What is the worst parrot advice you've ever been given?
Added 2020-11-15 15:43:11 +0000 UTCHey guys! I am working on filming a new series. I need feedback from you guys... so please tell me in a comment (or DM if you're more comfortable with that) what is the WORST parrot advice you've ever been given?
Comments
I was at the pet store and the worker told me if the cockatoo bit me to hold on to his break, tap it and say no
Stephanie Gettel
2020-11-27 01:07:04 +0000 UTCI have two: 1- I posted my bird’s story on the forum and another reader shared it to their own FB page with comments, “Just look, his bird is so stressed! How awful. From now on, I hope they feed only natural sunflower seeds!” Well, that had nothing to do with anything at all. Our bird is a 27y/o CAG, recovering from decades of plucking after her favorite human died. The photos and story we shared are an encouraging celebration of healing progress, after her first few months on the BT seasonal feeding system, BT pellets, great new showers, more awesome toys & better foraging, a better humidity in the house, AND clicker training. We embraced it all and it really shows. But even before that, our bird was a champion forager on decent pellets, housed in the living room, with 4 perch trees besides, and interacting daily with a loving family. So the bad thing was assuming they knew our story, failing to look closer at the actual photos we shared, or read what we said, which clearly show improvement, and then offering really craptastic summary advice with no basis in reality. (Seeds are only for training treats and for fun foodie sprinkles.) What’s worse, when we asked them to stop, and we told them we are recovering after grief and loss, they just publicly mocked us. It made us afraid to share anymore. My advice is just to look, listen, and love. Don’t take the posts & stories of others for your own entertainment, and (for us) don’t let negativity of others stop you from making a difference. We have since met others with recovering CAGs, and we have been sharing photos, progress, and stories again. 2- I see people offering unqualified medical advice, based on personal experience and limited understanding of situations. It’s often bad advice, and it robs the animal of qualified exam and process. Negligence isn’t just a failure to care enough to try something. It’s failure to meet a certain standard. When advising outside of one’s own specialties, one has no idea what those standards are or how far short they are of them. Being wrong in medical situations causes unnecessary suffering. Any advice about using chemicals or medicines should come only from people who know how they work, and have both the authority and position to bring the right counsel to the right bird & family at the right time. There’s no single magic pill for all problems. Everyone deserves their own exam and their own solution... not 50 2nd-cousin’s-friend’s uncle’s guesses.
ShelB
2020-11-19 04:31:03 +0000 UTCWhen I first started out with birds 4 years ago the worst advice I got from online was to put the birds in a quiet part of the house and leave them mostly alone for the first few days so they can get used to their surroundings. Wish I knew better then. A few weeks ago I got some more awful advice to spray my birds with a water gun when they’re being noisy. No way! Not gonna traumatize them. I’ve seen all the birds Dave and Jamie have had to train to like baths.
Alysia Porras
2020-11-19 00:53:17 +0000 UTCI overheard a conversation in a pet store. Someone said you can microwave your bird to dry it off after a shower. I REALLY hope they were not serious!!!!
SariRock
2020-11-18 20:09:27 +0000 UTCAfter determining some cut up apples were no good, someone told me "It's ok, the birds will still eat it. If it's REALLY spoiled then they know not to eat it."
Jennifer Perez
2020-11-18 02:59:09 +0000 UTCThere is a law that you have to clip military macaws because they are hostile and will dive bomb you. This I heard from a friend who had had one.
Barbara Stone
2020-11-17 20:21:15 +0000 UTC"If your parrot doesn't want to shower/bathe, leave it, there's nothing you can do about it."
Pablo The Congo African Grey
2020-11-17 18:15:09 +0000 UTCProbably "only unweaned birds can be attached to you." Got that from the petshop where I got my African grey, I had to wean her myself because the owner wouldn't
Rui Fang
2020-11-17 17:46:58 +0000 UTCHate that all zoo shops still tell us to buy seeds for our birds.
Seal
2020-11-17 13:38:17 +0000 UTCStaff in the pet store told me 'If the parrot bites you, press his mouth with your hand hardly'
Honey
2020-11-17 01:11:32 +0000 UTC'Parrots need to eat sand/pebbles to grind their mouths and help digestion'
Honey
2020-11-17 01:08:49 +0000 UTCOuch... For both! Maybe I'm just a big baby, but that sounds like it'd hurt your finger. Say nothing of the bird...
