Month: June 2016

I was going to post some evergreen content to keep it short and sweet for the holiday weekend. I will keep it short and sweet but brain farts will be brain farts.

There’s all this talk of immigration in Congress – something I try not to involve myself in. But I do know of feral parrot flocks around the country which I’ll identify shortly.

This holiday weekend is all about independence and people in America. But what about the animals?

 

America is host to more than 6 million feral pigs

hey congress guys

why aren’t you counting the 6 million undocumented alien pigs?

Thinking of them begs the question should we treat them (feral animals) as American citizens because they have been here for a while. Or apply immigrant status among the various species?

Let’s say I find an injured Quaker parrot in Hyde Park around the University of Chicago Hospital. Is the bird entitled to free emergency medical treatment or as an immigrant will not be admitted to the hospital?

 

If you’re lucky enough to be near any of these feral flocks like the ones here in Chicago, you can hear the birds squawking. They are South American birds. Are the squawks in Spanish or English – can someone tell me this?

 

Is Spanish the Quaker’s native language?

Are they all squawking spanglish?

Editor’s note: the bird should’ve been removed from his shoulder at the first nip – shoulder riding is an earned privileged.

Birds do not understand the meaning of “No”, positive reinforcement is always best.

 

Before I share with you some wonderful videos and images of feral parrots in the US, I found it interesting to learn that there are other feral species found in the strangest places.

 

He’s running off the road Martha…

 

over 1000 feral Rhesus monkeys reside in Florida

do the young ones deserve a tax payer paid education?

 

at least 40 feral guinea pigs

reside in Nu’uanu on the Hawaiian island of Oahu

should free exercise wheels

be made available to these US citizens?

 

Enjoy the videos and the rest of your holiday weekend.

Popcorn update

Thursday (6/9/16) she was very low energy and didn’t leave her cage after opening the door. The very first thing I do every morning is replace her water with freshwater after scrubbing out her food dish to avoid bacteria.

We are now introducing a milk thistle liver detox into her water. I place the eight drops in the bottom of a dry dish and add a couple of ounces of water to make sure the milk thistle solution gets dissolved. Then I add a half an ice cube to keep the water fresh until the mid-day replacement. (It gets replaced again at birdie bedtime).

Do you know how much water your bird drinks? Do you know how to measure it? I use the counting method. Popcorn normally takes 2 to 3 beak fulls of water every morning. Today she took nine triple her normal intake.

She’s panting and her abdomen is a bit swollen so we ran her to the vet. She’s losing weight down to 96 g which is very light for her.

She sitting on a hot water bottle in her well heated cage with a light off and I’m going to watch her through the night at some point possibly having to make the decision to put her down.

It sounds cruel but I’m a huge quality-of-life guy. Today apparently in veterinary medicine hospice has become a national trend.

I’ve hospiced a human – because I had to. I will not allow a pet to suffer as long as I know we’ve done everything we possibly could to keep it healthy.

Agree or disagree – we all have to do what is right for ourselves.

I put her down (6/9/16) 12:58 cst – she’ll be buried next to Sunshine our Ringneck who passed mothers day 2007 under 3 large oak trees next to our new wild bird feeding station.

From Jeanette Hi

Is it safe for my Blue Front Amazon to share my fruit, yogurt, seed, and granola breakfast if I put collagen hysolysate on it?

So here’s the thing – Jeanette

That depends – how do we know your Amazon parrot is lacking in collagen hysolysate?

Although callogen fibers are found in a bird’s skin

From a paper named Avian Integument produced by Eastern Kentucky University

For many birds, skin coloration is the result of optical interactions with biological nanostructures or, in other words, the microscopic structure of skin. Such structural colors occur in the skin, bill (ramphotheca), legs and feet (podotheca) in about 129 avian genera in 50 families from 16 avian orders. Structurally colored skin is present in more than 250 bird species, or about 2.5% of all bird species.

Examination of the color, anatomy, and nanostructure of structurally colored skin, ramphotheca (beak), and podotheca (the horny integument covering unfeathered portions of the legs and toes of most birds) (from several different species of birds indicates that color, including ultraviolet, dark blue, light blue, green and yellow hues, is produced by coherent scattering (i.e., constructive interference) of light from arrays of parallel collagen fibers in the skin (dermis) . Scattering, in this case, simply means that light deviates from a straight path.

