As you know we have a 4 year old, male, Umbrella Cockatoo (U2), which at first, was quite scary (at least compared to finch!). It took several months before I could read his body language and not be afraid of him any more (his beak is HUGE!).

Here are the twelve secrets to raising an emotionally stable cockatoo (as paraphrased by Sally Blanchard):

1. Keep Learning – Nothing in life is ever black and white, so dont take any information about your bird for gospel until YOU’VE thought it through to see if applies to your particular situation.

2. Trust Building, not Trust Destroying is the Key – No matter how frustrated you are, keep calm and cool because your bird will pick up on your emotions, epecially Toos. Dial down your energy and keep your words and body language soft and non threatening. Birds thrive on positive attention and reinforcement, punishment increases negative behaviors.

3. Not All Birds Are Alike – A BE2 is very different from a G2 or an M2 or a U2. A Toos behavior is combination of species hardwiring and the interaction they’ve experienced with humans.

4. Young Birds Need to Be Socialized – If you are buying a baby, it can’t be stressed enough that they need early socialization just like they would receive in the wild.

Babies that are shown love and abundantly fed develop a sense of security vital to their development. Change introduced in safe ways produces an independent and adventurous adult.

5. Find Out All You Can About Rehomes – Some birds will adjust faster than others and patience and understanding are required. The most important rule is that birds are usually more comfortable with people who are comfortable with them. Again dial down your energy.

Aggression begets aggression. Birds bite from fear but if you are submissive by lowering your head and avoiding eye contact, if you move slowly and speak sweetly, even the most aggressive bird will calm down.

6. Toos are Not Lovesponges – “THE OLD CONCEPT THAT A YOUNG COCKATOO SHOULD NEVER BE GIVEN ANY MORE ATTENTION THAN IT WILL GET THE REST OF IT’S LIFE IS ABSOLUTE NONSENSE” Sally Blanchard from the March 2009 edition of Bird Talk magazine.

It’s not the amount of attention, it’s the kind of attention. If you spend all day cuddling your baby and not teaching him how to play or explore or think or be around other people you are setting him up for failure. Patterning and positive reinforcement are essential for raising a well adjusted Too.

Some great things to teach your baby is Eagle Girl or Boy, waving, recall training, or anything else to show off how smart they are. Which brings us to number 7

7. Dont Ever Forget How Smart Toos Are – One of the ways you can judge an animal’s intelligence is by it’s ability to decieve another animal. Toos can learn to be very manipulative and run their owners lives.

Do not respond to negative behaviors with the Drama reward. You need to ignore or redirect those behaviors with the all the things you taught them from number 6.

8. Don’t Be Anthromorphic – Toos are birds not humans. They do not have human motives. Your bird does not bite you because it’s “mad” or for “revenge”. There is always a bird reason for bird behavior.

9. Learn to Read Body Language - Beak grinding means happy contentment and low energy. Raised Crest, hopping, wings flaired means happy enthusiam, high energy and possibly misplaced aggression if you get too wild with your bird. Reguritation, wing quivering, shredding everything in site means that your bird is hormonal. Fluffed and lethargic, no preening, no perching means your bird is sick.

10. Just Because Your Bird Bites You Once Doesn’t Mean it Will Become a Pattern - You need to think about what happened before, during and after the bite and don’t do that again. Were you distracted? Was there another person or animal that scared him? A loud noise?

11. Have A Scheduled Screamfest – Toos love to scream for joy!! Pick a time of day that seems most appropriate and let loose.

12. Spend Lots of Time Playing with Your Too - They love to play. They need it to be emotionally and physically healthy. They love balls, bells, chase, and tag. Just think of how you were when you were 5.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Here are a couple of toys from Busy Bird that our Umbrella Cockatoo loves!
Unfortunately Busy Bird has made it so their pictures can’t be copied so I can’t post them here (too bad for them as I’m trying to promote them!!!).

So here are the direct links:

Double Spoon & Wood Chimes #372
Various sized and colored chunks of hard wood are hung on thick nickel-plated chain ending with a bell. Hanging from both ends of the hard ribbon wood log are stainless steel spoons. Providing a variety of wood pieces for your bird to splinter and spoons and bell to chime. Design measures approximately 12″ long x 6″ wide. Colors and parts may vary slightly. Link for hanging is included.

Lemon (our U2) loves this one and it’s refillable!
Once he chews all of the wood blocks I simply replace them and he can start all over!

Chew Mania #144
This large toy is refillable! Shred rings, natural soft wood slices, colorful wood rectangles, natural hardwood coins and durable plastic, textured links will give your bird lots of beak exercise! All colored wood is colored by our company with FDA approved bird-safe coloring. A great toy for African Greys, Cockatoos, Amazons & Macaws!

Design measures approximately 16″H x 6″W. Colors and parts may vary. Link for hanging is included.

Again Lemon love this one and it is refillable.
Make sure you order toy parts from Busy Bird as you will need them to repair, revamp and create your own unique parrot toys!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Always on a quest for entertaining (and cheap!) toys to keep our Umbrella Cockatoo happy I came across Premium Pinecones Ltd. for a safe, clean source of …what else….Pinecones!

I had no idea how many Lemon would go through so I bought two bags. So far he still has the original three still in his cage.

Lemon can be quite picky and so far has shown little interest in the pinecones even though I stuffed them full of crackers, nuts and dried fruit.

I know however it is just a matter of time before he really discovers them resulting in total destruction!

While you’re ordering your pinecones you might want to order some Pinon Pine Nuts as well (Lemon loves these!).

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

As anyone with a parrot knows…they chew….agressively and sometimes it’s a challenge trying to keep up with them in providing chewable, safe toys.

One of the best and cheapest toys is one you can make yourself!!

