SunnyBird

I haven't read it but it has a preface by Irene Pepperberg.

Here is the link:

http://www.shermanasher.com/cosmo.html

Happy Monday!

Renate and Sunny

Χρόνια σου πολλά DAYO να τα εκατοστίσεις!

Translation: - Happy Birthday Dayo - May you live to be 100, as they say in Greece!!!!

This paragraph says it all. It from http://www.avianweb.com/nutrition.html:

Calcium-rich vegetable / fruits and greens are: bok choy, kale, parsley, mustard greens, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, dandelion greens, apricots, figs, endive, okra, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), pinto beans and kidney beans. Please note that large raw beans - such as Anasazi, Black, Fava, Kidney, Lima, Navy, Pinto, and Soy - can cause toxicities when fed raw, causing digestive upsets for people and potentially for birds. Some experts recommend that large beans should be cooked to make them safe and digestible. Others counter that soaking beans for 24 hours starts the germinating process and that soaking makes the beans safe and digestible. For those who do not want to take any risks, it's best to cook large beans thoroughly before feeding to your birds. These beans are not recommended for general sprouting purposes. Certain uncooked dried beans contain enzyme inhibitors, are indigestible , and may cause visceral gout in birds. These enzyme inhibitors may prevent or decrease the utilization in the body of substances, such as trypsin and chymotrypsin, to produce nutritional deficiencies. Beans that can interfere with proteolytic enzymes are lima, kidney and soybeans. Cooking these beans for at least 2 hours destroys these enzyme inhibitors. Other dried beans do not appear to contain these enzyme inhibitors or, if present, are in low concentrations. To be on the safe side, it's best to cook ALL varieties of beans

As for the ginger, check out this cool page I found: http://www.landofvos.com/articles/kitchen.html

They say it's actually good for birds!

GINGER-Called the "wonder drug", the ginger root is actually a rhizome which is similar to several foods known to be consumed in the wild by parrots. It has been used for two thousand years by the Chinese to treat nausea and upset stomach. It is no coincidence that the Japanese serve fresh ginger slices with sushi as insurance against the parasites sometimes found in raw fish. Ginger is a wonderful remedy to use with baby parrots that go through brief periods of colic or throwing up their formula. I mix their formula in ginger tea instead of water and the problem is solved immediately. You can make the tea by steeping two or three slices of fresh ginger root in the water for ten or fifteen minutes. If your parrot must travel and is prone to motion sickness, ginger to the rescue! Add fresh ginger to the food and drinking water several hours before the trip and put a few slices in the carrier. Parrots seem to have an innate sense of what they need and will munch on the ginger to "quell their queasiness" during the trip.

Yes they really are amazing photographs. They are protected otherwise I would upload one but since I can't you have to access the link. It's worth the click!

Here is the one entitled "Bird in Hand" which Jilly is referring to:

Photo:

http://parrothouse.zenfolio.com/p846682511/e3d8a315e

She is a peach-faced love bird.

Hairbands are still cheaper than headbands!!! Maybe it's a fetish?? See my post in the Amazon Room about fid fetishes!

I have posted photo's of Nilah, but I will repost them. I do know for a fact that she is a Yellow Crown Amazon, well all her paperwork from the breeder and various other breeders and owners have said they agree. She is an incredible talker, but I think that is due to her breeder and care as a baby. She was bred from the best and never caged, and was hand handled from the day she was born by various people. Well, that's my reasoning anyways....

I didn't see you post any photos so I went back and looked at some videos you posted a long time ago. Yep sure does look like a YCA... I think the excellent start at talking she has must be connected with having a multi talking bird household. Younger human siblings always learn faster than only children too!

Hi everyone -

A member on another parrot forum allowed me to pass this one to you. I thought you would appreciate the beauty of these photos. All the birds are part of the photographer's flock. Here is the link:

http://parrothouse.zenfolio.com/p846682511

Enjoy!

I thought it was about time this thread came to the fore again!

We had a walk around one of our local beauty spots yesterday and the girls were very obliging!

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That's a phenomenal photo Pearllyn! You should post it in the photography room too so that everyone will see it!

Sunshine my YCA has this thing about head bands (the hard plastic ones that - mostly women - wear on their heads). I have a wedge haircut and when I'm working around the house I like to wear one to keep the hair out of my eyes. Sunny will, without fail, after a short time passes while he's hanging around with me, either climb or fly onto my head, grab the top of the head band and fly off with it somewhere to play with it. It can get quite frustrating at times, the little bugger.... What's more is that he often does it on purpose when my hands are full or dirty and he knows I can't swat at him!!! I've tried giving him his own head band (one of my old ones) but nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooo, he wants the one I'm wearing! :mad:

What are your fids' fetishes??

I have a cage with and one without the skirts and I find that the skirts are very useful. Sunshine loves to poop off the side of his cage when he's on his play top so it catches all that and it slides right down into the droppings tray. Food will always be flung around but I do think it catches most of it. For the droppings alone it it worth it for me because I can see what the results are on my floor when he sits on his open cage door. Why do parrots like to sit on their open cage doors so much, anyway?

