Regression is the term I use when you have a beautifully tame, affectionate and trusting bird, then something traumatic happens and the bird is suddenly terrified of everything and everyone. Sometimes you never know what caused it but you just know that everything is different now. You might wake up one morning to discover it or you might come home from work one afternoon to find your friend quivering in the corner of the cage. Unbeknown to you a workman may have been jack hammering the road outside all day. Sometimes it happens gradually, over a few days, your bird just becomes a little more distant until he appears to hate or fear you.
It has happened to me for the first time this month. I took on a twenty five year old Sulphur Crested Cockatoo called Popeye about three months ago and we were getting along really well. After a lot of intensive training, I had him flying backwards and forwards to me outside. He was very brave and would fly to the highest of trees but always come back when I called him. Sometimes, because his flying skills weren’t the best, he would misjudge the distance and overshoot my outstretched hand. However he would then, unperturbed, perch in another tree until he was ready to have another go. He would never let me out of his sight and if I walked out of his sight he would scream and immediately leave what he was doing and come looking for me.

That was until last week when I came back from a trip to Sydney, where I’d been for a just over a week.
When I went to pick him up from the Parrot Rescue Centre, which is where I originally got him from, he seemed very happy to see me. He had been comfortable at the centre, before he came to me, so I thought it would be better to take him there rather than leave him at home with a friend coming in daily to feed him.
When I got him home and back into his own cage he was a little skittish and had put on a bit of weight so that afternoon I didn’t let him fly. He was reluctant to let me file his claws, which had become quite sharp. I should have taken much more notice of his body language and taken more care because he flew from me in a bit of a panic.
The next day he was again reluctant to have me touch his feet and instead of taking him flying I decided to just let him have a walk in the grass so I took him outside on my hand to a grassy spot.
All of a sudden a dog came charging excitedly up to me! I screamed in fright because I thought the dog was after the bird. Popeye took off and just kept going.
I called and called until finally he flew back to a tree near me. It was nearly dark, Popeye hadn’t flown for over a week, he’d been upset by the recent changes to his routine and there was no way he was going to attempt a descent to my hand.
The next morning at 5.30 I was at the tree and by 6am I had him safely back in his cage.
Then things got worse, he didn’t want to come out to me and ran, hiding behind the branches in his cage, when I approached. That afternoon, instead of leaving him alone to settle down, as I should have, I opened his cage to put in some fresh branches. Popeye pushed passed me while I was looking down and cleaning up some mess from the bottom of the cage and again he took off, but this time he didn’t come back.
The next day I started phoning every vet, pet shop, and welfare organisation I knew of and, luckily for me, I found that he’d landed in someone’s backyard, just over the hill to me, and been handed in to a woman who takes in stray pet birds. She rang the local vet and they told me she had him.
Now I am following my own advice and I have gone back to lesson one, which is in the March edition of Talking Birds.

Instead of using an outside cage on the deck during the day and an inside cage in the laundry for sleeping I bring the outside cage into the living room where I cover him at night. This way I don’t have to force him to come to me in order to take him to bed at night. I have been taking all his food away at night and in the morning, for ten minutes I dropped little treats into his empty bowl before he had his breakfast of fruit and vegetables. I did the same in the evening before I gave him his pellets. Then I started handing the treats to him on the top back perch near his food bowl and now he will come down to the front perch at the door to be hand fed. If I attempt to open the door he runs away so I suppose we will stick at this point for a few days before moving on to feeding him through an open door. After that I will urge him to step up onto my hand and eventually to come out to be weighed. When he is once more comfortable being out, I will get him to practice step ups on the T-stand before redoing the whole gamut of lessons again.
The process is much slower the second time around and I’am finding it very difficult not to rush him. It just seems absurd that we are acting like strangers but these are weird and wonderful creatures and we will never fully understand them.

