Week 4

DNA test results are back!

We have 2 girls and a boy.

Our chick number 1 is a little girl.  We eagerly wait as her family considers a name.  

Our chick number 2 is a little girl.  She will be called "Gloria".  A befitting name for a glorious bird!

Our little boy is chick number 3.  He will be called "Claude" after Claude Monet.  We think Claude is a perfect name for this perfectly beautiful baby.  

Pin feathers are growing on these 4 week old babies.  Red tail feathers are beginning to show.  The 4 week old chicks are active and alert much of the time.  They cruise around and explore in the dark warm and safe nest with their "bird" parents.  

Co parenting of the chicks continues. 

    The chicks respond to "lessons" with alert curiousity.  This week we continue with hand feeding and towel training.  We introduced some grooming procedures including bathing and nail trimming.  

At this age, bath consists of gentle wiping with a soft paper towel moistened with warm water.  The emerging pin feathers are very sensitive and it can cause pain to disturb them too much.  We limit the amount of handling to decrease the chance that we might inadvertently cause pain.  Eventually, we will pattern the birds to tolerate a  good, thorough soaking bath in the sink.  The birds will become tolerant of the shower spray and easily allow wings to be lifted and water sprayed at all angles to ensure complete drenching.

We trim nails with an emery board.  We begin patterning the chicks to tolerate gentle filing of the nail while sitting on a towel.  We support the foot with a hand and, in most cases, can accomplish the trim with out any restraint.  It is our goal to eventually train the bird to hold a foot up so we can complete the trim.  Of course it takes a while for the bird to mature enough to thoroughly learned this skill. Starting this training early makes the task much easier for the bird to learn.

We continue to gently wrap the babies in the towel to pattern them to be comfortable with restraint.

The chicks are very vocal at this age.  They will growl at us when they are uncomfortable.  The growl of a parrot sounds similar to what a small dog would sound like when growling.  It is natural for a parrot to growl when feeling uncomfortable.  We always strive to encourage our parrots to behave and express themselves in ways as natural  as possible, taking into consideration that our birds are household companions and must learn acceptable household companion behaviors. 

We feel that growling, or any other vocal expression is a very desired mode of communication.  We would much rather have our birds growl at us than to have them bite us.  We reinforce this verbal communication and we ALWAYS adjust OUR behavior accordingly, to comfort the bird.  Growling is always short lived because our birds learn to trust that we will "listen" to them when they communicate vocally.  We are empowering our birds within their environment.  We do not have problems with biting or other aggression with ANY of our birds. 

To speak to the subject of biting, there have been very few reports of wild parrots being observed biting each other as a way of communicating with one another.  The only reported cases of this type of aggressive behavior between parrots in the wild, seems to be related to conflicts over nesting sites.  This leads us to believe that biting IS NOT a natural form of communication in a parrot.  

In a perfect world, the companion parrot would never have a need to communicate with his humans by biting.  Unfortunately, humans tend to be impatient and can easily be distracted and miss subtle (non-violent) cues that the parrot is giving.  When the subtle non violent cues are missed, the parrot will escalate his effort to communicate and biting may be the result.  This misunderstanding between human and parrot is what conditions parrots to communnicate through biting.  The parrot has no choice but to bite if the human ignores the more subtle cues. 

The fact is, companion parrots that bite have been patterned to bite by humans.  It is a sad fact that most parrots will bite at one time or another because we humans are imperfect in how we handle our parrots. 

We strive to raise parrots that trust in humans and have begun to understand how to effectively communicate with humans.  We also strive to work with our clients to help them understand the (often subtle) cues that the parrot uses to communicate with us. 

Birds that have learned to effectively communicate in a language we humans can understand will make great companions.  Likewise, humans that have an understanding of parrot "language" will be better equipt to effectively manage their birds.  The end result: a great relationship with your bird! 

Below, L to R, chick 1, Gloria and Claude!