Month: April 2019

What about euthanasia?

What about euthanasia?

There are sharply divided opinions about euthanasia and I’ve grouped them into 3 categories that I’ve encountered.

  1. Euthanizing an animal is fine if they are sick, annoying, or you just want to try out a different pet
  2. Euthanasia is a final option if all medical options are exhausted and the bird is on the edge of death (this is typical in humans)
  3. Euthanasia should be applied to animals that are suffering and there are no available options to alleviate it other than a lifetime of painkillers

There is also the added issue of financial burden. Categories 2 and 3 are evaluated differently if medical options are unaffordable.

With a blog called Free Range Parrots, I predictably believe in the third option. Part of being free is being free from unending suffering. How do you tell if your bird is suffering?

  • It’s not playing or singing or chirping much
  • It’s fairly inactive
  • It acts much better after giving a painkiller, indicating they are in considerable pain
  • Sometimes you can just intuit it by looking at the bird

Euthanising a bird is an extremely difficult thing and obviously should be given a lot of consideration.… READ THE REST

What causes Fatty Liver Disease

What causes Fatty Liver Disease

When a human or a bird has been diagnosed with Fatty Liver Disease, they are commonly put on a low-fat diet (although this is changing). The same goes for heart disease and many other conditions.

However, peer reviewed research is not hard to find and the culprit is not fat, but carbohydrates. This is one I picked because it’s short and sweet.

Ingested carbohydrates are a major stimulus for hepatic de novo lipogenesis (DNL) and are more likely to directly contribute to NAFLD than dietary fat.

[Note: DNL is the process by which fatty deposits are created in the liver, NAFLD is “non-alcoholic fatty liver liver disease” which should be self-explanatory.]

Carbohydrate intake and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: fructose as a weapon of mass destruction—Hepatobiliary Surgery and Nutrition—April 2015

Just as it’s difficult to get your head around the notion that dietary fat doesn’t make you fat, it’s difficult to comprehend that fat doesn’t lead to the creation of fat in the liver, carbohydrates do.… READ THE REST

Bird cage brands

Bird cage brands

I’ll start off by saying I haven’t been paid any money to promote any brands here. 🙂

Since bird cages are so expensive, I tend to not forgive even the smallest faults for that kind of money.

Having said that, I’m disappointed with the two brands of bird cages I’ve bought before: HQ and A&E Cage. However, I recently tried a new brand: Avian Adventures. Here it is:

Avian Adventures Chiquita Dometop Bird Cage


I paid $369 for it. The short version is I’m thrilled with this cage. I feel like they really care about the quality of their product. I only ran into a few issues and some things that are inferior to other brands.

Packing

Hands down, the best packing job of any bird cage I’ve bought. Double and triple walled cardboard boxes everywhere, no metal parts rubbing together, and a real effort made to prevent important pieces from getting bent or scratched.… READ THE REST

Enrichment and the senses

Enrichment and the senses

One of my favorite speeches at the American Federation of Aviculture (AFA) conference in 2018 was one called “The Great Foraging Experiment” and was given by Robin Shewokis.

When most people think of enrichment, they think of toys to shred or techniques to make it a challenge to obtain food. Robin’s speech opened this up to more than just that.

The rest of this post comes entirely from my notes on her speech.

— from Robin Shewokis —

The major types of enrichment are: visual, auditory, olfactory, social, exercise, and dietary.

Variety is the spice of life. Change and move toys and food dishes, even to the bottom of a cage for ground feeders. Change dietary elements such as fruits and vegetables.

Tactile enrichment would involve having to move objects around. For example, a food bowl that has wood block or glass beads in it that birds can touch with their beaks.… READ THE REST

Human research into fat and disease

Human research into fat and disease

I’m going to recommend a book on dietary fat. It shouldn’t be controversial, given it has very solid backing in research, but it is. It makes people and some industries uncomfortable but it’s becoming more accepted over time.

The Big Fat Surprise

It was hard to find a book review that didn’t require a subscription, but here’s one from a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

This book should be read by every nutritional science professional as a guide to risks of hubris…and to the consequences of basing public policy on belief as opposed to evidence of positive, beneficial effects….All scientists should read it as an example of how limited science can become federal policy….Teicholz compiled a historical treatise on how scientific belief (vs. evidence), nongovernment organizations, food manufacturers, government agencies, and moneyed interests promised more than they could deliver and, in the process, quite possibly contributed to the current world-wide obesity epidemic.

