The Next Chapters..

It has been so long since I've updated this blog that I almost forgot it existed! Thankfully, with a few gentle reminders I rediscovered this and am ready to get back into my updates. A whole lot has changed since 2011 began and my flock and I have been adapting to all the exciting and chaotic events that have taken over as of late.

The boys being goofy as usual!

My current flock of three have been stable and doing well with all the occuring changes. I decided that I had to let go of my past, as hard as it was, and have proceeded to delete all my posts about my past parrots, who have all gone to wonderful new homes. I miss them dearly and the one comfort I have is knowing they are thriving, loved, and happier with their new families. I guess as much as I am beginning many new chapters in my life, my birds are doing the same. I feel lucky because I get updates on how they are doing from time to time. It's always hard reading about them doing well though, because it makes me wish I could be the one witnessing their first words, their first successful flight landings, becoming more vocal in the spring (yes, I know I am crazy for wanting that), and all of their quirks and personality traits I fell in love with. Lately, with all of these nostalgic feelings, I wondered how I could ever keep it together if/when I breed birds someday and my babies go off to new homes. I know my birds have gone to the best homes possible and even still I worry and can't sleep easy some nights! I suppose this will make it easier for me to be EXTRA picky when it comes to finding new homes for my future babies. That should be interesting!

Our newest addition is a Congo African Grey, who we named "Daphne". She is about 5 months old now and is a wonderful, sassy, and joyful little lady! Living with a Grey has been life-changing and I can't remember life before Daphne. I can sense how intelligent and sensitive she is to everything going on around her. She is very particular about the way I'm "allowed" to rub her head and neck, loves playing with foot toys, flings mangoes with so much force that my ceiling is nicely decorated with dry fruit pieces, and has already learned a few words! I am a very proud mama!

Little Miss Daphne!

There are many more exciting things brewing in the pot and I am excited to update about everything in the coming weeks! Thank you to everyone who have kept their interest in my flock!

Flock Approved Gourmet Salad

As I mentioned briefly in an earlier post, I prepare a "7-Layer Salad" about once a month for my parrots. I follow this recipe as a general guideline and I try to be creative with each creation. There are a lot of wonderful benefits to feeding this salad, the two most important ones being that it can be stored for a longer period of time than most other perishable food items and it provides a great variety for the birds! It also provides me an opportunity to sneak in healthy foods they would normally refuse to eat, but since it is well mixed with everything else, they cannot be as picky. I make enough to feed my four parrots for about a week and a half to two weeks, since I offer large quantities in their bowls so they get to taste a little bit of everything (and because they usually fling or drop half their bowls' contents onto the walls and floors)!

Preparation consists of getting all the vegetabls and fruits washed, the storage containers emptied and cleaned, and cutting utensils laid out nicely. This time around, we let the parrots join in on the salad making fun!

All ready to go!



Our official taste testers for the evening



Gotta love variety!

Preparation goes a long way!

Caiques love making messes

We begin by getting the leafy greens (kale, mustard greens, dandelion greens, etc) chopped up into fine pieces and place them on the bottom. Then the vegetables (cucumbers, sugar snap peas, squash, peppers) get chopped up into small cubes, followed by shredded broccoli and carrots!

The middle of the salad is a cooked bean mix. I use a variety of beans (some favorites include lentil, mung beans, chick peas) and soak them for about 8 hours. Then I rinse and cook them for about 20 to 30 minutes and add them to the salad. Below the beans we place a thin layer of dried, uncooked, whole wheat pasta, which will soften as it aborbs the moisture from this bean mix.

This salad would not be complete without some yummy fruits! An important fruit for this layered salad is orange because the citrus juice helps keep the rest of the salad fresh. Therefore, the cut up orange pieces (mixed with apple pieces) go on top of all the greens, veggies, and beans.



Then the final layer on top are frozen vegetables. The heat from the cooked beans will rise while the chill from the frozen veggies spread down towards  the bottom. This meeting of opposite temperatures keep the vegetables fresh longer (along with the citrus juice from the fruits).



Adding the final layer of frozen goodness



When the layering is complete, the containers are sealed and put away, all ready to be served the very next morning!

Mission accomplished.

