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Hi all, I've seen a couple of mentions from different sources about dehydrated food for parrots. I read that someone was making their own dehydrated food so they knew where everything had come from and someone else had ordered some in. I've never really heard of this before (or paid it much attention) so I'm just curious about it. If you make or buy dehydrated food, how do you feed it to your birds? Do you feed it as is or do you have to soak it or cook it in some way before it's edible?

I feed Volkman's Birdeez Buffet and have for years. It contains dehydrated veggies/fruits. I basically have a concoction where I boil water then throw in a bean cuisine for 15-20 mintues, then I throw in the birdeez buffet (minus the pasta pieces). Let that cook for another 10 minutes then throw in the pasta and some frozen peas and vegetable medley. Makes for a really great parrot buffet! Huey thinks it's the best thing ever. He gets super excited when he sees me in the kitchen making his breakfast!

Welcome back to the forum, you have been busy in your absence and I see you are following in the footsteps of Steve and building an aviary for your fids to enjoy, such lucky birds.

Drs. Foster Smiths site offers dried vegetables, I have purchased the mixed vegetables and the peas for my fids, they enjoy them. The mixed version has dried peppers in them too.

So sorry you've had two hard losses so close together. Hugs from Dorian and I.

2-3 years ago, GreycieMae started doing this maneuver where she stands straight, lifts her head up and back and makes a sort of exhale noise. No idea where she got this but my wife picked up on it and now they will do their "center"ing together. "GreycieMae....center" is usually what my wife will tell her when they do it. We like to call it GreycieMae's calming yoga...for when she's not terrorizing the house. One needs to cool her jets you know! I've always wanted to catch a picture of it and I just happened to get it today totally by accident. I was trying to snap a pic of her and Huey in the new aviary. I guess it was her "oh gosh, not the camera again" calming yoga moment

I used a personal size Sunbeam cool mist ultrasonic vaporizer. I don't find anything similar on line now, but there are many humidifiers and vaporizers for every price and size, both cool and steam. Do you need steam for medication?

Haha you definitely caught her having a moment!

Looks good! I think I'm going to investigate this for Alfie. Judygram- do you cook/boil the veggies you buy before serving them to the birds?

Oh wow! Lucky Huey!

Welcome back. I really admire those of you with multiple birds. Dorian keeps me busy enough lol.

For several years I have been planning on building my fid family an outdoor aviary. Last month we broke ground and poured its foundation, complete with drains. Within the next 2 weeks the materials for the structure should be ready to go! I agonized over what type of mesh to use, and finally decided to go with stainless steel mesh, 1/2x1/2 inch. Galvanized after welding is so much cheaper, but I really worried about my bird's exposure to any zinc remaining on the wires, so I decided to bite the bullet and go with stainless steel. There will be a chute from the side of the aviary that'll be directly attached to my bedroom window. I won't have to carry them out to the aviary in carriers, but will be able to place them inside the chute, and then they can fly right into their bird haven. Size of the aviary is 20x10.

Snapped a few photos of Alfie today. He looks like he is posing for them!

I know this has been asked before, but it’s time for an update. Recommendations for a warm air humidifier?

So thrilled to be back! I missed everyone! I have added to our flock since the last time I'd posted. I'm also now owned by a fantastic Scarlet named Dexter, bringing our flock to 11! He was an owner turn in at the ripe young age of 18 months. He's an absolute love bug with an incredible ability to pick up language. Maalik continues to steal our hearts with his antics, mimicry and his love. Looking forward to being back. Thank you, Talon, for the re-add! :-)

