Bird woman wrote:Welcome valoe and bird , depending where you are it's probably hormonal season for birds and that can be one of the problems to start with depending what kind of a light schedule your bird is keeping and if artificial , or natural light is provided. I would sure bump up the fresh or frozen veggies and beans if your bird loves them. I personally think a bath everyday is to excessive , you don't want to strip feathers of natural oils and I hope your using cool water. Your bird is getting older and could be getting a cold , are you making sure the bird is dry completely before going to bed? Do you remove the food at night ? Lots of questions , tell us about light and food schedule, all the info you can give even if it seems insignificant can help everyone trouble shoot for you.
pajirta will be on in a bit with better info as she has more experience with this type of bird. Honestly with my birds when in doubt we're off for a checkup. Doesn't hurt for birdie to have an annual just to make sure.
tell everyone to back off the goodies until you make sure daily intake is healthy foods first. Give more info please. BW. OH ONE MORE THING , ITS A PARROTS GREAT PLEASURE TO EAT WITH THE FLOCK . And I'm assuming that's you and your family! Set an extra plate
Hi, many thanks for the reply.
Im in Europe (Ireland) and it is indeed hormonal season (or there abouts). Every year without fail you can tell when it kicks in ...and while shes not in full swing yet, she is somewhat hormonal. She gets quite destructfull of her cage biting her bars/chipping away at the paint and pulling up her trays. She usually destroys the base of cage shredding paper / nesting and digging like a dog with her foot. All on top of being a bit nippy. She hasnt got there just yet, but her ive noticed all her new wing/tail feathers starting to come through when checking her out and its usually about now.
Anyway! ...Light wise, she generally gets nothing but natural light. Her cage is in the living room beside a large window shes loves to look out. At the moment here, sunrise is approx 7am which is after the household gets up. So the living room curtains are opened as sunlight is coming up and i'll usually remove her blanket I use to cover her cage around then too.
Sunset is approx 8pm here now and she'll usually be settling down in the living room with everybody else after dinner and playtime. I generally pull the curtains just as its gotten dark and leave her beside me in the darkroom lit by the tv for another hour or so until I fully cover her with blanket.
As for baths, I just use a bottle sprayer with a fine light mist nozzle using room temp water. I do it every morning because she usually gets quite dirty from fooling around plus the fact she loves me doing it! She doesnt like to bath herself either, unless its really warm outside. Ive always sprayed her in the morning time before ive cleaned out her cage, shes dry by the time im done as I dont fully soak her. So shes never going asleep / bed wet.
With her food, its probably a bad habbit, but ive always put everything into her cage after ive cleaned it early morning and leave it there. I top up her seed feeder and a mix of fresh fruit and veg, usually apples, grapes, carrots, bananas etc.. Throughout the day i'll drop in other bits and pieces, if im making lunch i'll give her in some tomatoes ..or dinner, some broccoli or cauliflower. Whatever im having thats good for her ill give her in some. I try to keep treats to a minimum, maybe once a day, I dont like to spoil her but I think others have been! For treats, its basically the likes of breakfast cereals, spaghetti/pasta, toast/cracker, pizza, fries, baked beans.. and I mean the
tiniest of portions.
On the checkup front, she would actually die from the stress of that alone. Shes a very nervous bird and doesnt like to leave her comfort zone at all. She cant deal with most new people in her vicinity nevermind handling her! Im the only family member that can handle her out of the 4 shes known for 18 years of her life. And all thats beside, there isnt too many vets that deal with parrots here. Not one id trust anyway given that parrots arent a common pet and thus the vets have very little dealings with. There is one good specialist a county over, but id only take her if absolutely necessary.