• Training Birds for Medical and Husbandry Behaviours: Keynote Lecture and multimedia presentation from Barbara Heidenrich.
• Training Enrichment for Flighted Companion Parrots: Breakout Workshop presented by Gary Colvin, Auchenflower Veterinary Surgery
  
• Setting Companion Parrots Up For Success: Breakout Workshop presented by Jim McKendry, Parrot Behaviour & Enrichment Consultations www.pbec.com.au
• Solving Common Parrot Behaviour Problems: Breakout Workshop presented by Barbara Heidenreich
• Avian Vet Q&A Panel for Companion Parrot Owners: An opportunity to fire away with questions to a panel of three of Australia’s leading avian veterinarians
• Addressing Aggressive Behaviour in Parrots: Breakout Workshop presented by Barbara Heidenreich
  
  In addition to the above, a further thirteen lectures will make up the two-day event program! This is certainly an event that you will regret missing. Barbara will also be doing a book signing over the two days and there will be numerous opportunities to have a chat to our speakers during the event and surrounding activities. Single day registrations are just $125 and if anyone sends me a e-mail with your postal details I’ll personally mail out a registration form to you – I’d really love to catch up with you all at Parrots 2006!!!

Do you have a parrot behaviour or care FAQ that you would like me to answer via the PRC Newsletter? If so then e-mail your question to Zarita via zarita@parrotrescuecentre.com

In September/October PRC Newsletter we will be covering Aggressive behaviour in companion parrots.

Presenter:	Jim McKendry
Venue:	Currumbin Sanctuary, Gold Coast
Level:	1	2
Time:	8am to 12.30pm	8am to 3.30pm
Date:	30th September 2006	1st October 2006
For more information please Click here!

 

PRC TIPS - Exercise

Bird bodies are designed for flying! It is great to provide a cage or aviary that is big enough for the bird to be able to fly from one end to the other. Also time out of the cage to fly around the room (with windows covered and no cats or dogs!) Wing clipping is something that is performed regularly with pet parrots, the PRC does not recommend this, but if necessary it is important to have an avian vet show you how it should be done properly. A flighted parrot is a happier and healthier parrot! There are bird harnesses available if you want your bird to go outside when it is flighted.

PRC Shop now supplies BIRD HARNESSES!

Pacifiers

Size Compatibility: Alexandrine Parrots to Macaws will enjoy this product.

Safety Rate: 100% Safe hard plastic (Please watch black cockatoos as they may try and shave the plastic of with their beak, so please remove if this occurs.

Durability: Plastic is 100% Durable.

Tips: Rotate toys regularly to prevent boredom.


Excitement Factor: Great foot toy, birds will pretend to suck on dummy and fling toy around with feet.

This product is available from the PRC shop, price includes delivery.

All profits from the PRC Shop go directly into helping the daily operations of the PRC.

Thankyou for your support

Spend over $50 and receive 500g of nuts for free!

When placing your on-line order "Please specify what type of nuts (Brazil, Almonds, Walnuts or Peanuts in shell) you would like free in the Comments section of your Paypal payment" One 500g bag of nuts per order.

Click here to order!

Now Available at the PRC SHOP!

And lots more... Please visit the PRC Shop to see our full list of new products.

The PRC incorporates Tropimix in the diet of the PRC Sanctuary and Boarding birds and finds this product to be greatly liked by all parrots. It is a great variety to ad to a birds pelleted and fruit and vegetable diet. Remember birds have taste buds like you and me and appreciate variety in their diets!

The PRC recommends that Australian native birds such as Cockatoos, Galahs and Corellas be given the small parrot tropimix, as these birds should not have allot of nuts in their diets. Exotic birds such as Amazons, Macaws and Conures can be given the Large Parrot Tropimix, who are able to have nuts as part of their daily diet.

"Many have forgotten this truth but you must not forget it. We remain responsible forever for what we have tamed"

(Antoine de Saint-Exupeny)

The Parrot Rescue Centre continues to provide homes for pet parrots that are surrendered to large rescue organisations that are unable to keep them in their facilities. If we did not provide them with a home they would otherwise be euthanized.

The Parrot Rescue Centre is a non-profit organisation who puts all money made from our shop, donations, boarding and virtual adoptions back into the PRC sanctuary birds. We need your help and support to continue to provide a high standard of quality care for these darling creatures.

• Purchase toys and accessories from the PRC shop click here.

• Make a monetary donation click here.

• Adopt a parrot through Virtual Adoption click here.

• Board your parrot at our Bird Boarding Facility click here.

Thankyou for your kindness.