Voila!

I personally love making this for my birds because it is a lot of fun and my boyfriend has started helping me (saves me half the time!) and the birds have such a great time even though they make a huge mess. Then the next morning, the real fun begins -- breakfast time!

Yum!

Prepared with love

This salad calls for endless possibilities and creativity. I change up the greens, vegetables, pasta shapes, and bean mix each time so the birds do not get bored. I will also throw in a few nuts or extra in-season fruits just before serving in the morning (melons, blueberries, watermelon, etc). These can stay in the cages for around 4 hours and the birds have a great time foraging around the mix. It is both pleasing to the eye and nose, for both avians and humans alike!

'Tis the Season to Spend, Spend, and Spend

The holidays are usually the only time of the year I do mass amounts of shopping, and the shopping is not even for myself. Each year that passes seem to become more and more stressful but I do have a good time browsing  through the current styles that I've been missing out on for the whole year..and getting tempted to buy a bunch of things for myself! It's so easy to get sucked into current trends and material things. BUT instead of splurging on these types of things, I know where my money will ultimately go! After the gift-buying fiasco ends, I will be going back to spoiling my flock. I have to say that I genuinely love buying things for them because I hate the idea that they are bored or restless, especially the Caiques who get especially antsy and have so much energy that I find it hard to keep up with them. The solution is to stock up their cages with tons of new toys and experiment with LOTS of new food items! I've created a "wish list" of things that my parrots will be receiving in 2011:

-The "Atom" from Mother Pluckin Bird Toys (Such a creative name for a bird store!)
This can be hung from the ceiling and will provide great exercise for the birds to climb, swing, and play on. It is pricey but I've been told that it is a "must-have" for any parrot (and parrot owner, hehe).

-A Java Tree Playstand made of Java Wood. These would look great in my future bird room and can provide an extra place of fun for the parrots to hang out on!

-A metal playstand for more general playing and hanging out on. Seriously, a bird cannot have enough places to play on! Trust me. I particularly like this playstand because it has a lot of rings for hanging various toys onto!

-The "Wingdow Seat" -- a very nice and sturdy perch that goes up on any window and allows parrots to watch outdoor activities from a safe place. Also pricey, but I know how much my parrots love sitting at the window and staring at the sky and trees, so this will give them the perfect place to do this without getting too cold from any drafts. They sit at the window now and when I go to pick them up, their little feet are ice cold! Poor babies, this will have to be fixed =)

There are many more things on my list but these are the "major" investments. One reason I do not want to buy too many things right away, especially the really big things, is because I am running out of space! All of my parrots are sharing a small bedroom with me and they have already taken up so much space. The only space I have left to myself are my twin bed and closet! My boyfriend and I hope to have a place someday with an extra room just for the birds, which will become the aviary/bird room. We talk about plans on how it will look like and I always get super excited! For now, though, we have to work with the limited space we have and try to keep our birds as happy as possible with the smaller things.

Caiques' cage

Caiques' play area

Money Does Not Equate to Happiness

Last night, my boyfriend and I got into a discussion about money and our spending habits, particularly since it's almost Christmas and I've been spending too much money on gifts. Our goal is to pay off all the money we've spent with the start of 2011 coming up and become better at saving instead of spending! Well, this led me into thinking about how much money I have spent so far on the parrots! I do not know the exact numerical amount (and I am actually glad NOT knowing, because I would scare myself with the truth), but let's just say with all the money my boyfriend and I have spent so far on the birds and their care/supplies, the total could've bought me a nice, new car, or perhaps a small house? (I'm slightly kidding). I don't like to make a huge fuss over the price of things and I am in no way complaining that my parrots "cost too much" because the happiness they bring me could never have a price-tag attached to it. But when I think about it, I think the money I spend on my parrots could become equivalent to how much money I will be spending on my future human child (or at least comes somewhat close)!

