#squirtle-squirts

[captainspicedrum]

squirtle-squirts replied to your post: No alcohol or drug connections right n...

Broo I could get you alcohol

YOU DOLL

i might just take you up on that

[flock-talk]

I'm thinking about student teaching abroad next year and I'll be gone for 7-8 weeks. What do you think is the best thing to do for my parrotlet? Will he forget about me? I don't want to let him hold me back on this amazing opportunity, but I would also hate to hurt our relationship.

Birds can remember people for the majority of their lives (a major reason why rehoming a bird is very detrimental), being gone for 7-8 weeks won’t make him forget you but he may be a little ticked upon your return.

Being gone for that long you may find it best to have a close friend you can trust to care for him.  Spend the time you have before teaching abroad to get the parrotlet used to that friend and accept them as a flock member so when you leave the bird isn’t stressed out and doesn’t become aggressive.

Whenever I leave for long periods of time I have a trustworthy friend come in for the week prior and spend time with my birds so they associate her with treats and fun, when I leave they know that person is safe and will bring positivity.  I am also fortunate that she lives near me so my birds can stay at home in their safe environment, exposing them to a lot less stress than moving homes.

After the first week passes the bird should get used to the new routine without your presence and accept the new caretaker as an essential flock member.  Having them come in prior to learn about basic avian care, handling, and observational behaviours will aid in making a smooth transition.

When I leave for 2 weeks on vacation my birds have mixed emotions, Mia will throw a little tantrum and show me that I was wrong for leaving the flock and make me prove to her I won’t leave again (this usually ends in a few days) meanwhile Zeeby will fly right at me when I walk through the door, burrow in my hair and basically beg me to never leave again.

When you leave the bird will have mixed emotions, they will be concerned for the loss of a flock member and may avoid the new person until they can prove themselves worthy.  Once time passes and they accept this new person he will likely be mad at you upon your return, he won’t forget you but he will remember that you ditched your responsibilities to the flock. (he may be excited upon your return as well, it varies from bird to bird and the relationship with the new caretaker).

I wouldn’t recommend bringing him with you, there’s a lot of unnecessary stress with traveling, quarantine and transport and who knows what chemicals in the environment you enter (sprays in hotels, teflon exposure).  If you have a friend who can look after him and maybe send you updates I think that’s the best option to take over leaving him with a stranger or an unfamiliar environment.

The more time he spends with his new caretaker before you leave the better. 

[flock-talk]

Hello! I need your advice. I know you're fabulous at training your parrotlets, so I hope you can help me with mine. My parrotlet is about 5 months old and he hates hands. Ever since I got him (when he was about 2-3 months old) he has hated hands. I've tried for the past few months to teach him the step up command. I've used all kinds of techniques like holding treats out in front of him, but he bites my finger all over and very hard. He has drawn blood multiple times now. It's getting very(cont)

frustrating. It’s so discouraging that I cannot train him one of the simplest tasks. He’ll happily climb on my arm and all over me, but he hates hands and fingers. He’s sat on my finger a few times but it is usually very a short time and I end up with cuts all over my finger. I just don’t understand why he continues to attack my fingers. I’ve never done anything to hurt him with them and I don’t believe the bird farm I got him from did either. I know he trusts and loves me because he’ll fly  to me and always wants to be with me, but I just feel like I’ve hit a wall with this and I can’t progress. Thank you for reading!! I really look up to how you take care of your birds and what all you’ve managed to do.

First off do know that this is totally unrelated to you, this happens a lot with parrotlets and birds in general, it’s completely normal and Zeeby used to do something very similar so it is fixable!

I can’t give a for-sure answer as to why this happens but it seems to be a common parrotlet behaviour just like attacking plastic and paper.  They attack plastic because it sounds like another attacking parrotlet and they attack paper for the same reason, there’s no evidence as to why they attack fingers but my guess is that it looks like a predator of some sort.

