To anyone that has read my articles on diet, I have no love for the bird food manufacturers selling processed food to our birds.
As a background, I feed my birds a diet that is at least half seed, with added chop (dried fruits and vegetables), nuts, legumes, sprouted seeds, and fresh fruit and vegetables.…
People that breed birds are disliked and even despised by many bird groups, especially bird rescue organizations. They have a valid point, given that there are many unwanted birds out there, just like there are for dogs and cats.
Some people and groups won’t even speak to them. Despite the obvious…
I’ve had this idea for a long time to start a non-profit to promote bird keeping as a way to raise awareness about the plight of birds in the wild. Here is my business plan. I’m half hoping someone will just take it and run with it as it would be a huge undertaking.
I wrote a previous post expressing my feelings about euthanasia. Even if you believe in it, it’s a vague decision. You can’t run a test on a bird and determine that the time has come.
Someone retold to me the criteria used by Brian Speer DVM of the Medical Center for birds. It still has subjectivity,…
Standard disclaimer: I’ve never advocated a 100% seed diet for birds. I do believe they can part of a healthy “real food” diet for birds that can contain vegetables, fruits, insects, nuts, and other wild foods.
Whether intentional marketing or not, the pet food industry has always used…
NOTE: This is not an endorsement of any particular style of building an aviary. I present this as a design I found compelling enough to use and the things I learned over time.
Two years ago, I built an aviary in the backyard. Just last month, with the help of a carpenter this time, I finished a significant …
It’s generally regarded as a fact that birds have very sensitive respiratory systems, far moreso than humans. Much of this comes from the proven sensitivity of birds to smoking Teflon products.
…When heated to temperatures above 260C (500F), this otherwise stable material emits several flourinated
There are some topics in the bird community that are very controversial and for which opinions are very divided. Wing clipping is near the top of the list.
It’s not hard to find articles weighing the pros and cons of wing clipping, so I wasn’t wanting to write another one. However, I feel that in these articles,…
There are many resources on keeping birds in captivity. Most people search online but there are also books and magazines. However, these resources typically don’t mention much about how various bird species live in the wild.
The reason this is important is that unlike dogs and cats, birds are significantly…
I used to breed cockatiels starting in the early 1980s, selling over a hundred birds a year. I used to advertise them in some town papers with my phone number.
When people called, I would find out whether this would be their first bird. If so, I would give them my standard speech to make sure they knew what …