Free Range Parrots

I’m a big proponent of using cameras with birds to solve practical problems.

• Benefits and joys of remote cameras
• Leveraging time-lapse photography

Weighing birds is a great way to keep tabs on their health and spot potential issues. It’s also another excellent example of employing cameras.

Many birds don’t like to be weighed and if you have multiple birds, it can be tedious and time-consuming to get them to cooperate. I prefer positive reinforcement methods rather than catching a bird and forcing it to stand on a scale.

So, here’s what you need:

• A scale large enough to accommodate a food bowl
• Some uncooperative birds
• Treats

Other than making it easier to record weights, a camera can solve the problem of fluctuating weight readings as birds move around.

For the purposes of making this short, I used three plush toys as stand-ins for birds and a bowl of wooden blocks to simulate the eating of treats while on the bowl.…

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In a previous article, I talked about how to find credible sources of information. Sometimes you may have questions and simply cannot find any source you can trust.

Caveats for forums

I can provide some caveats for when you resort to visiting forums or blogs that have uncited information.

• People are far more likely to visit forums to report problems than successes with their birds. If one person reports a problem, it’s possible that many others did the same thing and didn’t have a problem.
• When someone asks “should I let my bird do xyz” on a forum, the answer you will likely get is no. People default to no because it’s a safer answer. But in the desire to provide rich lives for our birds, we owe it to them to not be reactionary.

Finding the good in forums

So, I’ve basically trashed forums, but they are sometimes the only place where certain topics are mentioned.…

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As I mentioned in my review of bird cage brands, some rolling bird cages have a convenient storage shelf at the bottom. Here are two, for comparison.

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Personally, I find it an invaluable place to store food, toys, cleaning supplies, and other items. When you’re pressed for time and want to swap out a toy, this makes it super easy. Also, if you want to move the cage, the floor around the cage isn’t cluttered with items.

But I have a bunch of cages that don’t have this nice shelf. I thought of just cutting a piece of plywood, but I have roaming birds that become hormonal when they find dark places. Plus, plywood isn’t particularly attractive.

Custom plastics

You may not know it, but you probably have a custom plastics shop where you live. They will take plastic sheets, film, tubes or anything else and create whatever you can dream up.…

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It can be difficult finding a vet that has experience with birds. I’m fortunate to have several vets that only see birds or it’s a significant part of their practice. For many people, the only choice is whatever bird vet lives a reasonable distance away, so this post may not be useful if that applies to you.

Many of us have run into doctors that like to run the show and bristle when being questioned. They are the doctor and we are the patient. This same mentality finds its way into vets as well. Both doctors and vets tend to be conservative and traditional. They can be skeptical of less mainstream methods for care and treatment.

If you find yourself agreeing with some of the posts on this blog, you are likely to be in conflict with your local vets. The conventional wisdom on many bird topics is vastly different in some areas, especially nutrition.…

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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.

• Wikipedia (be sure claims have citations)
• Scientific journals (ScienceDirect, Elsevier, Wiley, and others)
• Audubon
• Cornell School of Ornithology
• Bird Talk magazine (after the rebirth)
• Hagen Avicultural Research Institute (although they do sell products)
• Zoo research
• University researchers
• Widely recognized experts in the field, such as Barbara Heidenreich
• International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators

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?

…

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