Tasha
2020-11-17 00:39:04 +0000 UTCI heard something very similar to that! My version was that the oils from our skin was damaging the outer parts of the feathers. So to limit touching your bird for a while... Come to find out later on that it's a sign of stress. Mental or physical...
Tasha
2020-11-17 00:32:39 +0000 UTCA very respectable breeder in the avian community in California told me pellets were worst than an all seed diet because they are all cooked in high temps. And the only pellets acceptable are not sold in the US
Sandy
2020-11-16 23:35:55 +0000 UTC“Caiques make good family birds”.
Carrie Stewart
2020-11-16 17:34:33 +0000 UTC-If they bite your hand while perched on it, do “the drop”. -Don’t change their diet for at least 8 weeks and don’t give fresh food or fruit in that time either. -Keep your sun conure clipped because they become jerks when flighted.
Li
2020-11-16 16:01:37 +0000 UTCThe WORST advice I ever got was NO ADVICE. Here’s your bird, your cage, and your seeds. Have a nice day. I believe that every potential new bird owner should be interviewed and taught how to take care of a parrot BEFORE being allowed to own one. Thank God for BT
Tempie Elder
2020-11-16 15:00:39 +0000 UTCI was out toy shopping for my birds and this guy at the store sold me the worst possible pellet (obviously Jamie later corrected! And suggested I go for TOPs which my parrots love) and that I should never feed the birds fresh veggies, fruit or any type of human grade food. Luckily I was starting to convert my guys into the Natural Feeding System and decided Dave and Jamie new best. My avian vet agrees that I’m one of the few people that come in that provides the best diet possible. PS... I interviewed my avian vet using Jamie’s “how to interview a Vet” article on their webpage. Lifesaver
Andrea
2020-11-16 08:46:51 +0000 UTCIn a bird magazine no longer available, one mantra was always have food in front of your bird. It will become anxious unless it can eat whenever it wants. Definitely not the Bird Tricks' story.
Nancy W Sullivan
2020-11-16 02:26:39 +0000 UTCOh gosh, this has to be the ultimate bad advice!
Holden Kendrick
2020-11-16 02:18:57 +0000 UTCPunish the bird for biting by flicking its beak.
Nyree Williams
2020-11-15 22:39:45 +0000 UTCI have several that are tied for first place. At a local breeder, I was shown several birds that she said were good "starter birds" as if they were expendable . I told her I was getting a bird to be a companion for as long as we live. Till death do we part kinda thing. Same breeder, "if you want your bird to be happy and playful you have to get an appropriate gender of the same type of bird so it will bond to the other bird and you can have a happier more easily handled bird. At a local pet store I was told to get the biggest toys with the hardest wood I could find. She explained that if the bird was able to destroy its toys, it would make it too aggressive. These are the people we're supposed to be able to trust.
Ted Loebe
2020-11-15 22:22:00 +0000 UTCIve been told to give toys made from plastic bit and/or cotton rope and/or shredded paper. I'm not sure I like those ideas too much. Also that one can never ever ever use any essential oils anywhere in a house with birds. This ignores that in the jungles they release and directly inhale essental oil when they crunch leaves and fruit skins and rip bark... so really there must be certain that are safe in high quality? And don't use a tumble dryer in a house with a bird because there are teflon components inside it. Another one that sounds a little odd.
Gina Zeelie
2020-11-15 21:18:48 +0000 UTCWhen I agreed to accept my BFA I was told that his 18" diameter round bell-like cage was the perfect size and that the 3' x 4' x 6' cage my Galah had was too big for a companion bird. (The BFA's bell cage had been in a windowless room, with him in the cage for 5+ months because the husband had had a horrible stroke and hated the sight and sound of the bird.)
Gale Rhoades
2020-11-15 20:59:20 +0000 UTCOne day a vet told me " if your macaw is acting bad, or biting or screaming, just put him in his travel carrier in the dark alone for a few minutes as punishment, so he will understand he did something wrong"
Rebecca Derode
2020-11-15 19:37:47 +0000 UTCTo put my saliva in my birds water dish because it will make him calmer 🤦
Andreia Sousa
2020-11-15 18:47:27 +0000 UTCI know!! I love the one they got for blueberry, it’s like a geometric dome, looks so cool! The round cage “issue” I never understood. They can navigate across the country, but can’t find their way around a round cage? I think anything inside and outside of the cage would be a frame of reference lol... they can see through the bars 😂
Jennifer Percopo
2020-11-15 18:41:28 +0000 UTCYeah I don't know how I could keep birds from perching higher than my eye level 🤣. But I still have a hard rule of no birds on the head - for the sake of my own scalp ... Does anyone else get itchy if they land on the head??