How we fix this I honestly don’t have a solid answer since I don’t really know how to explain what I did with Zeeby.  Zeeby was fine stepping up but would attack your fingers if you wiggled them so my solution was simple, don’t wiggle them.  I would hold my hand in front of her and not move it so she realized it was my hand, it was safe, there was no reason to attack it.  I gradually got her used to my finger wiggling by slowly moving my finger back and forth a short distance until she was fine with it, speeding it up as months passed on and now she’s generally fine with moving fingers.

So we’re basically going to do that but back up a few steps.

I would start out target training him.  Just move really slowly, keep your hands on the farthest end of the stick, maybe have him caged while doing this if he tries to bite your hands.  Keep your movements expected, slow, and obvious and when rewarding him you may want to have a long sprig of millet so your hand is as far away as possible for now.  Hopefully he’ll take to that just fine, if he does lunge at you then simply cage him while doing this, he should realize the hands can’t get him and jus take the food from a distance through the bars.

Once he’s okay with targeting from a distance, he doesn’t look at your hands, pin his eyes, or show suspicion you can do a few different paths depending on how he reacts to your hand at this point:

1) Just slide your hand up the stick a little bit so he gets used to it, once he’s okay with it you can move your hand farther up until there’s 1/4 the stick showing

2) Put him on a table, put your hand in a fist (so he may not recognize it as a hand) and target him around the table.  Once he is no longer showing aggression or fear towards the fist you can target him closer to it.  This will help him to remove any motivation to attack the hand, his focus will be on earning food and having fun. ( gradually, I’m talking weeks maybe a month depending on how fast he progresses)

After a month or so of just doing that he should show little interest in your hand.  He should have associated your fingers with the giving of treats as you can gradually move your hand up the millet and should be desensitized to seeing your hand while having a positive experience.

At that time you can open your hand on the table and see how he reacts, you may need to desensitize him one finger at a time, just pull out one finger, target around until he’s fine, open a second finger, etc.

Keep doing that until he is comfortable around your hand and no longer sees it as a threat.  At that point you will have your hand fully open, flat on the table palm down and you can try to target him on to your hand.  He may stretch as far as he can at first but that’s a good sign, shows that he is no longer angry or fearful of your hand as he once was, eventually he will give in and just step on to you hand to touch the stick.

Remember not to move your hand at that point, you want him to know that he has the ability to leave whenever he wants and you’re not going to quickly pull him away.  Let him go on and off as he pleases, targeting around and having fun.

Once he is fine with that you can teach step up.  I don’t like to think of step up as a ‘command’ because you shouldn’t be telling your bird to do something, you ask them.  As soon as you start commanding them to do things, forcing them in to behaviours they can become aggressive and refuse to do anything.  So you’re going to hold your hand in the step up position,  either lay your finger on the table or hold it in front of him depending on how he reacts, hold  a target stick behind your finger and ask him if he would like to step up.

Going on to your hand is his decision, not something you can make him do, to him it is an honour and a privilege to be allowed to hold him and so we need to treat it as such.  Let him decide if you are worthy of feeling his feet, once he deems your fingers as safe and enjoyable you will be gifted thusly.

It may take some time so don’t push him, this is all about his comfort level and gently nudging the boundaries until he sees that it wasn’t so hard after all.  Once you get him stepping up you may have to continue desensitizing him to your fingers moving as I did with Zeeby or he may be totally fine from that point onwards completely depends on him.

Do keep me updated on this, I’m always here if you run in to bumps on the road and would love to hear how everything works out!

[flock-talk]

What do you give your parrotlets as a treat after they've performed a task?

I give my birds a great variety of things to keep them interested, if they get nothing but the same treat every time they can get quite bored of it! Generally I try to find things they enjoy the most and reserve those as treats

Typically I use

halved sunflower seeds (fatty and addictive so I keep the quantities down and reserved for new tricks/ flight training)

banana chips

millet

oat groats (mainly for tricks they already know as they don’t like it as much)

extremely small pieces of nuts (for flight training as they’re fatty) (walnuts, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, soy nuts)

Mia doesn’t like the banana chips, that’s more of Zeeby’s special treat but typically I rotate those around.  If they’re learning something new I have treats lined up in order of how much they like them, when they do the action correctly they get given their favourite treats, if they sort of do it they get a mediocre treat and so on.

