Comprehensive, veterinarian-reviewed guides on caring for exotic companion birds
Everything you need to know about feeding your parrot for optimal health, vibrant feathers, and a long life. Covers pellets, fresh foods, toxic foods
Learn More →Complete guide to choosing and setting up the perfect cage for your parrot species, including size charts, bar spacing, essential accessories, and cle
Learn More →Learn positive reinforcement training techniques including step-up, target training, and flight recall. Build a deeper bond with your parrot.
Learn More →Understand your parrot's body language, solve common behavioral issues like biting and screaming, and learn proper socialization techniques.
Learn More →Learn to recognize signs of illness, understand common parrot diseases, and know when to seek emergency veterinary care.
Learn More →Expected lifespans by species, factors that affect longevity, and planning for your parrot's long life.
Learn More →Everything first-time parrot owners need to know - choosing a species, essential supplies checklist, first week tips, and ongoing costs.
Learn More →Complete guide to parrot bathing methods, grooming tips, nail care, and beak maintenance.
Learn More →Complete lists of parrot-safe and toxic plants, foods, and kitchen dangers every bird owner must know.
Learn More →Decode your parrot's calls, understand flock communication, and learn techniques for teaching your bird to talk.
Learn More →If you are new to parrots, read the beginner's guide and the nutrition guide first, in that order. Diet is the leading modifiable cause of premature death in companion parrots, and most of what goes wrong later - obesity, fatty liver disease, chronic vitamin A deficiency, feather problems - traces back to an all-seed ration that was never corrected.
If you already have a bird and something is going wrong, the behaviour and vocalisation guides are usually more relevant than the health guide. Screaming, biting and feather-destructive behaviour are overwhelmingly husbandry problems - insufficient sleep, no foraging outlet, inappropriate petting driving hormonal behaviour - rather than medical ones, though medical causes should always be excluded by an avian vet first.
African Grey care and traits · Macaws: size, noise and housing · Amazon parrots and vocal ability · Cockatoos and their care demands · Cockatiels for first-time keepers · Conures: noise and temperament
Parrot cages sized by species · Heavy-duty macaw cages · Formulated pellets and food · Natural-wood perches and stands · Foraging toys and enrichment · Avian first aid and health · Bathing and grooming supplies · Pet bird supplies hub
Most often contact calling, boredom, insufficient sleep, or learned attention-seeking that has been accidentally reinforced. Load foraging enrichment before you leave, ensure twelve hours of darkness, and respond to quiet rather than to noise. Sudden new screaming in a previously quiet bird warrants a veterinary check.
Have an avian vet exclude giardia, zinc toxicosis, skin disease and reproductive disease first. Beyond that the usual drivers are lack of foraging opportunity, insufficient sleep, low humidity, loss of a bonded companion and hormonal stimulation from body petting. It is far easier to prevent than to reverse.
Twelve hours of uninterrupted darkness nightly. Long artificial day length is a major driver of chronic egg laying in hens and of hormonal aggression in mature males, and short sleep is implicated in screaming and biting.
Learn to read the warning signs - pinned eyes, raised nape feathers, fanned tail - and stop before the bite. Avoid petting anywhere other than the head and neck, which drives reproductive behaviour. Use positive reinforcement to build step-up and station behaviours, and never react dramatically to a bite, which reinforces it.
Feeding an all-seed diet. It is high in fat, deficient in vitamin A and calcium, and reliably produces obesity, fatty liver disease and recurrent infections. Converting to a formulated diet, gradually and with weekly weighing, is the highest-return change most owners can make.
Entirely. They are general husbandry information grounded in species biology and standard avian veterinary practice, not product advice.