They are both beautiful. And rottweilers are great dogs. Thanks for the photos and keep them coming!

:)Wow that is a look of sheer enjoyment if I ever saw one.

So far Sunshine also puts up a fight, leans back to avoid the loop that's trying to go over his head, and I'm thinking that perhaps one day I will not be able to do this anymore. This weekend we are going to the country again so we shall soon find out... However, until that day I intend to be MORE thick headed and stubborn than he can be!

OK friends,

Please have a look at the photos I posted in the photography room in "Sunshine in a Cherry Tree" and tell me if you think that I'm doing something wrong in putting on Sunny's aviator harness or if you think it might be a size too big. It doesn't lay flat against his chest. That doesn't seem to bother him however, he's just always picking at the buckle and manages to loosen it all the time.

This harness is the size for CAGs. I had purchased it for Alex my beloved over the rainbow bridge CAG last year. He never got to wear it.

Anyhow, see what you think and any advice or suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Here's the link:

http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?189354-Sunshine-in-a-Cherry-Tree

Cheers,

Renate and Sunshine

Here are some photos of Sunshine's first experiences outdoors in his aviator harness. We haven't tried flights yet, we are just getting started. Here he is sitting on one of the blooming cherry trees at our country place on Pilion mountain in Greece. He was still enjoying chewing on the cherry blossoms as dusk arrived.

That is sooooooo cuuuuuuttte. My daughter and I watched your video together, ooooohing and aaaaaahhing the whole time. Bless you and your baby CAG.

Congratulations, I understand your joy. This is just the beginning!

So basically the yellow crowned and yellow naped major differences: The yellow crowned has a large area of white skin surrounding the eye and the sides of the upper mandible are pink. The yellow naped has a dark beak, not prominent skin patch around eye. Immature birds are more difficult to tell apart at first glance, since most of the yellow feathers don't come in before 15 months of age. Thanks, Jayd!

As you can see from my Avatar photo, sunshine is certainly a yellow crowned amazon! The red feathers on the tip of his shoulders will become more prominent as he matures, you can't see them at all in this photo...

Ana Grey is a beautiful bird. I always wanted a TAG. Love her coloring.

Hey Esknomoe, that's really interesting about your conure. It sounds as if Phoebe identifies with your dogs. I wonder if she had dogs at her previous home? Do you have any photos or videos of her interacting with the dogs? I'd love to see them.

Cheers, Renate

I took Sunshine out with the aviator harness during the Easter break when I had vacation and was at our country place. He is constantly chewing at it - I have to keep him busy all the time. I keep telling him - forget about that - look around you! I hope that with time he will become more accepting. I had him sitting on the branch of one of our cherry trees, and although he seemed to be enjoying himself and liked picking at the cherry flowers and the smaller branches, he would still return to tugging at the buckle on his chest. He is able to loosen it himself, but I don't think that he could actually get it off. It does mess up his feathers a little, I noticed. I'm trying to get my husband to download the photos from his camera but...... when I have them I will post them.

I think that the buckles around the ankles would really drive him nuts because he would keep getting his legs tangled up when he walks I imagine!

I cannot fly him at our country place because we have too many trees. I will try to go down to the beach eventually or maybe take him to a park around my home in Athens. It will take some time to get him used to the concept, I'm sure.

Thank you for the great pictures of your flight line.

I'm sure Jayd will fill you in with loads of interesting details but meantime, the basic differences are that the yellow crowned (yellow headed) amazon has the more gentle and sweet personality of the bunch. They are also not such proficient talkers as the yellow nape and double yellow headed. There are differences in the coloring of the beak, but the immature double yellow head, for example, has yellow only on its crown, similar to the yellow crowned amazon, whereas the yellow nape may have little or no yellow feathers on its nape. This yellow spreads as the bird reaches maturity. Can you please post a couple of photos of Nilah so that I can get a good look at her? I can't seem to find any right now.

I don't think that your Nilah is a yellow crowned because she is showing exceptional talking ability. Some yellow napes also have some yellow on their crown.

Here is a photo of a typical yellow crowned amazon:

Thanks. These look like double yellow headed amazons.

Thank you Dave, that was very interesting and informative. I learned about some of the native diet (those interesting nuts) and was reminded of the continuing gravity of the situation. Sunshine, my fid, is a yellow crowned amazon and is not on the CITES list, i.e not considered endangered.

For one thing, I tried 2 browsers to see if there is a problem with the one I usually use. Same thing. Although I set my settings exactly as stated above, Signature Permissions under the text box always say:

Can Upload Images for Signature No

Can Upload Animated GIF for Signature No

What else can I do?

Yes, I wish I had a print out of my former friends list, some of the names are eluding me and the alphabetical list is VERY long. It's amazing how many folks are registered but don't participate. Are our wonderful personalities not incentive enough? We also lost our previous visitor's comments. Thanks for yours, Jill! I just left you one as well.

I presume that the friends I have invited get a message to their email address by default?