None of those foods are given at any other time except training otherwise they don't view the foods as a special treat, if they can get it at any other time why would they bother working for it?

If I notice they start to get bored or are seeming unmotivated I quickly switch the treats around but I try to change it up before it hits that point!

[maz737]

I got tagged by the-elvenking-of-mirkwood

Always post the rules

Answer the questions of the person who tagged you and write 11 new ones. Tag 11 people and link them. Let them know that they've been tagged.

The questions:

1. What is a song that everyone should listen to at least once?

This is a tough choice, but I'd have to say "Beside You" by Mariana's Trench. Headphones in, listen to it loud, and I dare you not to get shivers up your spine.

2. A quote you find inspirational and why?

"gone forever, and that's how I like it. Life is only worth a damn because it's short. It's designed to be consumed, used, spent, lived, felt. We're supposed to fill it with every mistake and miracle we can manage, and then we're supposed to let go."   Community, s2, ep 3

I like it because it has a simple but profound message. Life isn't meant to be some special and amazing thing that only a few people ever figure out the meaning to. It's a mess, and it's short, but that's what makes it worth it, if only for its own sake.

3. A scene in a movie that always gets you.

Definitely the montage at the beginning of Up with Carl and Ellie. And then any time Ellie comes up the rest of the movie. I sob like a child.

4. What has made you really angry beyond words?

insensitive/cruel remarks or actions by others. Sometimes people are so selfish and mean-spirited that I have to just walk away or risk exploding at them. 

5. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I hate looking too far into the future cause it usually just overwhelms me. Hopefully I'm in a good place.

6. What is something a significant other/partner has that can either be a deal sealer or a deal breaker?

How they treat people they don't know. Employees, strangers, it doesn't matter. If they're rude to people they don't even know, I'm outta there. If they're kind and considerate to everyone, that's what I like to see.

7. Happiest memory?

Probably hanging out with 4 of my best friends during high school. We walked to UDF for ice cream at midnight, drew mustaches on each other, and took funny pictures of ourselves on a laptop until we about peed ourselves from laughing. It was a simple, but purely fun time. Everyone was happy and laughing the whole time and it was just completely untarnished by anything.

8. If you could have any exotic animal as a pet what would it be?

Well I love elephants, but I can't exactly keep that in my dorm. Maybe a fennec fox, those are the cutest things ever. I've gotten to hold one before and it fell asleep in my arms <3

9. If you could be dropped into any universe/fictitious world, what would it be?

Preferably one where I wouldn't get immediately murdered. Maybe Harry Potter, if it were guaranteed that I would be a wizard and not a muggle. Cause post-Voldemort, it would be SWEET to have magic!

10. If you could create any class/program to major in, what would it be?

Having a major that is specifically Art Therapy would be perfect. It's what I want to do after college, but since it's a slowly-growing field, there aren't specifics for it yet.

11. Have you made any friendships through tumblr?

Well nope, but I did get tagged in this post thing so that's sort of exciting! There's always hope for the future :)

People I'm tagging:

pyromanicbibliophile jdf2012 kvothethemadman violettadelacour squirtle-squirts gettingcrazy333 coldhandsandcinnamontea primarchflynn dragon-soul-fury wamashnow bestwizarddj

My questions:

1. What's your favorite movie and why?

2. What's your favorite art form and why do you like it?

3. What do you do to relax when you're angry?

4. What are you thankful for?

5. How did you discover this website?

6. If you could have one superpower, what would you pick and why?

7. You get elected supreme ruler of the earth. What do you do with your new power?

8. Would you be willing to sacrifice your life for another person?

9. Objectively rate your likelihood of survival in the Hunger Games arena. 

10. Why do you think people get so worked up over sports?

11. What's one of the best experiences of your life?

[mettums]

Friendly reminder that I think you're really cool and I think your tags that you sometimes put on posts are hilarious!! :) have a good day!

Aww Michelle ily and I miss you! I hope college is going really well for you and that you survive finals!

[fadingchildhoodmemories]

requested by squirtle-squirts