affect them and your relationship with them. With this in mind tell us about your bird and where you see the two of you going with your relationship. Tell us more about the factors that I have mentioned here.
Please do not use a perch with a chain for your bird as they are very dangerous for the bird as they can cause the death of the bird or even worse they can cause your bird to be crippled for life. And while we are at this point do not clip your birds wings. More birds are lost and never recovered with clipped wings than there are that are flighted, not to mention a bird that is able to fly has a much better chance of surviving long enough for you to find it than does a clipped bird as it can better escape predators and other dangers.
I know that store bought toys are expensive and a parrot will not care about that while it is happily destroying them. The good news is that you can make many if not all of the toys that your parrot wants and needs to be healthy and happy. There is even a section on toys right here on the forums, that you can get ideas from.
You wrote that you brought in a professional and it was good. What kind of professional and what did he/ she do for you?











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[Pajarita]

Wolf is 100% correct and here are my two cents. You need to make the variety of produce he eats larger: baked sweet potatoes, butternut squash, pumpkin, oranges, cherry or grape tomatoes, corn on the cob, bananas, apples, grapes, pomegranate, blackberries, strawberries, leafy greens like kale, romaine lettuce, etc. I don't have a Galah but I've had umbrellas and have a sulfur crested as well as a citron right now and I find the toos to be excellent eaters and you have the advantage that this is still a very young bird so it should be fairly easy to get him to eat new stuff. As to foods he shouldn't eat: any type of meat, dairy product or anything that has egg yolk, avocados, anything with caffeine, anything with white sugar, white flour, salt, with artificial sweeteners, coloring, flavoring or preservatives, anything fried, onions, leeks, mushrooms (I am not sure about them but, just in case, I don't give them any).

Absolutely no chains if what you mean is chaining the bird's leg to anything. I also do not believe in clipping, it's unhealthy for them both from a physical and psychological point of view. If you want to take him outside, get him a harness.

As to toys, in my personal experience, cockatoos just want to chew and they don't really care what the wood looks like so buy some untreated white pine 2x4 and cut them in pieces which you can drill a hole through and thread with a piece of untreated sisal rope. This works great for them but mine are so used to the pieces of wood that all I do is put a number of them mixed up with pieces of clean, brown cardboard and some wrinkled up paper in their 'toy box' and they go to town chewing everything (including the 'toy box' which is nothing but a large cardboard box with a smaller one inside -this is the one that has the wood, cardboard, etc). They like to chew a hole on the side of the boxes, go inside and rummage and chew the wood in it and it costs almost nothing.

[Shelby]

Also at the moment he gets cut up cauliflower, corn, beans, carrot, broccoli, and sometimes, sugar snap peas. Is there any foods he shouldn't eat. Also how far up should we clip his wings. He can still fly across the room. Afraid to take him outside I case he flys off.

Parrots can and should eat a large variety of fruits and veggies. Keep in mind that just like people, parrots should eat more veggies than fruits because fruits are high in sugar content. Here's a list of things that you SHOULD NOT EVER feed your bird (because most of them are toxic to parrots):
Chocolate
Caffeine
Avocado
Alcohol
Peanuts (due to a dangerous mold that grows in the shells)
Apple seeds
Stone fruit pits (like from plums, peaches, etc.)
Raw dairy (milk, fresh cheese, ice cream)
Raw onions
Rhubarb
Raw mushrooms
Salty items
Junk food
Beef
(I got this list from http://www.birdchannel.com)

As far as wing clipping, I am a huge supporter of keeping birds fully flighted. It's the best, most efficient way for them to exercise. Flying also is a great form of mental stimulation and a big confidence boost! Also, a bird that can fly away when uncomfortable is less likely to bite you. Michael has lots of articles on his blog about flight and making your home safe and helping your parrot to fly safely.

If you want to take your parrot outside, it's best to do so by putting him in a travel cage or training him to wear a harness. Michael also has videos and articles on harness training which will show you step-by-step how to do it. It's very dangerous to take a clipped parrot outside because a gust of wind can still carry them quite far. Unlike a parrot that has full wings and knows how to use them, it will be harder to get a clipped parrot back. You really should not take an untethered parrot outside unless you've been trained to free fly the bird.

As far as perches, you can use rope perches or wooden perches of varying textures and diameters as this will help exercise their feet.

Have fun with your new pal and I hope I was of some help!

[Pajarita]

I am sorry but I disagree with the statement that parrots should eat more veggies than fruits because of the sugar content. First of all, lots of what people call veggies are fruits: tomatoes, all the squashes (including zucchinis), pumpkin, cucumbers, peppers... Secondly, parrots ARE fruit eaters in the wild so their digestive system is made to metabolize them well because they are part of their natural diet. And last but not least, when people talk about sugar been bad for parrots, they are referring to refined, white sugar (the table sugar), which is bad for everybody, people included. The sugar in fruits is fructose, a monosaccharide and highly digestible form of sugar, especially since in fruits it's highly diluted because of the high water and fiber content they naturally contain. What we call 'sugar' is sucrose, a disaccharide (a fructose molecule bonded to one of glucose), and that's the 'bad' one because the body needs a special enzyme called sucrase in order to break down sucrose into fructose and glucose (the body cannot utilize sucrose as it is, it can only use fructose and glucose). Parrots have the enzyme because some fruits have a small quantity of sucrose but, as they were only meant to consume mostly fructose and not sucrose in any significant quantity, sucrose would not only make them fat, it would also cause sugar levels to spike and for organs and blood to end up with too much fat (the liver metabolizes the sugar and the excess goes into producing triglycerides, which end up in the blood and internal organs in the form of fat and cause heart attacks and diabetes,

[JaydeParrot]

How tame is your Galah? The reason you shouldn't chain your parrot's leg is that unlike a bird of prey, a parrot's leg is fairly weak, if the parrot tried to fly away the sudden pull back on it's leg from the chain would most probably break it's leg.