I received a request from a reader to do a post on this topic because people are unintentionally causing injury to their parrots with leg restraints and we hope that the following information might save a few lives.

Falconry is the keeping and training of birds of prey. It has been a popular hunting sport in some circles for a long time. In more recent years, it has become known to the mainstream, perhaps because of a rising public interest in birds of prey. Although I don’t have the ...

Moving is the worst. The packing. The chaos. The unpacking. The chaos. The only good thing about moving is the excuse it gives you to buy new stuff. Moving with parrots complicates matters even more and if you aren’t prepared, it can make things unnecessarily stressful for you and your bird.

It makes sense that a parrot would be uncomfortable with a move to a new location. They are a prey animal that must be very vigilant about their surroundings in order to avoid becoming some predator’s lunch. Familiarity would provide them with a feeling ...

Moluccan cockatoo on the road

Summer is the time when many people choose to do their traveling. The children are free from school commitments and the weather is more likely to remain suitable for a road trip. Why not load the kids and the dog into the RV and head out across country?

For we parrot owners, though, decisions like those are more complicated: what do we do with the bird?

On the one hand, there is the fear of boarding. Not only do we assume that we will spend the entire vacation ...

The padlock holding the food bowl door shut met an untimely death.

I was at the local hardware store replenishing my stock of padlocks (Fid my macaw killed my last spare) when I heard the word “macaw”. Naturally I found myself eavesdropping on the conversation that the three men nearby were having.

They were discussing a nearby robbery. One of them had a friend who owned a Blue and Gold Macaw. Apparently this friend lived just down the road and had been robbed a ...

Jackie - a young female cockatiel with issues

Meet Jackie. A young, very friendly female cockatiel that is different from most companion birds because Jackie has a job. Jackie lives in an aged care facility (nursing home) where she provides “animal therapy” to the human residents who require assisted living care. As you can probably imagine, this little bird has become very important to the residents, as they are unable to have their own pets. Many don’t have regular visitors, so the companionship ...

Blue and gold macaw

I think that one of the hardest jobs here at Birdtricks is consoling owners whose birds have died. I don’t envy the ladies in customer service – sometimes it is heart wrenching.

Often people contact us because they need a shoulder to cry on – we all know how hard it is to find anyone who understands the way we love our birds. Sometimes it helps to communicate with people who you know won’t make little of your grief.

Perhaps the hardest is the contact with people whose ...