13
Nov
Flock Call: Providing a New Way to
communicate. learn. succeed.
We're reinventing the way you think about birds.
Communicate
To be an active flock member all you have to do is visit often to take in our parrot knowledge and share yours. It's that easy.
Learn
Spreading the message on how to love, empathize, and care for your feathered friends.
Succeed
Through communication and sharing our birds will lead happier lives.
Latest Blog Posts
13
Nov
Chaos is a perception not properly appreciated to my way of thinking.
13
Nov
Having someone tell you a parrot is loud, messy and expensive is helpful, but it comes as close to explaining a parrot as the word wet explains water. It's deeper and wider than one can imagine, and to sincerely know it is to live it.
10
Nov
Watching a parrot go through a molt yields feathers to collect, and a bit of wonderment. Because watching a feather fall, and it's replacement grow in is literal magic.
10
Nov
Falling in love with a companion parrot is not hard. It isn't even work. Falling in love is simply falling for the nuances and traits they bring to us every day. I fell hard for our Butters. I fell right off a cliff.
10
Nov
Angus Lee, our Catahoula Leopard Hound. He's our new pup that adds all kinds of new muse to my day. I hope you enjoy our stories.
Latest Flock Comments
That rarely ever happens with a fully clipped bird. I’ve been out recovering fly offs locally and advising nationally on how to get them back and flight patterns for over 20 years. The birds that are in the most danger (from most dangerous to least in incidents of total loss or death) outside are: 1.the untrained flighted parrot that escapes. Needle in the haystack to find. 2. Semi clipped parrots..cannot maneuver well enough or fly well enough not to be tagged by a predator or fall, etc like this story. 3. Harnessed parrots that escape. The leads have killed by choking more than one of them. They also tangle birds into trees and also require higher degree of training and fitness to fly with any extra weight, with any type of resistance the harness creates. 4. Any individual bird flying alone, but especially small parrots flying alone...especially Conures or smaller, that ARE flight trained...don’t do it. 5. Fully clipped Parrots that are smaller,....not really recommended to take them outside as their flight is not restricted enough. 6. Fully clipped larger parrots...amazons, Greys, large tons. 7. Flight trained parrots that recall at multiple locations for months first before getting outside. 8. Fledged, flight trained parrots that are larger. 9. Flock flying fledged, flighted small parrots. 10. Flock flying fledged trained large parrots has the highest degree of success against loss.
Hello! I found your site because your Felix and Kirby Lurker pictures always come up in my Pinterest, and they crack me up. I have six parrots (two CAGs [Anna and Lucy], one Sun [Hemingway], one Jenday [Orwell], one Pionus [Emma], and one Indian Ringneck [Conrad]), two of which are rescues (Lucy and Conrad). I have a quick question as a matter of opinion...all of our parrots are super comfortable with us and like to spend time with us except for Conrad. He came from a tiny, filthy cage in a home where the wife was terrified of birds and the husband was nowhere to be seen, so I don’t imagine he got a lot of interaction with humans. We’ve had him now for 3.5 years, and he has a big cage, plus when I’m home I keep his cage door open so he can fly around as he pleases. We only try to get ahold of him when we take him to the vet or to get his nails clipped (twice a year), but he still flies away when we come near. I feel bad because this is his home too, and I want him to feel safe here. He sees us constantly spending interactive time with the other birdies (including Emma, who I think he’s in love with). In your experience, do you think it’s possible Conrad will ever be comfortable with us? Is there anything I can do to facilitate this? We will never give him away as he’s our son, but we are just wondering... Thank you for your time!
Thank you for discussing BOTH options vs condemning clipping entirely. When I work with either flighted or nonflighted or limit flighted birds, bolstering confidence and ability can and has been done and achieved in clipped parrots. I have gone to several national conventions now speaking of this need and ability for clipped parrots to retain confidence, measures of exercise and differences on handling and management required. It is hoped, for me anyway, that people stop assuming a clipped parrot I cannot be a confident one, a healthy one, a happy one. To equate clipping to removing the wing, tying it down, totally impairing the bird . It only limits flight. Does not eradicate it. Also, there are many medical cases clipping is recommended for birds as we discover more respiratory or heart malfunction. I do not think for even one second that these denied birds must be miserable just because they cannot fly. The same cannot be said if we don’t socialize them enough or correctly in a productive relationship. These social constructs are most of the fallout we encounter in depressed birds, aggressive birds, etc. I have indoor flighted birds, 2 outdoor trained flighted birds and 3 clipped birds out of 10. One is terrified of flying despite being flighted. Forcing flight, to me, on owners or birds who are not prepared to train their bird to fly properly, to create flighted bird safety precautions to prevent fly offs and more is no better than forcing a family to clip their bird. Together, we can enrich parrots as a relationship regardless of flight or not.