-Greetings, Greys really enjoy the cold. They love 70-72 degrees (close to their natural habitat). So, we keep our temp 70-72 year round. We also, instead of humidifiers, have three fresh water fish tanks. (two 30s and a 10 gal...whew-hoo). The two 30 gal have live plants planted thick (java ferns and Anubis plants) which produces abundant oxygen not only to the fish tanks but to the room also while absorbing CO2. They each require topping up a gallon + each daily. This produces a room temp quantity of moisture (humidified) air. As a side benefit, Joe and Salsa not only sit and gaze at the fish, but bathes and occasionally takes sips . My choice would be a neutral heat humidifier and two Aloe-Vera juice baths a week. I'll do a post on the fish tanks in Off-Topic Discussions "Wet Health for your FIDS"

I think we're having a bit too much fun with this new aviary:

Everyone knows cats do yoga, but now so does GreycieMae. Maybe all greys do

Amazing, simply amazing Steve.

This is a super cute video. Before this was taken, Huey was helping himself to GreycieMae's nut, literally taking it right from her talon. She would look at him incredulously, then pick up another nut and before long Huey would reach over and take that one too. That's what I intended to get avideo of. But by the time I got the camera, GraycieMae had about enough of Huey's one-sided sharing. And here that are just chowing down a little later

Well when you have that nice new addition to the house for the birds it needs more fids to enjoy it, lucky Huey.

Red Palm oil, supplements? Do my fid's really need Red Palm oil, and supplements? Whats the pluses and minuses? COST? Vets often neglect to mention Red Palm oils downside: LDL cholesterol raising, artery clogging, heart disease instigating saturated fats by the truckload. (Heart disease in parrots has shown a sharp increase over recent years.) We really need to learn about proper diet. Red palm oil IS loaded with beta carotene's, which convert to vitamin A in the body. But so are carrots, winter squashes, peppers, dark leafy greens, apricots, mangoes… If your bird is deficient in vitamin A, doesn’t it make more sense to improve the diet than to use a supplement, especially one with such an unhealthy downside? Vets will often recommend red palm oil to clients with plucking birds claiming that it will help to stop or reduce this behavior. It is true that vitamin A improves feather and skin condition, and red palm oil has plenty of that. Dry itchy skin is sometimes the cause of plucking. However, most of the “evidence” that red palm oil is responsible for eliminating plucking is purely anecdotal. For instance, the person who brings home the plucked macaw from a rescue and starts him on red palm oil – when the plucking stops, the credit is given the red palm oil, not the improved diet and the more suitable environment. There is no conclusive evidence that red palm oil fixes plucking. Plucking issues are more successfully treated with medical investigation, change to the environment and improved diet and social interaction (which includes training). Your vet should only have YOUR bird’s best interests at heart and products should be recommended only as they are needed. I think you would agree that the money you budget for your parrot’s needs each month is better spent on a foraging toy than on an unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, dietary supplement. If your bird is already in fine feather and on a good diet, please ask your vet this: “why does MY bird need red palm oil?” If it is suggested for valid medical or dietary reasons, ask your vet how to make adjustments to your bird’s diet to account for the increased fat.

We're his new home.

They look like they're having a blast together! Is Huey still a temporary resident or is he now there to stay?

Not sure what's going on with the forum and videos. I upload to youtube and then paste the link in my post. The forum automagically embeds the youtube video. Works great.

OH, that's great! It's a blast having birds that say stuff. And you just never know what's going to come out of a grey's beak next! Maalik talks all the time. He does say things in context, but mostly he just like to sit there and go through his repertoire of words, clicks, pops and whistles. Between him and my 2 macaws, especially Dexter, our newest one, somebirdy is always saying something! One of these days I'm going to have to figure out how to upload my phone videos up to the forum.

