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, other animal, 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 birdcage 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

Animal research into fat, carbohydrates, and disease

Animal research into fat, carbohydrates, and disease

Many of us has grown up believing that fat makes you fat and that fat causes heart disease, diabetes, metabolic disorder, and obesity. A low fat diet has been recommended by the USDA, doctors, and nutritionists since the 1980s despite lack of solid research to support it.

This opinion has been mirrored by the bird world where processed (pelleted) diets are universally low in fat and high in carbohydrates. Also, feeding fatty seeds like sunflower and safflower is highly frowned upon.

However, research going back to the early 20th century contradicts this conventional wisdom, but has always been drowned out by organizations such as the American Heart Association, the USDA, and the Sugar Association, all of which have strong industry ties.

In the last 15 years, an avalanche of research has predominantly exonerated fat, including saturated fat, from causing these diseases. Carbohydrate intake was the culprit all along. Low carbohydrate diets aren’t very controversial anymore but the link between high consumption and disease is now much more ironclad.… READ THE REST

Animal research applied to parrot diets

Animal 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 and other animals 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 animal 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
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

How do I know who to trust?

How do I know who to trust?

If you do a web search on any bird topic, you’ll probably get some results, but how do you know if it’s good infomation? This is especially difficult if you find conflicting information from multiple sources.

Is this a trusted source?

Sometimes the publication or author is enough to give credibility to an article. I can’t tell you which sources to trust, but I can tell a few that I trust to give you an idea.

If it’s from a source you don’t know or don’t trust, here are some questions you may ask.

Does the author cite sources?

… READ THE REST