Book Review—American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

This blog is about birds and the book is about humans, but I strongly believe it’s applicable to birds.… READ THE REST

Human research applied to parrot diets

Human research applied to parrot diets

While there is a good amount of research on wild birds, there is precious little on captive birds. We do have a lot in common with birds, however:

  • Overall human health, especially in western countries, and captive bird health is poor
  • We share most of the same important internal organs and they perform the same functions
  • Many very common diseases in humans are also common in birds
  • Especially in the United States, we are both advised to eat a low fat, high carbohydrate diet (USDA, AHA, and others)
  • When our birds are ill with diseases in common with humans, we are typically given the same proposed remedies

The food for thought here is whether, given the similarities, we can apply this human research on diet to captive birds.

Here is a short list of diseases we share that are at least partially influenced by diet:

  • Cancer
  • Diabetes
  • Fatty liver disease
  • Gout
  • Heart disease
  • Heart attacks
  • Kidney failure
  • Obesity (metabolic disorder)

I’m dipping my toe into a difficult topic here: bird diets.… READ THE REST

Grass for grassland birds

Grass for grassland birds

There are a number of species of birds, some very popular ones, that are grassland birds in the wild. Below is a non-comprehensive list. Look up your bird on Wikipedia and it should have a section called “habitat” that you can use to see if your bird is a grassland bird.

  • Africa
    • Lovebirds
  • Australia
    • Bourke’s Parrot
    • Budgies
    • Cockatiels
    • Cockatoos (Galah)
    • Neophemas (grass parrots)
    • Red-rumped Parrot
  • South America
    • Hyacinch Macaw

Obvious in retrospect, I’ve discovered that my grassland birds really love grass! It’ll hold their attention longer than just about anything, even millet sprays sometime. They love to eat the seeds, if present, or gnaw the blades of grass.

Hazel bathing in grass.

Some things you can try:

  • Grow wheatgrass. You can buy this at most garden centers already sprouted. Put it on the bottom of their cage or in a flat area they run around in.
  • Get cuttings of grass from your yard.
… READ THE REST
UV myth #6: Windows block all UV light

UV myth #6: Windows block all UV light

There is disagreement about what effect windows have on UV light. However, this is something that can be easily measured with UV meters. The end result is that windows only partially block UVA light, while completely blocking UVB light.

Ordinary window glass passes about 90% of the light above 350 nm, but blocks over 90% of the light below 300 nm.

Ultraviolet—Wikipedia

Below 330 nm (UV-B and UV-C), almost 100% is blocked by normal glass

UV FAQs—International Ultraviolet Association

Note: If your windows have a special UV coating applied to them, then you should check with the manufacturer to see how it would affect UV light.

The conclusions from this:

  • UVA, the type of light known for enhancing bird vision significantly, is only partially blocked by glass. This means that putting a bird in a room with abundant light coming through windows could have a great impact on their lives.
  • UVB light is blocked by glass, so there is no Vitamin D benefit from being in a sunlight filled room with closed windows.
… READ THE REST
Exceptional toys for small birds

Exceptional toys for small birds

I like to share products that I love and I feel are unique and exceptional. When I shop for bird toys, I often find the following:

  • Plastic and lots of it
  • Toys that skew towards larger birds
  • Toys made out of only one or two materials
  • They aren’t particular clever or interesting

The company I want to share is called Little Blue Bird Toys. It’s potentially a one person operation but I never asked. They sold on Etsy for awhile but appear to sell exclusively on their website.

The toys are very unique, unlike most toys I’ve seen. My favorite part is the list of materials they use is very long. And most toys have 3 or more different types of materials. Here’s a list I compiled, which may not be comprehensive.

  • cork
  • cardboard cups
  • paper shred
  • balsa
  • wooden beads
  • paper cord
  • hardwood
  • leather
  • cupcake paper
  • bamboo
  • paper woven balls
  • palm shred
  • yucca
  • grapevine
  • pine
  • popsicle sticks
  • coconut
  • mahagony
  • sola
  • willow
  • loofah
  • buri
  • basswood
  • tree roots
  • paper straws
  • pod cups

Here’s one product my cockatiels love.… READ THE REST

Case study of “How do I know who to trust?”

Case study of “How do I know who to trust?”

I wanted to provide an example to back up what I wrote about in How do I know who to trust? I wish I could say it’s easy to spot misinformation, but it does get easier over time.

I could’ve picked any number of articles, but I chose this one to illustrate how I determine a trustworthy source.

Proper lighting to support avian vision

On the plus side

  • It comes from a seemingly credible source, one of the largest bird rescue organizations in the US
  • Clearly a lot of effort was put into writing a very wide-reaching article that is presented and formatted nicely and with images

On the minus side

This article has a number of obvious red flags to start off with:

  • No author is listed as well as no contact information
  • No sources are cited for an article that is highly technical and critically important to bird health

Analysis

Now I’m going to go through the article and quote some bits of it and explain the concerns that I find.… READ THE REST