Love at first nibble

I am not exaggerating. At first thought (for a novice parrot owner-to-be), having a parrot doesn't seem like such a hard ordeal at all. How hard could it be to take care of a small, feathered animal that sits in a cage all day and eats seeds, right? WRONG! Believe me when I say, the instant I brought my first parrot (Gingey) into my home, my entire life changed (for the better, though). I admit I was not 100% prepared and I had not done adequate research in the beginning. Seeds, it turns out, is a horrible staple food for parrots and is the equivalent of humans eating a Big Mac from McDonald's everyday. Parrots need a base diet of high-quality pellets (I feed my birds "Roudybush" and "Zupreem Fruit") and fresh fruits, vegetables, whole-grain rice, pasta, beans, nuts, greens, etc. Luckily, there are very great mixed blends out there, which are excellent quality and smell wonderful as well (parrot blends from 'My Birdsafe Store'). On top of having a base staple of pellets and dried mixes, I prepare on a bi-weekly basis a "7-Layer Salad" (sometimes monthly if I am being a bad, lazy mama) using this recipe: 7 Layer Salad Recipe, which is great because it lasts long and can be fed daily for about a week or two (that way I don't have to chop up fruits and veggies every morning/night)! When I don't have the salad available, the birds will get a bean and rice mash for their breakfast (Volkman's Soak & Simmer Mash) that I buy in bulk and cook the night before feeding. These are just a FEW of the dietary aspects that are basic necessities for optimal avian health. Diet is extremely important and correlates to a healthy, long life (as well as neurological soundness, aka, happy parrots)!

Amazing blends from "My Birdsafe Store" by the pound

The cages were the next crazy purchases. I never put much thought into a bird's captive living quarters and I quickly learned that "bigger is better" when it comes to parrot cages. There are, however, multiple other factors that go into choosing a good cage. They have to be properly "powder-coated" so that the birds cannot get metal poisoning from chewing the cage bars (birds will chew EVERYTHING). Next, birds use more horizontal space rather than vertical, so a wider cage is better than a taller one (did not know this at first, hence, needed to upgrade). The cages' bar spacing is also an important factor to consider and they should not be too wide that a bird may get his head stuck and caught in between them (especially with my Caiques, who are very rambunctious and zoom around in their cages all day). To top it off, the smallest of my cages weigh about 110 pounds (give or take a few), so putting these monsters together was no easy feat!

 I can't forget to mention all the toys, full-spectrum lighting, perches, and playstands that are necessary for a happy, healthy parrot! Parrots are highly intelligent animals and in the wild, they spend all their days flying, foraging, climbing, bathing, preening, and feeding, amonst other things. Therefore, since our captive parrots have all their basic needs provided to them (on a silver platter, might I add), they need to have plenty of things to keep them entertained so they do not become bored. A bored parrot may start plucking/destructing its own feathers (called feather plucking), become an excessive screamer (on top of already being loud with its normal, routine flock-calling and daily vocalizations), develop bad habits such as biting, becoming fearful, and being overly destructive. With all this in mind, I try to provide as many toys and activities for my parrots as financially possible. There are enough toys so that I can rotate them between each of the parrots' cages every few weeks so that they do not become bored with them. There are java tree playstands and climbing nets available outside of their cages (they spend about 70% of their time outside of their cage), along with a variety of perches, toys, and hanging thing-a-ma-jigs everywhere for them to swing, climb, and play on. They also need sunlight, either real or artificial, and since I cannot have an outdoor aviary, my parrots get their daily dose of sunlight (important for Vitamin D production) from a Full-Spectrum light bulb (read more about the importance of full-spectrum lighting here).

We want more toys, please!

These are just some of the basics of parrot-care and I am always learning new things everyday! I'm sure I've left out some things but this was just a little glimpse of my life with my parrots, inspired by my suffering bank account. Yes, it might seem crazy to an outsider/non parrot owner, but at the end of the day, I know everything I do for them is well worth it and I would not have it any other way. I want to continue providing my parrots the most enriching environment possible with the best diet I can prepare everyday. What I get in return is priceless and I do feel blessed to have this chance in sharing my life with these amazing animals, because it definitely is not for everyone! My wallet might suffer here and there (okay, it may suffer a LOT at times) but this is what I chose and this is the commitment I bear in deciding to allow these creatures into my life. Life has surely changed for me in many ways (both good and some bad) because of them, but I know it has made my life that much deeper.

The Caiques meet Santa!

...And my dream is to expand my flock even more! =)