I brag about Theo, my goffins cockatoo, all the time.  She is so darn cute, it’s really hard not to. I took a picture of her for my friends on a parrot talk forum with sweet potato all over her beak – always good for a laugh.  When I enlarged the photo, I noticed a sore on her foot. I posted the photo, but the focus was now on her feet.

The sore is the red spot below her back two toes, before the joint.

I felt pretty sure it was a pressure ...

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As my cockatiels get older, they are spending more and more time on their flat perches. I still provide a variety of standard perches for them, but their tired, old feet always head back to the flat perches before too long.

Flat perches gain a lot of points for offering comfort to my cockatiels in their golden years, but lose points with their constant need for cleaning. The beauty of the design of a standard perch, taken from nature, is that droppings fall from ...

 If you have been following my blog posts, you’ll know that I have a Blue and Gold Macaw who excels at getting into trouble. This has become a significant problem for me, especially since he has...

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Rosebreasted Cockatoos/Galahs

I received a message from a friend asking for help with her Galah/Rosebreasted Cockatoo’s cage setup. In short, she was struggling for inspiration and trying to deal with several problems. She wanted to know what I would do differently? She sent me a photo of the ‘bare bones’ of her cage setup. Which means that she sent me a picture of her cage without its normal arrangement of toys and foliage in order to make ...

As much as I like the cages I have selected for my birds, It seems to me that there is one major flaw in their design. Most birds primarily occupy the top half of their cage and, given this fact, it makes sense that the majority of the space should be in this area. Average inside dimensions for a large parrot cage are about 30″W X 42″L X 60″H. This leaves half of the cage, for the most part, unused. I often wonder why it is so hard to ...

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Q: I will be bringing home my first bird, an amazon, in a few weeks and want to get a cage ready for him now.  I want it to be perfect.  How do I know what perches and toys are right?

Lillian G,  Las Vegas, NV

A:  Since many parrots spend the majority of their time in their cages while their owners are at work, it really does have to be as close to perfect as we can make it.  The two main factors to consider are safety and comfort ...

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