Questions

Q.  My Quaker, Frankie has been trying to land on me when he takes flight.  What are tips for getting him to do this?  He is good at flying to the bedroom and circling around and then into his room where the cage is. Yvonne Shreveport, LA

A.  Try standing close to the cage and hold your hand up, you may even use the step up command.  When Frankie successfully lands on your hand give her a favorite treat.  Make sure the doors and windows are secure, even a tame bird is very difficult to capture from the wild.

Q.  This is not a question but a very helpful hint. " I learned these birds get very attached to their owners and want to cuddle up and take a nap with you.  If you do this you are heading for a tragedy.  It has been a year since we lost our Sunny, a Sun Conure. I rolled over on Sunny while napping.  Please post this in your question section so hopefully no one else will have to deal with this tragedy".  Thank you, Clay

A.  I have received three of these emails in the last few months, what a sad thing to happen to your buddy.  I am sorry Clay had to learn this the hard way and I hope this will make anyone that naps with their feathered friends think twice before doing it.

Q.  The little Jenday we purchase two days ago, stands on one leg and looks sleepy.  We love the little bird and hope she is not getting sick. Thank you, Alisha

A.  I called the new owner immediately after getting this email, and suggested they take the bird to the Vets for a check up.  The bird was very healthy just sleepy, as he was getting to know its new owners and surroundings.  Baby birds need at least nine hours of sleep at night so they can be at their best. If the cage is in a busy part of the house try covering the cage or moving it at night to a quite room.  Remember they will listen to TV or conversation even when covered. 

 Q.  Hi, Great Website!!  We have a 2 year old parrolet that looks just like the photo of the image
below, (Spilt to blue young baby male 06). We are confused because Kiwi our bird laid an egg this week,  do males lay eggs?
Confused in California Elsie
 A.  Only females lay eggs and you have to have two parrotlets of opposite sex to have fertile eggs. Bodcau Aviary

Q. Do birds inbreed? When parrotlets are in the wild it seems like siblings
> would pair up and mate. I have a breeding pair of green parrotlets,
> unrelated and a breeding pair, one blue and one white parrotlet unrelated.
> After seeing how fast they reproduce It's hard to believe that in the
> wild siblings do not mate. Do they all take off in different directions
> and find different territories to mate in. Do they visually see the same
> color and breed of bird to mate with. One last question, will inbreeding
> birds cause deformities or abnormalities, besides color??......
> Undoubtedly Clueless about the breeding habits of birds

A.

Hi,  Birds do inbreed in the wild, a matter of natural selection. Natural selection works to remove individuals with certain types of traits from the gene pool. Therefore, many more individuals in the first generation of inbreeding will never live to reproduce. Over time, with isolation such as a population bottleneck caused by purposeful (assortative) breeding or natural environmental stresses, the deleterious inherited traits are culled.

The cheetah was once reduced by disease, habitat restriction, overhunting of prey, competition from other predators (primarily lions, competition from human land use, etc.) to a very small number of individuals. All cheetahs now come from this very small gene pool. Should a virus appear that none of the cheetahs have resistance to, extinction is always a possibility. Currently, the threatening virus is feline infectious peritonitis, which has a disease rate in domestic cats from 1%–5%; in the cheetah population it is ranging between 50% to 60%. The cheetah is also known, in spite of its small gene pool, for few genetic illnesses.

Island species are often very inbred, as their isolation from the larger group on a mainland allows for natural selection to work upon their population. This type of isolation may result in the formation of race or even speciation, as the inbreeding first removes many deleterious genes, and allows expression of genes that allow a population to adapt to an ecosystem. As the adaptation becomes more pronounced the new species or race radiates from its entrance into the new space, or dies out if it cannot adapt and, most importantly, reproduce.

The reduced genetic diversity that results from inbreeding may mean a species may not be able to adapt to changes in environmental conditions. Each individual will have similar immune systems, as immune systems are genetically based. Where a species becomes endangered, the population may fall below a minimum whereby the forced interbreeding between the remaining animals will result in extinction.. There are some breeders that call inbreeding line breeding but that is just another way to make it sound good the usual reason is for color. If your parrotlets are true greens with not splits they are rare as most of the stock parrotlets in the US are mixed and no longer the true green. I do know that through history when inbreeding was the human kind they kept a lot of them in towers. It just can't be good for birdies. Keep up the non related breeding and the parrot will not parish.

Q. What type of guarantee do you have for your parrots

A Here is a copy of our health guarantee
 

Your parrot at the time of purchase has no symptoms of disease or parasites and is completely free of genetic defects. This means that our birds are free of viral infections, pathogenic bacterial infections, fungal infections and congenital defects.

Your parrot comes with their wings clipped, and we recommend they be clipped after each molt. Thank you for choosing Bodcau Aviary, Email: parrots@bodauaviary.com We are here to help with any question you have. Please do not hesitate to call. 318-426-7859

Keep your questions and comments coming!

Jokes

I have received two that I will post soon!

Please just jokes about parrots, you know I'm trying to keep with a theme here.

Thank you for your input and your time.   Kandice and Carl

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