That was just the main construction. I still have left to do: Wire with electric - I'm getting an electrician to do that because it needs power from the panel and I don't screw with the panel. Lighting - me and the electrician Cameras with cat-5 cabling - me Window wire panels - me Some landscaping - me More rope climbing nets and toys! - me

Oh you had to ask didn't you! Here's a sampling of his talking, he tends to only talk in private, private meaning on the other side of the wall in the kitchen. His favorite spot is in the kitchen, especially with someone cooking there "La-la-laaa-la....La-la-laaaa-la" F*#! (former owners two teenage sons taught him this along with the next one) S*#t "Get me the hell out of here" "What" "Hello?" (always after the phone rings) "Huey's a good bird" And apparently a lot more that we haven't heard yet. And this one is funny: Wife and I were having one of our usual fights - loud talking, talking over each other, lots of tension and Huey belted out: "SHUT UP - STOP IT...JUST STOP IT". Not only did it stop the fight that was going on because we could not believe what he just said, but since he said it in perfect context we felt bad that we were stressing him out. So the fight stopped immediately. Wife took him to the bedroom and babied him as if he had told me to shut up and stop it and I promptly got on messenger and asked the owner if what I heard was actually what I heard because it was so unbelievable. The owner confirmed that Huey doesn't like fighting and will say exactly what we heard. He's not the most prolific talker and he doesn't talk very often but we get a real kick out of it because he's the only talker now out of 6 birds. However he is not a cuddly bird and will bite the living daylights out of you if you make a wrong move - something my cuddlebugs GreycieMae will never do.

Very cute! As I recall Gracie Mae isn't a talker; was wondering if Huey has any language skills.

The entire waiting period to completion will actually be 5 weeks for us, too. With all that you had to implement building your sunroom,12 weeks is pretty good!

I hour your contractor is faster than mine regarding his own time estimates. We were told 4 weeks, 5 max. 12 weeks later we were wrapping things up. Normally we would have said something but his work was such high quality with attention to detail - I just shut my beak. Keep us posted with pics.

Well I'm excited! Met with the fabricator to finalize the roof plans. Thanks to SR SeedBurners I feel confident with what we're going to do! This aviary runs north>south. The north half will have corregated steel panels, and the south half the SunTuf opaque white panels. So there will be a shaded portion and a light infused portion. The fabricator didn't even increase the price when I asked to have the SS mesh installed underneath the SunTuf panels. Estimated time for installation: 2 weeks!!! So happy!

Solar Grey sounds really nice. The fabricator is using steel beams as support. The cost of this aviary is about to increase, now that I know I have to add SS netting into its roof. UGH.

We went with the Solar Grey, it's a really nice smokey color and casts a bronze light (sort of like the color you see when there's a forest fire in the area and the sky is filled with smoke - bad joke I know - but that really is what it looks like underneath them). Home Depot only carries Clear and Solar Grey in our area so I never got to see the others. We have enough sunlight that comes through the windows on the side that I'm not concerned about maximum sunlight overhead. They provide the partial shade I was after and then under the soffits it's full shade. How are you building the roof? We have 16 ft beams like what they use on a pergola. The beams come directly off our house roof. The Suntuf panels sit directly on top of the beams (on top of the Suntuf 'horizontals' but that has no bearing on what I'm talking about). Then on the underside of the beams I am putting up 16 gauge wire. So there will be a space the width of the beam between the wire on the bottom and the panel sitting on top. Similar to you I don't want something punching a hole in the panel and my birds getting an escape route. My concern is a squirrel chewing through. If there is threat of hail, I won't have them out there anyway so a baseball size hailball I'm not worried about. These panels will take a pretty good strike but it is possible a branch could punch through if directed just right.

Thank you SO MUCH! I'm going to take a look at the Suntuf in a moment. I have some additional concerns moving forward with the plans. The contractor designed the aviary with the idea of having only the roof panels; so no mesh on the top. Now I'm beginning to think that it might not be a good idea to go that route, especially if I decide to use the Suntuf. The eucalyptus trees are known to drop branches here and there, so I'm fearful that if I don't have any roof mesh, that a branch could possibly penetrate one of those panels, and then my birdies will fly off into the sunset. He's coming by tomorrow, so I really need to wrap my plans up quickly. Okay..I just looked at the Suntuf website. Nice product! Would you go with the clear or opal white?

