#bluetheparrotlet

[flock-talk]

Hey Courtney. I really love the food dishes that you have for your sweeties. Where did you get them from?

As with everything, feathered addictions!

these are the food dishes I use

http://featheredaddictions.com/Tiny-Dish-with-Perch_p_3755.html

and the water dishes

http://featheredaddictions.com/5oz-Stainless-Steel-Bolt-on-Coop-Cup_p_3745.html

Really love those dishes, it was waaaay too hard trying to find a small dish that didn’t hold excessive amounts of food that’d just get kicked around or collect too much pellet dust.  Also took a bit of time to find one that Zeeby could just rip off the wall, the last dish she had she’s just grab and thrash around until it fell off the wall of her cage but she hasn’t seemed to manage to toss either of these!

[flock-talk]

Hello ! Now that blue has a new cage he is very happy. But the cage is housed in the living room and because the cage is so big, I cannot put a blanket over the cage because it is all too small. Is it okay to put him in a smaller cage for the night?

You can have a separate night cage, yes, many people tend to do that with large birds and nervous birds to help set a ritual and help the bird feel comfortable.  However it is not necessary to cover the cage, it can help birds who frequently have night frights or don’t sleep well otherwise but most birds are perfectly fine sleeping without a cover.  You may have troubles with him trying to interact with people who are in the living room at that time but often just dimming the lights and ignoring them is all it takes for them to settle down and realize they’re sleepy. So yep it is possible but not completely necessary most of the time!

[flock-talk]

Thank you for always helping me with the Blue when I have questions. How are things with you? Is it going a bit better then a couple of weeks ago? We sort of been trough a similar situation as you, so I kind of know how it is. Wish you all the best and everything will be okay!

No worries, things aren’t exactly much farther along, no change on his side of things, I picked up that temporary full time for a month that helps gain some funds and have had overwhelming support from everyone here so I’m hoping I’ll be able to hold up my end of things and get back in to university which, in theory, should force him back in to paying child support.  So it’s not good, things definitely aren’t great, but they’re seeming more manageable than they were a month ago which is something

[flock-talk]

The cage size is measured in cm! We barely use inches with measuring here in the Netherlands and because of that we also don't learn it in school, so honestly I don't know exactly what that is! But the bar spaces is in 11 mm.

11mm is perfect for the bar spacing and the cage size is also great as well, as I said it’s larger than the cage for one of my beans! plenty of space for birbly activities!

[flock-talk]

Thanks for awnsering my question yesterday! I want to ask you another one haha. I finally have a new job (after looking for a year!) so I want to use my first earned money, to buy a new cage for Blue. I saw one on a website and the size is 81 x 54 x 157.. Is this good for the little bean?

As long as the bar spacing is alright (no more than 1/2 inch for p’lets) that sounds like a wonderful amount of space (assuming the measurement is in inches)! If it’s in cm it’s still a pretty good size, a little larger than what my beans are in right now.

[flock-talk]

I hope one day they will study that kind of behavior, I'm really curious why they react so strong on those kind of sound. Thank you, I will try that!

Same here, a lot more studies need to be done in parrots in general in my opinion. There’s so much more we need to learn about them, especially if we plan on taking care of them!

[flock-talk]

I was sitting with blue today, and i had some candy for myself but it was wrapped in plastic. The second I started opening it, blue went completely nuts. When I stopped he relaxed but when the plastic was making noise again he got so angry. Is this normal?

Parrotlets seem to have this quirk where they aggress towards sounds of crinkling things and I haven’t a clue why, it does happen with other species sometimes but it doesn’t seem to be as prevalent as with parrotlets.  My theory is that it may sound like an aggressive bird to them but there’s been no studies or anything to suggest that, maybe they just find the noise really irritating.  It could also perhaps replicate a predator but then that doesn’t make sense for why they tend to lunge for it instead of running away.  Crinkling foil has lead to seizures in cats so it’s possible there may be some weird correlation there but again I haven’t found any studies on the subject regarding birds and since it seems to be pretty specific to parrotlets I’m not really sure if it is related or not.

In general I’ve found that this behaviour can be trained out, slowly, so I don’t think it is related to the seizure thing but I really don’t know and wish there was more information on the subject.  Zeeby was really bad with the crinkly things (mia never cared), so with her I found that getting something she responds like this to and crinkling it quietly or from a distance so it’s barely audible as to not produce the aggressive response and rewarding for the calm behaviour encouraged her to stay calm around these sounds.  Over time I did it more frequently and louder, stopping if the aggression started, being sure to reinforce any calm responses to it and not triggering the aggressive response. Eventually she learned that being calm near those sounds meant she would earn a treat and the aggression stopped.

[flock-talk]

Do you have any tips for new years eve? This is my first time with the beebs and im kind of nervous for it

http://flock-talk.tumblr.com/tagged/fireworks

sorry it’s currently 1:30am, that tag goes over how to keep beebs safe and comfortable when loud noises and things are happening.  If you have more questions that aren’t answered there feel free to send them, but I won’t get to them until morning!