That’s natural collagen but based upon what the man made substance is according to Bob Busscher president of Great Lakes Gelatin,

they carefully source grass-fed beef hides for the raw material for their bovine products. The split hides (under the hair where the collagen lies) are put into an alkaline solution and held for a number of days where the material is broken down…………………..

Next it’s acid back washed and pumped into cooking kettles which separate tallow, skin, and collagen.

Collagen hydrolysate: The collagen is stored in a holding tank at a higher temperature to reduce the molecular weight cleaving the amino acid bonds. This process is called hydrolysis.

Important Note: Remember not to get too carried away with gelatin. Adding too much too quickly can cause digestive issues: bloating, loss of appetite, stomach ache are just a few side effect. Learn more @ http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/gelatin-and-collagen-hydrolysate-whats-the-difference/

Personally I see no reason to introduce manmade collagen hydrolysate to any bird especially reading about what it’s made from.

That said anyone who knows me knows that I test for everything. If you feel your bird has deficiencies my advice would be to seek an avian veterinarian and have a complete blood panel perfomed to see what nutrients your bird may be exiguous [ig-zig-yoo-uh s] in – perhaps even some collagen.

Mitchr

Susi N J · Friends with Benny B

commented on a Facebook post – on my personal time line in response to this video

“Becurse you teach him. Kills the bird giving it human food. So please stop. Give it a favorit snack instead. Be consentstant”

Susi

1) that statement is a bit over the top – Goldenfeast bird food is 100% human grade food

2) she has cancer and has had more blood work ups than I care to count – the data on the blood work ups we did for 9 consecutive weeks dispute her health is is any way compromised by her diet which is probably 10% snatched form our dinner plates.

3) the only thing we have added to her diet since the diagnosis is way more millet than she’s ever gotten (like giving sick kids milkshakes)

4) Vets and many experts today like Patrica Sund recommend chops for birds made entirely of human food – when you get a moment please checkout my blog http://www.birdandparrot.info/blog.asp

Trick question “is a banana human food or animal food?” email Simply_Everything@WindyCityParrot.com with the right answer and get a coupon for $5 off your next order (please allow 48 – 72 hours)

April Emery

Hi guys

You know I follow and love your blog and I want to offer a hint about pellets.

I have two young parakeets that love their seeds but I have been determined to get them to at least add pellets to that diet even though after two years I’m pretty convinced that they will never give up all seed.

They eat Harrison’s Adult Lifetime Super Fine which I had chosen after lots of research. And yes, the SUPER fine is very hard to find! They will eat it out of my hand like a treat so I know they recognize it as food and like it.

But mixed in with their seed, I still feel they mostly eat around it! But here’s my hint: they love it crushed to a powder! Once when I could only get the “fine”, which is too big for parakeets, I had to break it up for them and they liked to eat the powdery bits best.

So in addition to always putting the superfine in with their seed, at least once a day I offer them the powdered form, in our case in a little hand held shell. It’s “together time” well spent and they eat so much! I just put a teaspoonful on a small plate and crush it with the bottom of a glass.

This might be a good way to introduce pellets as food to the average bird that is usually not the foodie that Popcorn is. She is exceptional that she ate it right away! (You know we are all holding good thoughts for her.) And you might want to try powder for her if she gets finiky.

But my girls will also only eat Nutriberries broken apart in my hand – otherwise they are just balls to drop or throw. They can manage Avicakes in the forager but that is a seldom treat

I just don’t know about all that molasses (just sugar) and they pick out the seeds and drop the pellets anyway, being too smart for Avicakes. They’re too smart in general – we just try to keep up!

April your comments

are invaluable! We will pass this content onto everyone who enjoys our Birdie Brunch.

Your Harrison’s method is very efficient – Lafebers will tell you that roughly 50% of their Nutriberries/Avicakes is the anticipated waste factor.

mitchr

written by mitch rezman
approved by catherine tobsing
approved by nora caterino

your zygodcatyl footnote

Yellow-Naped Amazon Parrots Arguing like a married couple. Parrot Mountain in Gatlinburg, Tn