Yours truly,

Zarita Garozzo
PRC Director

Member Moments - Story of the month

We decided that Fiddlesticks couldn't be on his own, so my husband surprised me yet again with a blue Quaker who we named Bubblegum. Needless to say, we also got a new aviary for them. So we now had a spare aviary. We decided it was a good size for our Galah & Corella. We secured them in tightly, with padlocks on EVERY door! They were happy in this aviary for a good month or so, until 56K, the Corella, found his escape route! The bottom padlock was accidentally left unlocked (not obviously though), and 56 loves to play with padlocks! I noticed he was missing when I returned home from picking my daughter up from school. I immediately burst into tears as this was the 2nd escape from the one aviary. I frantically searched for him over our fences & in neighbours yards, but to no avail. I jumped in the car & started driving down our street, calling his name. About 5 houses down the road, I heard his usual reply to his name & then a faint "hello". I had no idea where he was, until i got out of the car & searched the tree-tops. And there he was. Right at the top of a 20ft tree! After calling on neighbours for a ladder, and realising none had one high enough, I climbed the thin tree myself! What a sight - a lady in a black dress climbing a thin tall tree! After 15 minutes struggling with limbs, leaves, spiders & webs, I reached the top where 56 greeted me with "hello". I grabbed a hold of his feet so he couldn't hop about & struggled to get a tight grip of him. I eventually wrapped him in a pillow case to ease the fright & carried him in one arm while descending the tree with the other arm.

He is now in a nice big cat cage with the Galah, his wings FULLY CLIPPED at all times. And 2 HUGE padlocks which are checked daily, holding them in. He still loves his back yard adventures, and luckily for us, he seems to have forgotten about his great one-day adventure.

The afore-mentioned aviary is no longer with us.



-Melissa Hone

It’s that easy! We look forward to hearing your stories!

Parrots are “hard-wired” to chew. In the course of a day, 50% of their chewing is for eating and 50% is for foraging. Wild birds work hard for their food. In the wild, parrots search methodically for food items. They have to find tiny grass seeds, chew off the outer coating, husk the seed and finally eat it. They forage for seed pods, crack the pod, open the seed and eat the kernel. However, in captivity, we present them with a bowl of seed. They can eat all they need to keep them alive in 5 to 10 minutes. Then they have nothing to do. Many cages are filled with plastic junk toys, metal bells and doweling perches. There is nothing to chew on except their seed. So the birds eat more seed and become obese, couch potatoes with all of the associated health problems. Parrots in captivity need to chew on green leafy branches and “wild foods” to satisfy their foraging instincts and keep them happy and healthy. Foraging opportunities for captive parrots are necessary to maintain their mental and physical health.

It is the owner’s responsibility to provide foraging and chewing “occupational therapy” opportunities for their pet parrots. Natural branch perches, green, leafy browse, seed pods and selected weeds are readily available to enrich the lives of captive parrots. The following ideas will provide ample chewing and foraging opportunities for pet birds.

Written by Peter Wilson
BVSc MACVSc
Avian and Reptile Practitioner

To contact Peter Wilson Click Here

Leave your precious birds with understanding and knowledgeable parrot carers.

We provide quality care for your pet birds including clean housing, healthy diet, enrichment, interaction and training (extra fee).

Your bird will not have time to be bored or sad, so stress and frustration will be less likely.

All funds made from bird boarding are directly used by the Parrot Rescue Centre to help with caring and maintaining the sanctuary birds environment.

• Tested negative to Psittacosis
• Tested negative to PBFD
• Faeces Tested negative for worms and bacteria
• Examination suggests that the bird is clinically free of illness or infection and is considered in sound physical health by the examining veterinarian

Click Here to view BIRD BOARDING PHOTO GALLERY!

For more information please contact:

Zarita Garozzo

Parrot Rescue Centre Co-coordinator on:

Ph: 07 5569 2840

Email: zarita@parrotrescuecentre.com

Name: Dippy and Oly

Age: 4-5 years old

Sex: Male and Female

About Dippy and Oly:

Dippy was surrendered to the PRC due to her owner moving over to England. Dippy was one of the first lorikeets to arrive at the PRC, so has a very special place for life at the PRC. Oly arrived soon after her and it was instant love. She taught her little man everything she knows and they now live happily in a large aviary with other lorikeets.

It is vital that the PRC have a assessment process for people wanting to adopt a parrot, as many of the parrots that have been surrendered to the PRC have been given away because of behavioural issues.

The PRC does the best they can through the rehabilitation process to ensure that these behaviors are controlled although when re homing these birds we need to ensure the parrot owner has a good understanding of parrot needs and requirements.

These birds do not deserve to be moved from home to home anymore, so if you are adopting a bird from the PRC it is going to be a life long commitment.

Click here for more information and to apply

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