Best Talking Parrot Contest Winners!

The contest is over and the winners have been selected. It was indeed a difficult decision. There were over 175 videos entered and yes I watched every single one…several times : ) I have to admit this contest turned out to be more fun than I could have imagined. I was laughing to the point of tears on several occasions, but the most rewarding part was watching so many people enjoying their parrots. The good news is we plan to keep the site up. Although we will change the text about the contest, people can continue to share their special parrots at http://www.besttalkingparrot.com/. One viewer pointed out that they enjoyed being able to view so many talking parrot clips at one location. I agree.

Onto the winners! This contest included an amateur and professional parrot category. Our professional parrot category only had one entry. Therefore Clover the Congo African Grey parrot from Turkey takes the prize in this category. The amateur category had lots of competition. We let your votes decide and the front runner when it came to votes was Mishka the Congo African Grey parrot. Mishka resides in South Africa and carries a lovely accent as he announces “He would like to go to the bathroom.” Congratulations to our top prize winners. They will receive a gift certificate to Good Bird Inc products, prizes provided by KAYTEE and five free signed copies of the soon to be released “Train Your Parrot To Talk” DVD/CDROM.

In addition to Mishka and Clover, there were a number of other notable entries. The following parrots and their families will receive three signed copies of the “Train Your Parrot To Talk” DVD/CDROM.

Ariel the Panama Amazon Parrot

Bibi the Congo African Grey Parrot

Bongo the Congo African Grey Parrot

Bowie the Indian Ring Necked Parakeet

Casey the Yellow Naped Amazon Parrot

Disco the Budgerigar

Einstein the Talking Texan African Grey Parrot

Emma the African Grey Parrot

Freddie the Yellow Naped Amazon Parrot

Kona the Green Winged Macaw

Koolaid the Parrotlet

Ozzy the African Grey Parrot

Pluto the Quaker Parrot

Ray the Blue and Gold Macaw

Sunny the Cockatiel

Poly the African Grey Parrot


I hope you enjoyed our talking parrot contest. The new DVD/CDROM “Train Your Parrot to Talk” should be in stock mid February 2011. Just sign up for our mailing list on the top right hand side of this page to be notified or visit this link to purchase it shortly.

Barbara Heidenreich
http://www.goodbirdinc.com/
Copyright 2011 Good Bird Inc

Finland. Land of Orange Winged Amazons ….and Rambo.

Orange winged Amazon parrots seem to be very popular in Finland. At my recent two day workshop in this fine and friendly country I had the pleasure of working with a number of orange winged Amazon parrots. In Finland wing clipping is not the norm, so all these Amazon parrots were flighted and quite a joy to work with.

One in particular was a cutie named Rambo. (Yes, Sly Stallone’s impact is worldwide.) Rambo was confident as can be. She also had a very healthy appetite. You have food, she is your buddy. Guess who was one of my favorite training subjects? In fact she turned out to be many people’s favorite training subject. She learned a nice recall and return to perch cue, as well as some preliminary harness training. This is often a tough behavior to train with birds who are mature and not into all over touching. Milla, who organized the event, spent some time working on this behavior and made some progress. As is often the case this can be a difficult behavior to train that requires very small approximations. Being flighted, Rambo was good at letting people know when too much was being asked of her. It will take some time, but this group demonstrated some great natural talent for training and I am sure they will get the behavior trained soon.

Some other stars of the seminar included a Jardine's parrot who had some issues with hands. This meant no stepping up on the hand, only on the shoulder. This proved to be a challenge when the seminar was over and the bird did not want to go back in her cage. We did some creative maneuvering of her cage and were able to get her to enter. However I was super pleased to received a video clip less than a week later of the Jardines parrot stepping up voluntarily on the hand. Way to go Eve!

Also impressive was a whip smart, confident, flighted cockatiel. This bird learned super quick and made the rounds of the room visiting whomever she pleased. She spent a good chunk of her time supervising my computer : )

Really we had so many impressive training candidates that weekend. A green winged macaw, two umbrella cockatoos, some greys and more Amazon parrots. A big treat was that the national news came to visit. They filmed portions of the seminar as well as an interview with me and pet supply store owner and club member Jarko. I hear the news story really got the message across about positive reinforcement. Even more exciting is that it aired n 5 countries. When I made it to Helsinki, I got to watch the newscast on a big screen TV in the lobby bar of the hotel. Sigh, for a moment I felt bigger than Sly Stallone.

All Photos Courtesy of Jarmo Tutti

Barbara Heidenreich
Copyright 2009 Good Bird Inc
www.GoodBirdInc.com

My Cockatiel Condo

The best thing I did for my cockatiel was buy something made for a ferret. I realize some may scratching their heads at this statement. But it is true. I was looking for more spacious accommodations for my little guy. I wanted as big as I could get and of course a reasonable price.

I wandered into the small mammal aisles when I wasn’t finding what I had in mind in the bird section. It was there I found a ferret cage. One of the features that caught my attention was the “shelves” specially designed for a lounging ferret.

During his “Australian Walkabout” time in my humble abode, my cockatiel likes to spend a great deal of time on the window sill. He seems to prefer the flat surface scattered with toys that he can fling about. He also likes to destroy treat sticks and forage around for the crumbs.

Traditional bird cages don’t seem to fit the bill in regard to parrot species that spend a bunch of time on the ground. The new ferret cage was perfect.

Toys, foraging activities, cuttle bone, treat sticks, etc can all be placed on the shelf. And as Gomer Pyle says “surprise, surprise”…guess where my cockatiel spends most of his time? Yup, on the shelf…..the ferret shelf. Even though perching and the food bowl are above the shelf, my cockatiel seems to rarely leave any deposits there. Mostly I find remnants from time spend foraging or playing with various toys. I do put a few paper towels down, but clean up is pretty much accomplished by a quick pass with the hose from the vacuum. If a scrub down is in order, it is pretty simple as the shelf is plastic……PURPLE plastic. Prince would be proud.

I also love that the cage has three big giant doors, and one is on the top of the cage. I did not use the tubes and slides provided and only kept one shelf in there. I also did have to add perching, feeding stations and toys. But all in all it worked out well for Banana Puddin'.

My ferret find has turned into my new cockatiel condo.

Barbara Heidenreich

Copyright 2009 Good Bird Inc