{"id":9997,"date":"2018-09-09T19:21:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T00:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windycityparrot.com\/blog\/?p=9997"},"modified":"2018-09-09T19:21:27","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T00:21:27","slug":"a-better-bird-ep-13-how-bird-proof-is-your-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/?p=9997","title":{"rendered":"A Better Bird Ep 13 &#8211; How Bird Proof Is Your Home? Video"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"v-Sf6Og98t-1\" class=\"video-player\"><iframe title='VideoPress Video Player' aria-label='VideoPress Video Player' width='1140' height='641' src='https:\/\/videopress.com\/embed\/Sf6Og98t?hd=1&amp;cover=1&amp;loop=0&amp;autoPlay=0&amp;permalink=1&amp;muted=0&amp;controls=1&amp;playsinline=0&amp;useAverageColor=0&amp;preloadContent=metadata' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen data-resize-to-parent=\"true\" allow='clipboard-write; presentation'><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">In about 24 months our household has gone from 0 to 9 birds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Six budgies (2 males\/4 females), a female Senegal (surgically sexed) and a male African ringneck (males have the ring).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">I fondly call the budgies\u00a0<em>my little hooligans<\/em>\u00a0who have their own cage as does Peaches our 9 year old female Senegal and Keto the newest member to our family, the 17-year-old male African ringneck.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We talk a lot about looking at and dealing with all our birds &#8220;holistically&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Catherine and I had discussed over a week or two, what we should do with the budgies wings?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">I had this fantasy morphing in and out of a Walt Disney movie with the budgies floating around the apartment helping me keep things organized but then we knew all that was never going to be the reality.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">To achieve that the budgies all would have needed a severe wing clipping, and then hours of training to help them decide where and when to land.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We don&#8217;t have to teach them first to fly, we teach them how to land in our homes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">With the other two bigger birds in the background, Catherine&#8217;s common sense won out and we decided to keep the budgies flighted and simply migrate them into their new <a href=\"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/aviary-c-232_173\/indoor-aviary-flight-cage-for-small-birds-by-prevue-f050-black-p-1700.html\">larger F050 aviary<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">The interior of this aviary is designed specifically to encourage and enable flight within the four wrought iron walls.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">The Senegal and African ringneck are fully flighted and must be protected from themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Keto, our newest feathered family member clearly has had an issue with his right wing but we haven&#8217;t bothered to traumatize him to examine it closely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">He&#8217;s a half decent flyer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We&#8217;ve seen him go from one side of the room to the other, and buzz the top of Peaches birdcage with no effort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Peaches has become a decent albeit slow flyer but<em> she still needs to work on landings.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">As bird companions we don&#8217;t need to teach our birds how to fly, <em>we need to teach them where and how to land.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Peaches will fly south and north in the living room but will not fly north from the living room into the kitchen or the bathroom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We decided not to encourage the northern flight into the kitchen because she does not need to examine food cooking in a hot pan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">I have total control over Peaches in terms of handling her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">She will step up to my hand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">She will shoulder ride.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">She is happy to be with me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Catherine is slowly building a relationship with Keto.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">She was easily able to have him on her shoulder <em>using his bell toy <\/em>as a lure<em>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Today when I left him (Keto) out while Peaches was in her cage he flew about 25 feet into the living room and landed on the floor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">I slowly walked over and rolled some small jingly balls in his direction, but he would have nothing to do with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">I held my palm out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">He stepped onto it but then took off and landing atop the budgies new aviary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Three of the budgies had their heads rotated 90\u00b0 with one eyeball looking up, you know how humans would look at a Marvel superhero landing on the roof of their home?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Keto was just surprised as the smaller birds were and he quickly took off to land upon the top of his own cage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Keto likes his birdcage, <em>he likes being inside it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Last night, Catherine had him out on her lap but her legs were exposed to his nails.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We laid a blanket across her legs and Keto was very into burying his head in the folds and crevices of the blanket we used talking into the fabric.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">The birdcage that he came home in did have a small bird cage hut hanging inside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We decided that we will provide him with a more appropriately sized <a href=\"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/bedtime-c-356_685\/warm-snuggle-hut-for-birds-by-prevue-medium-green-p-2.html\">Snuggle Hut<\/a><em> that he can feel warm and fuzzy about.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We are prone to do this more with a male, better than a female bird because we don&#8217;t want to encourage broody bird behavior and egg production in females.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">When we lock down Peaches and allow Keto out, he will go to the top of the cage and play with some of his balls.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">Once he drops them into the floor or tossed them at Catherine, he&#8217;s happy to go back into his bird cage as though <em>removing all the balls from the top of his cage is an accomplishment.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">If we keep the cage door open, he will come back out and do a bit of exploratory flight, eventually coming back to the top of his cage then walking down the cage walls until he&#8217;s back inside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We had installed a soft rope <a href=\"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/rope-c-356_684\/\">Booda perch<\/a> vertically (on the front of Keto&#8217;s cage by the door) much like Peaches cage to assist in climbing from the open cage door to the top of the birdcage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">But Keto prefers the positive footwork of using the cage itself <em>for his up-and-down vertical movement.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">We removed that Booda perch and placed it back into the home cage inventory box for future use.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 18pt\">At this point I&#8217;m feeling confident that, when the birds are out, even a panicked escaped hooligan budgie, any of our birds will be safe flying within this area even when a bit confused.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In about 24 months our household has gone from 0 to 9 birds. Six budgies (2 males\/4 females), a female Senegal (surgically sexed) and a male African ringneck (males have the ring). I fondly call the budgies\u00a0my little hooligans\u00a0who have their own cage as does Peaches our 9 year old female Senegal and Keto the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","_thinkrank_schema_form_data":"","_thinkrank_selected_schema_type":"","_thinkrank_additional_schemas":"","_thinkrank_canonical_url":"","_thinkrank_og_title":"","_thinkrank_og_description":"","_thinkrank_og_image":"","_thinkrank_twitter_title":"","_thinkrank_twitter_description":"","_thinkrank_twitter_image":"","_thinkrank_imported_from":"","_thinkrank_focus_keywords":[],"_thinkrank_focus_keyword":"","_thinkrank_robots_meta_enabled":0,"_thinkrank_robots_meta":"","_thinkrank_advanced_robots_meta":"","_thinkrank_exclude_from_search":0,"_thinkrank_exclude_from_archives":0,"_thinkrank_primary_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"page_builder":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[233,195,188,197,198,199,204,223,259,228,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-better-bird","category-bird-parrot-care","category-bird-cage-info","category-bird-enviornments","category-bird-lighting","category-bird-nutrition","category-bird-rescue","category-birds-lighting","category-keto-the-african-ringneck","category-parakeets","category-peaches-the-senegal-parrot"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/galah-flying-window-blog-1.jpg?resize=595%2C397&ssl=1",595,397,true],"list":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/galah-flying-window-blog-1.jpg?resize=463%2C348&ssl=1",463,348,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/galah-flying-window-blog-1.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1",300,200,true],"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/galah-flying-window-blog-1.jpg?fit=595%2C397&ssl=1",595,397,false]},"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phcfkq-2Bf","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/galah-flying-window-blog-1.jpg?fit=595%2C397&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}