Parrot Advice Guide

Drawn in by their engaging personalities, intelligence and beautiful color combinations, people have been adopting parrots into their homes and lives for many generations. A domestic home environment does provide a few challenges when addressing the important issue of parrot care but equipped with the correct information and given the proper care, a parrot makes a wonderful pet.

There are numerous varieties and they each may require slightly different parrot care but they all require correct healthy nutrition to maintain a high quality of life. The general diet for a parrot should contain fresh produce (fruit and vegetables), high quality parrot seed enriched with essential vitamins and parrot pellets as well as fresh water daily.

Birds generally are thought of as “dirty” pets to look after but it is really important to keep your parrots’ cage clean. Their dishes and even their perches should be cleaned on a daily basis using mild soap and water. You shouldn’t use substances such as bleach or ammonia as they can irritate and even in some cases burn a parrots’ eyes, respiratory system and skin. Parrot owners should always have clean hands themselves when handling their parrot, preparing their food and even cleaning their dishes as so to minimize bacterial infections. Parrot owners need to be aware that human saliva contains bacteria that, to a parrot are harmful, so they shouldn’t allow their parrot to perform one of their favorite signs of affection which is to place their beak in the mouth of their owner, known as “kissing”. Another important aspect of maintaining a healthy happy bird is the size of his cage, it should be sufficiently large enough for the parrot to spread its wings within his cage and also there should be enough room for up to four safe parrot toys.

Parrots can often form very strong bonds with their human owners and families and generally speaking, smaller parrots can live up to 15 to 30 years of age and their larger cousins can often live well past their 60’s, so parrot ownership can mean a lifelong commitment. To maintain a happy healthy bird one of the aspects that is very important is the social interaction they are involved in. Their cage should be located where the family spend a lot of their time and can easily interact with the bird, however even if Mom does spend a lot of time in the kitchen this place isn’t ideal due to the birds risk of chemicals and fumes from human cooking and other associated dangers.

Parrots require a constant level of grooming throughout their lives as their beaks and nails never stop growing. Their nails should be clipped around every three to four weeks depending on their length and overgrown nails can cause significant problems for a parrot, anything from toes getting caught on toys all the way up to not being able to walk properly and even falling of their perch!!!! They can usually take care of their own beak, especially if their cage has some sand in it where they can grind their beak as they forages for food. Also most owners have their parrots wings clipped every few weeks which limits their flight somewhat and this is done to prevent the parrot causing injury to itself and potentially others.

Parrots in the wild make use of rain showers to keep their feathers and plumage in pristine condition and owners can mist or bath their birds once a day using fresh clean water from a sprayer or a water bottle.

Parrots are very intelligent, sociable and full of affection and potential owners need to understand the requirement to meet each of these needs regarding their parrot care and when doing so will create an environment at home that will see your parrot live a long, happy healthy life.

Tags: best parrot care, parot care, parrot care advice, parrot care guide, parrot care tips

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 3:37 am and is filed under Additional Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.