That's a tough call. We had the exact same dilemma and I finally decided to just use one type of panel all the way across. We went with the 'Solar Grey' as it has 35% light transmission. We have plenty of soffit for the birds to hide under should they want to get completely in the shade. Here in Texas we regularly get temps 90-100 for weeks or months on end. So I'm fully expecting to have to find a way to push air through our aviary. If you do use the SunTuf, I don't believe you will be able to use any other panel as the ridge profiles are hexagonal in shape. Most galvanized panels and the regular polycarbonate panels are a 'sine curve' shape. There is no guarantee those will fit together either as the curves may be different sizes between the two products. I do know, you DO NOT want to use the clear polycarbonate paneling that you will find at Lowes/HD. That stuff is pure junk and breaks easily. It's listed at HD under the name 'Palruf'. If you're going to have open sides, which I believe is what you are doing, you can easily hang a box fan and a mister on the outside and cool their jets with that. That's what I did on our outdoor aviary. Here's what I would do based on what I think you're building and what I know of how my birds have behaved in both my aviaries: I would put a solid section of roofing ~2ft out from the side of the house, very similar to the way our roof soffits are in our new aviary. Our birds tend to want to hang out under that. Our outdoor aviary has a tree that shades part of it and that's where they hang 90% of the time. They sell a closure strip that we used to join the SunTuf panels to the flat roofing board which is exactly what you would do too. I think I may have a pic of that before it was shingled. Have you thought about having a camera out there? I can't tell you how much peace of mind that brings being able to monitor them from inside the house. I have a dedicated monitor at home and work that is nothing but the live feed from my camera. Here is the manufacture link for the Suntuf panels. It contains the different colors, how much light they transmit and a couple of good videos comparing them. https://www.palramamericas.com/Products/corrugated-sheets/SUNTUF/ If you do decide to go with Suntuf, you will need their closure strips and what they call their 'horizontal'. Those are not sold at Home Depot which is completely stupid. I had to order them and wait, fortunately our contractor had other stuff he did in the meantime. https://www.palramamericas.com/Products/corrugated-accessories/CorrugatedAccessories/

Thanks! Would you recommend doing the entire roofing in that rather than what I was thinking, which is to alternate between galvanized steel:plastic panels? I wanted them to be able to find shade as needed, and was thinking that having the entire roof made out of those plastic sheets would make it too hot for them.

That's going to be great!

Take a look at Suntuf panels. That's what we used. 15 year damage warranty. They sell it at Home Depot too.

The roof will be a combo of every other panel being steel/outdoor patio plastic stuff so that more light can filter through. I didn't want there to be any cross beams onto which my fids could climb, thereby making it a challenge to retrieve them at night. My 4 German Shepherds will do a fine job cleaning up the tossed food at the end of the day. The next door neighbors have a junk heap of stuff collecting in their back yard, which has made their property a great haven for rats. That's one of the main reasons why I went with 1/2x2 inch mesh. And no, I'm located in sunny Southern California. Those are eucalyptus trees, plus bamboo growing on the other side of the fence. Next I'll have to figure out what kinds of bird safe vegetation I'll have growing inside the aviary.

This puts a rest to my suspicions that there is a Grey conspiracy out there to get their hoomans to build luxury aviaries. You'll love being able to shove them in and out from the house. That's the one thing I didn't like about my first outdoor aviary - it's too hard to get in and out of. Once I put them in I was reluctant to pull them out. Silkies make really good cleanup crew if you need something to pickup the food that gets tossed. What kind of roof are you putting on it? Wire? If I didn't know any better, I'd guess you were from Australia. Your yard looks really similar to the yard where my wife grew up in Toowoomba. Those almost look like native australian gum trees.

Welcome back! Second the motion for pictures

Welcome back!!!! Now for some pics! Way back when I had three birds and that was it for us. Now at 6 birds I say, what the hell, they've taken over!