Today's Bird Breakfast and I've got Dehydrator Fever!!!

Today's breakfast menu featured  mash, homemade dehydrated papaya, freshly chopped kale and a smidgen of almond butter. The amount that you see below feeds all 4 of my parrots. Once this has been entirely consumed they all get their Harrison's HP nuggets, nuts, fruits and other favoured treats. Last week I received my brand new dehydrator, Excalibur 3900! I can't believe how super happy it makes me and you can bet I've been putting it to excellent use! Below are photos of some treats I made for my parrots. So easy and in such a short time frame too! I used fabulous ingredients like Flax seed, bananas, oat grain flour, chili peppers, yellow bell peppers, kale, cayenne pepper, sweet potato ground sunflower seeds, papaya, bananas, swiss chard, fresh pineapple and grated fresh ginger, coconut oil, YUM!!  I'm having such a fantastic time that I must confess that I've actually placed a self imposed ban on producing more dehydrated goodness in order to take time to finish eating the current stash of goodies. Next on my list will be to create a banana blueberry flax seed cracker/biscuit for them. I'm going to experiment and see if I can form them in nice whimsical shapes for added foot food pleasure! Stay tuned.

Happy 3rd Gotcha Day Mabel!

This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada. It was exactly 3 Thanksgiving weekends ago when Mabel arrived into my home. She's the bird who I welcomed into my life while shaking in my boots. She's the reason behind my blog. She's the reason for my face book account. She's also one of the biggest reasons why I'm a more well rounded parrot owner today. Below is our once upon a time story. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and may you all find something to be very grateful about. Today and every day.

http://mabelserendipity.blogspot.ca/2011/12/serendipity-whats-that-got-to-do-with.html 

Made my own homemade parrot toys!

A few days ago I posted a poll on one of the parrot forums asking parrot owners whether they'd rather buy their own toys or make their own toys? The results seemed to show that most folks like to do a little bit of both, buy and make. I generally prefer to purchase already-made toys from online toy makers. These crafts people do a better job at it and make beautiful fun toys in MUCH less time than I do. Most of all, the folks that I purchase from, also seem to feel so passionate about the whole toy making process. Me? Probably, not so much. I also usually don't enjoy how sensitive my skin feels after tying and undoing toy making knots, and of course the end product hardly ever looks as lovely and well done like the ones that are sold by the experts. Well, guess what? Today I actually felt motivated enough to see whether I could put together a half decent toy. I even went so far as to make 3 toys!? In total, the entire labour took about 2 hours of my time. I feel reasonably satisfied with the results and my parrots seemed quite appreciative too. Not sure when's the next time I'll feel like doing it again, however I like knowing that I CAN, if I want to. :) On a closing note, I'm very appreciative that there are folks out there who care about providing a service that makes my parrots happy. Gone, are the days when I used to think that the only place I could purchase fantastic parrot toys were from big box pet stores. :) Don't forget to support your online and local small business parrot toy maker!

Review: I Got A Woody Bird Toys

A few weeks ago we received our first and very anticipated toy order from the I Got A Wood Bird Toys team. It was so nice to open up the box and see such wonderful enrichment for my parrots, but wait, there was even a surprise gift from our dear friend Merlie! The wonderful toy she sent our way is the beautiful one you see with pink ruffles. It's made out of basswood and Mabel absolutely loves it. It's official name on the site is Tootsie Tangle!

Even though I had only ordered 4 items, the box weighed more than a whopping 6lbs. Fortunately for me, they celebrated their one year anniversary not too long ago and had a fantastic sale which also included 20$ off any shipping fees to Canada. I was not going to miss out on such a generous offer, so after oogling over the toys on their site for the past year, I placed my order and am thoroughly tickled each time I see each of my parrots using their I Got A Woody perches & toys. Not only are these products whimsical in appearance, but also exactly what your parrots have on their wish list. This wonderful small business is owned by two lovely ladies named Dawn and Leslie. Each toy is handcrafted one at a time with dedication towards fun and safety. 

They both have feathered flocks of their own and adore them the way I do mine. At this point, are you wondering about their customer service? They are very customer focused, you'll be very pleased! Hope you enjoy our photos and videos. 

http://www.igotawoodybirdtoys.com/index.html

Emma African Grey Ruffles.

Took these lovely shots of my Grey Girlie yesterday. Life is great and my flock is well. We are thankful for everything we have. Hope all of our readers are enjoying great weather too.