Originally posted by zandperl at Space Heaters Info

It's that time of year again: time to remind (Northern hemisphere) people of how to heat your house safely with birds in it. Since I keep answering this question in different contexts, here's a page I wrote with lots of info on it, newly updated for Winter 2013-2014.

Winter is coming.

In case anyone's reading on a Monday night and can get me their thoughts quickly ( Read more... )

It's getting on towards Northern Hemisphere winter, and people are coming out of the woodworks asking about space heaters. Since I answer this question so frequently, I decided to just make a website answering it. :)

Feel free to give the link to others.

X-posted

I was hunting around Wikipedia today, and decided to make a list of extinct parrots. Here they are, ordered from longest ago extinct to most recently lost, with links to Wikipedia for more info. For each one I have the common name, species name, where they were located, when last seen, and cause of extinction.

1. Saint Croix Macaw (Ara autocthones ( Read more... )

I boarded Kappa for 6 days over the holidays. The place I board her has cages of a good size (around 36"x36"x40"), they place the cages of similar species near each other (and siblings right next to each other, with 1-2" space between cages) so they can interact, and they let each bird out onto a large playstand for an hour or two every day for ( Read more... )

I do not use a grill in the bottom of Kappa's cage and above the tray for two reasons: (1) I like her to have the opportunity to forage among the things she drops (both food and foot toys), and (2) it encourages me to change her papers daily since I don't want her foraging in poop and day-old veggies. The problem is that Kappa has learned how to ( Read more... )

I live in New England, which was hit with a horrible ice storm overnight. Many people throughout my state are without power, and cities and towns are setting up emergency shelters for people without heat. While my heat is oil, both the burner and thermostat require electricity, so if it went out, we'd be going somewhere else. Which reminded me ( Read more... )

Parrot owners often discuss the risks involved with anesthesia for birds, but I've never seen an actual study of it. Well, I still haven't for birds, but dolittler_blog just pointed to the most commonly cited study for cats and dogs undergoing anesthesia. The study is 15 years old, which shows that it's a very little-researched topic if there's no better newer ( Read more... )

A recent post on cockatiels reminded me that people are often asking about how to address their bird allergies - and cockatiels more often than other species b/c they're both more common and more dusty. Cockatoos are also quite dusty, but they're not as common. (I personally am allergic to everything with fur, and I can have my allergies triggered by birds ( Read more... )

Bleh. Unfortunately Kappa's gram stain (from last Tuesday's appt) came back "10% gram negative rods" which the vet says is borderline for what's acceptable, it should be less than 10%. He said she appears healthy so it's not something to worry about necessarily (it's not worth canceling my trip later this week over), but it's worth a closer look ( Read more... )