Take an adding machine paper roll and remove the plastic middle.
Then string a section of chain through the center and hook it to the bars of the cage.

This simple toy will provide hours of fun once your parrot realizes he can unroll the tape and either string it throughout the cage or in Lemons case….simply shred into pieces!

It took Lemon (umbrella cockatoo) a month or so before he even attempted to shred it. Now he plays with it just about every day!

One day I came home and found the entire brand new paper roll shredded into pieces on the bottom of his cage.

Adding Machine Paper Shredded

Needless to say Lemon will always have a roll of paper in his cage!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Parrots, at least Umbrella’s, are extremely destructive. I have to, on a daily basis, repair old toys or make new ones to keep Lemon (Umbrella Cockatoo) busy while he is in his cage during the day. His favorite medium’s are paper and wood!

In the bottom of his cage I put in a section of newspaper which he will shred in just one day.

One day I got the idea to take scraps of heavy cardstock and make my own paper shredders.

While these were very simple to make Lemon destroyed them before the day was over!

Take heavy cardstock and cut into rectangles.
Fold in half then cut into strips leaving the top area uncut so you can punch a hole and tie it to beads and rope.

For this one I used a pillowbox template and heavy cardstock.
Punched holes in the top, sides and bottom and tied with short pieces of raffia.
Each pillowbox has a few edible goodies inside!

Our cockatoo also has a hunkering for Fred Meyer Snickerdoodle cookies. Since we want to feed him healthy stuff I found a whole wheat Snickerdoodle recipe HERE and made some over the weekend.

Hubs gave him one yesturday and reported back that Lemon didn’t like it. We will continue to give him one until they are gone hoping that over a few days he will develop a taste for them.

In the meantime I found Avian Organics (we’ve added their link to our blog) and see that they have quite a few interesting treats that I will be ordering!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Most small birds can get away with eating a high quality seed specific to their species with a little fresh fruit thrown in for good measure.

The parrot family however requires a tad (understatement!) more work!

Lemon came to us as a seed parrot as he had been fed only seed for the last year. He will now eat flavored oatmeal however he does not do this on a regular basis. He has no clue that he is supposed to eat fresh fruit and vegetables but we put them in his feed cups anyway hoping…someday! (and no honey…Snickerdoodles don’t count!)

To entice his taste buds I had purchased several types of premade mixes (rice, noodles, bread) and to date he just isn’t interested in eating any of them. My guess is that he just doesn’t realize it’s food!

I made him some homemade bird bread. Sliced it then froze the slices. We thaw out a few slices each week and keep the rest in the freezer. I still have not seen him eat any of the bird bread but we keep putting it in his cage either in his food cup or on his skewer.

This is the recipe I used. It makes two loaves that are extremely heavy.
I improvised the recipe a little and it turned out fine!

And don’t worry about the family eating any…It really does not look very appetizing to humans with all them damned veggies in there!

Jardy’s Banana Nut Bread

3 1/2 c. flour
2 t. cream tartar
1 1/2 t. baking soda
2/3 c. applesauce (or 2 apples chopped finely) (I used apples)
1 1/3 c. sugar
4 eggs, well beaten
2 c. ripe mashed bananas
1 c. chopped baby carrots (I used frozen mixed veggies, thawed)
2 c. pecans (I didn’t have any)
1 jar baby food, winter squash or sweet potato (optional) (I had some cooked frozen sweet potato that I used-2 ice cube size)

Bake 350 for about 30-33 min makes 6 mini loaves or approx 1 hour for 2 large loaves

Parrot Bird Bread

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

When I started this blog a few years ago I had no intention of boring you with company only information/promotions.

I wanted to share things that interest me and hopefully you by offering links to cool products, recipes and eco-friendly (or not-so-friendly) articles.

As of today I have added yet another category – Birds!

As some of you know we have had finch for about a year and a half. Currently we are up to 13 finch including Zebra, Societies and Gouldians. My husband recently made a huge finch aviary which you can see here. (youtube)

In October hubs and I obtained a 4 year old, male, Umbrella Cockatoo.
Needless to say the last few months have been a learning experience!

Lemon came with a painfully small cage so we purchased a brand new HUGE one and a play stand. He has so much room in the new cage that he is busier in that than when he is out on his stand!

The previous owners had Lemon for a year and in that entire year they only fed him seed which is a huge no-no! We have slowly converted him over to commercial parrot food and have been trying to get him to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. Over the last week I have been able to get him to eat oatmeal with fresh bananas mashed in. It’s a start!

Toys……We do, almost on a weekly basis, buy him toys either from a local pet store or online. In addition to that I have taken to ordering toy parts and make our own toys….which he tends to either take apart or totaly destroy in the same day. It has become a nightly event repairing/remaking toys for the following day!

As you have noticed I have added a Bird Info and Shopping Links category over on the right. I have had first hand experience with each and every one of those companies, with the exception of Kraft Mobile Avian Vet (thank god no need for that service…yet!) and can personally vouch for each one.

Warning:
There is one online store in particular that I want to warn you against. This store has had many issues over the last few years and before I found out about it I placed an order….and never received it even though our credit card was charged. After many emails and attempted phone calls (mail box was always full) I did a charge-back through our credit card company and was refunded the entire amount. Many, many people still have not received their order nor have they received any refunds (always pay via credit card not paypal!!!) and according to the Better Business Bureau they have an F rating! Do NOT order from The Perch Store!!! You will not receive your order!

Here is a video of Lemon shortly after we got him. He is on top of his old cage which had a playtop. His most favorite toy is the plastic ball he is playing with. Unfortunately he destroyed that ball within a few days and I cannot remember exactly where we got it!

In the months to come I will be posting under the Bird category with pictures, videos and toys that we have made!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com