Stable or Cured?

Quakers

Giving After Hours Emergency Advice For Birds There is one mistake that people with critically ill birds commonly make.  They can’t tell the difference between stabilised and fixed.  It happens, in part because they desperately want their bird to be ok.  They will grasp at any sign that their bird is going to be ok…

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What To Do If You Lose A Bird

Lost Cockatiel

Which Way Is The Wind Blowing? It’s not the first thing that jumps into your head, but it needs to be.  A scared, frightened, exhausted bird (particularly if they’re inexperienced in flight), is going to take the easiest, fastest, way out of danger.  Flying into the wind uses a lot more energy, than flying with…

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Heat Stress In Birds

heat stress

What is heat stress? Heat stress in birds is when a bird’s core body temperature is raised uncontrollably to a dangerously high level.  A bird’s body temperature is normally between 39-43C/101-109F.  If their temperature rises higher than this, it can quickly become a serious, often life-threatening problem. Birds are not like us, they do not…

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What To Do When You Find A Baby Wild Bird?

baby blackbird

Baby birds are one of the most common wild bird rescue situations that I deal with during the warmer months. At the time I’m typing this, I’m literally waiting for the night to end and daylight to come so I can follow-up on a case I dealt with yesterday. It might be summer here in…

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Any Wild Bird Can Attack

Wattle Bird

It’s early spring in Australia. Deciduous trees are starting to turn green again, cherry trees are starting to blossom and cyclists are starting to look like they belong on a reality television program called “Aliens are here among us”. Or at least the smart cyclists do, the not-so-smart ones will be learning the hard way…

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Tips For Birdsitting

Cockatiel wings up

Well it hasn’t been quiet at my house lately because we’ve had some visitors staying with us while their human left the country. Three extra birds don’t sound like much in theory but noise wise – it adds up. The birds’ owner was quite keen to see how her birds reacted around other birds. In…

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Air Fresheners Can Kill Birds

Cockatiel Resting

A while ago I wrote a blog post about a cockatiel called Jackie who lived in an aged care facility. She came to my attention when she was extremely ill with a chronic egg laying problem and a severe calcium deficiency. When I last wrote, she had got through those issues and was returning home.…

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When Your Avian Vet Takes A Day Off…

Macaw

I just had my hair dyed yesterday. I got rid of all of my grey roots. I had finally found a colour that I liked and my hair was still at that stage where it looked like I’d been to a human hairdresser rather than to a lorikeet frizzathon. I had chocolate in the house…

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Protecting Your Bird From Poor Air Quality

Air quality and birds

Occasionally something may happen in the area that you live that can create poor air quality. It wasn’t that long ago that there were reports of pigeons falling dead out of the sky in Singapore due to a dangerous deterioration in air quality. Fires in a neighbouring country were polluting Singapore’s air. It got so…

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