Nicole van der Burg
2020-11-15 18:41:15 +0000 UTCThat black feather lines meant you just 'love your bird to much' caused from the germs of your hands contaminating their feathers with fungus. They said just to use chlorhexidine wipes daily for a few weeks to fix it. Obviously (hindsite) its not that/more complicated than that. I won't go into the details but I highly advise if your bird develops abnormal levels of black lines to see a vet. Do Not Self Vet!
Nicole van der Burg
2020-11-15 18:36:27 +0000 UTCI was told by the breeder that my 3 month old green wing macaw was fully weaned. Even the vet I took him to a week after I got him said his diet was fine. Luckily I had a consult with Dave who encouraged me to start hand feeding again.
Nichole Biedenback
2020-11-15 18:29:23 +0000 UTCWhen I picked up my conure from a parrot boarding place, the woman gave me a list of all the foods she “discovered” my bird loved. She suggested that kashi cereal was a better choice for my bird than his pellets, and she insisted that I buy specific varieties of apples based on a “taste test” she’d done with him. She also told me that walnuts were too high in fat to be used as a treat/reward. I was already on your seasonal feeding system, so I ignored her.
Davida
2020-11-15 18:01:40 +0000 UTC1. That to tame a bird you restrain it in a towel or your hands until it settles down. Repeatedly over months. 2. Keep your bird in the kitchen so it’s always a part of the action. 🤦🏻♀️
Veronica Park
2020-11-15 17:52:40 +0000 UTC1: You should clip the wings so they don't hurt themselves while attempting to fly. 2: get the premium seed diet on the bird isle as the daily food source 3: squirt the bird when it misbehaves 4: place back in cage when it misbehaves.. Just to name a few
Sierra Dorpinghaus
2020-11-15 17:46:33 +0000 UTCHi Lucia, There are a LOT of different articles covering different aspects of owning more than one bird here on our blog: https://birdtricksstore.com/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage&q=another+bird* Maybe you could choose a couple and post them to help educate?
Wendy Miller
2020-11-15 17:14:28 +0000 UTCI can feed my bird any people Food except dairy and chocolate. Now my bird begs when I eat.
Donna Driver
2020-11-15 16:54:57 +0000 UTCWhen I got my parrotlet the breeder told me to hold him in my hand or wrap him in a towel several times a day then they will learn to love cuddles. He won't even accept a head scratch. I knew better because of you guys. He doesn't have to accept scratches. I was also told and hear it a lot to let them sit in their cage for a week so they can get comfortable. Then you hear that the bird will never come out.
Wendy Cottingham
2020-11-15 16:49:37 +0000 UTCI remembered another one... When we took in a rescue macaw for a while, they told us to leave her in the cage for the first couple of days to "reset get expectations"... Then she should be really happy when I come and "rescue" her to let her out.
Trede Dreyowolfe
2020-11-15 16:46:46 +0000 UTCThat an all seed diet is the way to go for all birds.
Crystal O'Kelly
2020-11-15 16:43:17 +0000 UTCCompared to some others worst advice, mine is pretty tame. I guess it’s not the worst advice I could get, but I definitely didn’t listen. I was told by the pet shop I got my bird at to wait 6 months before trying any kind of diet/food conversion. They do really care about the birds, so maybe they’ve seen diet conversions go bad?
Brittany Hoganson
2020-11-15 16:42:02 +0000 UTCI love the absurdity of the round cage. Made me think of the 'Ice Age' squirrel mini movies
Tasha
2020-11-15 16:30:03 +0000 UTCThat if I just grab my bird and force him to spend time with me that he’d start to like me
~ksc~
2020-11-15 16:28:12 +0000 UTCThat a single bird can never be happy on it’s own so buy it a friend.
Sherry mathes
2020-11-15 16:27:54 +0000 UTCClip your birds wings, it will make him sweet and more tame. Recently from a vet I won't be visiting again, feed your bird Harrison's and dried fruit, avoid dark leafy greens.
