Homemade Toys

Last weekend I spent my "free" time in the country making toys for Chris.  Parrots love toys, and need them to keep from getting bored.  Toys made for parrots can be wood, plastic, leather, rawhide or a combination and, of course, they have to be non-toxic.  Unfortunately bird toys can be very expensive.  Cockatoos are like woodchippers and Chris can whittle his way through new wood toys in a flash.   He goes through them at an alarming rate, so when a couple of our pine trees fell during a storm a few years ago I gathered up the small pieces and decided I'd try making some.  I also had the guys who came to remove the trees saw off some wood disks that I saved for when the small pieces ran out.  Every once in a while I make a fresh batch of pine toys for Chris (some moms make chocolate chip cookies for their kids, I make pine wood toys!).  I scrub them clean, boil them to make sure they are sanitized and then dye them with colorful food coloring.  Chris loves them!  He still gets mostly store bought toys, but the ones I make are a nice addition to his toy chest and they smell really good! So, last weekend I took one of the disks to the hardware store and they cut it into small blocks for me and I went to work.  Below are the photos:

The wood boiling

The finished product--ready for Cockatoo consumption

A Flock of New Friends

The Cockatoo Chronicles, and the Chief Cockatoo, Chris, welcome Debbie Brown as a new friend.  Debbie sent in a photo of her adorable dog, Tasha, a Siberian husky mix. 

Tasha

We love her girlie, pink stuffed toy in the photo!  Chris is a big fan of stuffed animals, too.

Debbie also sent a photo of a flock of sulphur crested cockatoos she saw at the botanical gardens in Sydney, Australia. 

Flock of sulphur cresteds

They certainly are beautiful!  I wonder what a one way plane ticket to Australia for a cockatoo costs? ;*)



New Friends

The Cockatoo Chronicles is excited to welcome some special new friends as followers to our blog.  Suzanne Bors Andrews sent in photos of her three furbabies:  Bravo, Indy and Tango.  Chris the Cockatoo can "bark" like a dog, and likes to bark at dogs, and he can say "kitty cat" so he's going to be very excited to look at these photos!

Bravo

Indy

Tango



Parrot Hijinks

A lot of people don't know this, but parrots actually laugh.  Chris and Holly also love to tease me (or torture me) and laugh when they do it.  For example, Holly will say "bad boy", bite and then chuckle.   Maybe he thinks if he gives the "bad boy" warning up front it's my fault if I don't get out of the way in time.  Chris will throw something out of my reach and laugh about it, or he'll fly away to a place I can't catch him and find that very funny.  He also laughs at jokes and sarcastic comments, which makes me wonder how much he really does understand.  And, of course, they like to torture each other at times, too. 

A couple of weeks ago we had a lovely teasing/torture session in our apartment.  It started with me attempting to work out on my little step machine.  The machine is near Holly's cage.  For some reason Holly gets very angry when I work out in the apartment.  He puffs himself up and patrols the space around his cage and won't tolerate Chris coming near us.  He'll even throw an umbrella at Chris, knowing Chris is deathly afraid of them.   Of course, Chris wants to be on top of me when I'm working out, so most of my workouts consist of me breaking up bird fights (hence why my home workouts are infrequent.) 

Puffed up Pionus

A warning glare

I guess Chris got frustrated and decided to have some fun of his own, so he grabbed the keys to his cage and held them hostage.  I couldn't get them back.  He played with them for a long time and is now obsessed with them.  Every chance he gets he climbs the shelf where he knows I keep them and he dangles them in front of me like a carrot---when I go to grab them he either flys off or runs off into his cage or to his play area.  I don't care that much if he's playing with them, except for the fact that I can't lock his cage without them....Ironic isn't it?  He'll be in the cage, which gives me the opportunity to lock him in there, yet I can't because he's got the keys in his beak.  He's like an evil genius!  Chris may be the one who spends part of his day in a cage, but trust me, I'm the one serving the life sentence.

My jailor

Sweet Summer Snacking

Everyone always wants to know what the birdbabies eat......I've covered that topic before so you know they eat pretty healthy, but below are a few photos of them snacking this summer.  Most of their snacks are very nutritious, but some not so much:

Chris enjoying summer melon.  He especially loves the seeds.

Holly eating a lollipop.

Chris eating a Triscuit cracker.  As you can see he's already "eaten" the paint off my heater.

As I type this the boys are on the porch and their beloved Barbara (their grandma) is feeding them peas & pasta soup.  Chris loves the pasta and Holly loves the peas.  Wish I had someone spoon feeding me!