Holden Kendrick
2020-11-15 16:22:45 +0000 UTCOh and, I found your YouTube channel when my conure was about a year old... That's when I decided she needed to KNOW how to fly and her attempts up until that point wasn't anything close to mastery! We learned so much from your early day videos and been watching ever since.
Tasha
2020-11-15 16:21:24 +0000 UTCIt's not really an advice, but people keep commenting on Elvis being my only bird. It's quite annoying since these people have no knowledge whatsoever about birds and sometimes they don't really know me well and anyway comment on Elvis being a single bird 🙈 I am still searching for a quick and easy way to respond to these comments. Does anyone have one? 🤔😊
Lucia Hellerhoff
2020-11-15 16:16:47 +0000 UTCFeed it primarily fruit. So glad that I know better and that there are folks like you putting good information into the world.
Everwynne
2020-11-15 16:12:26 +0000 UTCTowel your bird when it gets aggressive... If your parrot bites you, grab The Towel and toss it on your bird. The idea was... The bird was displaying dominance and you needed to get them onto the floor to restore your dominance. The towel was never meant to hurt the bird. Merely disorienting enough that they fall off the perch. F*d up right? Guess who conveniently was always too afraid of strangers to meet my grandmother... Guess who wished I had that excuse to keep my grandmother from visiting! I loved her anyway, she really didn't mean to harm her bird. She really was devastated when he died and telling me was the hardest thing for her about it all. She never tried to get another parrot and so I never shattered the idea of her perfect relationship with her bird...
Tasha
2020-11-15 16:08:44 +0000 UTC"He/she will fit in that cage". Some pet shops in my country sell indian ringnecks, that's how I got mine, but the largest cage I've seen them sell may hold max. 1 or 2 cockatiels. I didn't have any other choice (didn't know I would find a cage online) so I went for it. I felt super bad when I realized it won't work. In 1 month I got him the largest cage that I could fit in my room and swore never to trust pet shop employees where I live again.
FlyingCookie
2020-11-15 16:05:13 +0000 UTCThat they'll live a full happy life on a seed and pellet diet. A small cage is fine to be in most of the day so long as they get out at least once. All dogs are fine with parrots, they don't attack them. So long as your bird is bonded with you it won't fly away. Clip all the flight feathers on a birds wings really short for its own safety Its fine to leave it in its cage all day It doesn't need a lot of attention. So long as there is one toy in the cage its fine If its hungry, it will eat anything you give it If it screams just cover the cage to calm it down Teflon is fine to use so long as the birds are not in the kitchen. Its fine to use plug in air freshners so long as they're not in the same room as the bird. (I have been told all these and more by pet shops and some parrot owners since June when I started researching into getting a bird)
Ace Ash Ventura
2020-11-15 16:04:15 +0000 UTCLol great minds think alike 😂
Jennifer Percopo
2020-11-15 16:03:50 +0000 UTCDon’t let your birds on your head or shoulders... or high shelf or on top of cage... because they are trying to dominate you- never let your birds be higher than your eye level, be the “alpha” 🙄 (hear this once in a while still, and it still irks me!!) If you have a round cage you are TORTURING your birds! They run around in cicles and can’t get a frame of reference 😂 Grit is mandatory for all birds!
Jennifer Percopo
2020-11-15 16:03:01 +0000 UTCNever let your bird perch higher than or level with your eyes. Also clip their wings for their own safety. So don't let them get above you EVER because they'll believe your a submissive flock member. When I got my first bird as an adult, I had to throw everything my grandmother taught me out the window. The realization started when her own parrot died very prematurely. Her double yellow head Amazon that I was supposed to inherit. At the same time, the documentary 'Blackfish' was released... I drew my own conclusions...
Tasha
2020-11-15 15:59:15 +0000 UTCClip their wings and never let them out of cage. Our neighbor basically told us to never let our bird fly.
Trede Dreyowolfe
2020-11-15 15:48:38 +0000 UTCThat you spray them when they bite or only feed them seeds
Freeda Wise
2020-11-15 15:46:05 +0000 UTCDefinitely to either clip my birds wings or to let him go on the wild!
Mckenna Vaughan
2020-11-15 15:44:57 +0000 UTC
