What's a mistake you made when you were an amateur bird owner?

Now this isn't a thread dedicated to shaming those who made mistakes, because everyone messes up sometimes, but just for people to post their silly mistakes they made so others can read and maybe learn from it and everyone can have fun reading each other's silly mistakes!

[Please DO NOT include mistakes that involve parrots dying, I DO NOT support or condone laughing at carelessness that costed a poor creature its life.]

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With that said, I'll go first. I wanted to spruce up my babies' cage and thought that ACTUAL store bought flowers would make them feel more in tune with their instincts. I spent hours weaving flowers into the cage bars until it was GORGEOUS and full of plant life. When I brought them into the room and showed them their surprise, they were happy with the set up, but wouldn't move in their cage at all. Only then, did I look it up and realize the flowers I put in were poisonous for parrots, and I spent and easy 30 minutes pulling all of my hard work out. It could've ended badly, but I'm happy I caught this mistake before they got sick.

Moral of the Story: BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING FOR YOUR BIRD, LOOK IT UP AND SEE IF IT'S SAFE.

Love the idea! Mine would be taking my bird outside without a harness even though his wings were clipped. A well clipped bird should be able to glide to the floor, not drop like a rock. If they are clipped too harshly they can fall and break their breast bone, especially larger birds. A bird with clipped wings can still fly away if it gets startled and/or catches a guest of wind. I have met a number of bird owners who lost their birds this way . So always be safe and use a harness!

ann said:

Love the idea! Mine would be taking my bird outside without a harness even though his wings were clipped. A well clipped bird should be able to glide to the floor, not drop like a rock. If they are clipped too harshly they can fall and break their breast bone, especially larger birds. A bird with clipped wings can still fly away if it gets startled and/or catches a guest of wind. I have met a number of bird owners who lost their birds this way . So always be safe and use a harness!

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I know! And some pet stores do that too, which makes me upset that ANYONE can get hired into a pet store and be in charge of caring for animals they don't have any experience with. Olive, our lineolated parakeet had her wings already harshly clipped to the point that they still haven't grown back yet even after 5 months of having her.

Nice idea for a thread!

We were having work done on our home and the work went on for a week, one of the workers fell in love with my flock. She brought them a small package of birdie treats, they were yogurt covered almonds, I gave her permission to offer them a treat, they all politely refused but I told her they were shy, I'd keep them for later. I've always been suspicious of foods with coloring, these treats were an unhealthy looking red and yellow, lots of concentrated coloring. After the lady left, I was in a rush and instead of tossing the brightly colored treats, to save time, I dropped them into a plastic tub filled with toy making parts, snapped on the lid, put the tub away and promptly forgot they existed. Several weeks later, I had the tub open on the floor, Poppy, as usual took the opportunity to sort the toy parts to her own liking. That evening when I went to say goodnight, I was shocked to see what at first glance appeared to be bloody poop all over the bottom of her cage. I tried not to panick, I took a sample of pooped on paper to the faucet and added water, a trick a vet taught me, often by adding water you can determine if the color you see is actually blood or something else, the trick works better on canine poop but I was able to determine that the color was a little off, probably not blood after all. Then what was it? There was nothing that color in her chop. I remembered the tub of toy parts, I pulled it out and started searching, thinking she had swallowed something she shouldn't have. I was thrilled to find the package of yogurt treats. Puzzle solved. I found one almond with all the red yogurt coating chewed off.

Moral, if you let your flock take candy from strangers, throw the candy in the trash can at the first opportunity. It may not hurt your bird but it won't help your stress level at all.

My dumb mistake was believing what I read from "experts' (various books) in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

When I bought my first ekkie, I read a book which said that the bird should ALWAYS do as I instructed, step up/down, stay on a perch, etc. Well I kept pushing my finger into Jade's stomach to encourage/force him to step up - just like the book said. Many bad looks from Jade, many attempts to move away, Jade gently holding finger and moving it away and finally a few bites later, I realised that I had the most stubborn, misbehaved bird in town.

When it dawned on me (eventually) that the books I was trusting in were wrong and that Jade actually had a will of his own, the bites stopped. Jade was the most gentle bird you could have.

Those books ended in the trash and I no longer believe everything that I read, regardless of the authors reputation or number of letters after his/her name!

Dumb mistake # 6, When we first got Salty, i didnt realize quite how smart he is. Fist time on his boing and I tried to get him off with a "step up" command, and he gently took my finger and pushed it away. He did this for 3 times and the forth time WOW he showed me how strong that little beak really is. Never make that mistake again.

But I made so many mistakes with my little Maxie, a brotogeris parrot, that I could fill a book. This was before I knew about great sites like this, where new owners cann benefit from others scar tissue.

I think this is a great way to help others learn

I made a few rookie mistakes with Avery when I first got her, despite researching quite a lot. It's amazing how when you try and find appropriate information you often stumble upon information that may be accepted in some communities but strongly rejected in others.

The first mistake: using wood shavings for cage bedding. This lasted about a week before I realized how terribly unsafe it was.

The second mistake: taking in a second-hand, all-too-small cage from a Petland employee... the paint was chipping and it was too small for a budgie in my honest opinion. I bought her a much more appropriate cage about 6 months after when I had the funds in place. And to be honest, I'm still planning on getting her a larger cage later when I have my own house if I'm unable to provide a bird-only room.

The third: thinking that it's totally okay to encourage one-on-one behaviour because I wanted Avery to be MY bird, not my boyfriend's. I've received three bites to the face thus far for encouraging that behaviour in the past (that's about 1 per year). It's amazing what comes back to bite you - pun intended!


I think we all start off somewhere, and we're all allowed to make mistakes so long as we strive to improve our knowledge for the health and safety of our birds. That's why forums like this are so wonderful. They allow us to keep up-to-date on information and share what we know or have done for the benefit of others

EDIT: I have to add one more big rookie mistake that I did, after reading April's post regarding training. That was using BRIBERY to train (ie. offering a treat prior to a behaviour to get the desired response). This had a huge negative impact on my step up training with Avery. I inadvertently trained her that you ONLY step up if a treat is offered first, and now three years later I am finding that she is only reliable stepping up for a stick and not for my fingers - plus she was smart enough to realize that if she didn't step up for me, I'd "bribe" her with a treat to get the behaviour. They're way too smart!

Kiwi was untrained and unhanded (or it had been so long since anyone bothered working with him he behaved as though he was completely feral). We turned pretty quickly to some old school bird taming books my parents had for taming literal wild parrots as well as advice from them (who bought and trained their birds in the 1970s when parrot training was a very different story). If I could do things over, I would try target training with a clicker. The old school methods were effective, obviously, but I think we could have likely progressed more quickly with him and developed a more trusting relationship with him earlier on had we gone about things differently.

I'll echo Ann's confession about taking the Rickeybird out without a harness. His wings were clipped, and I had been told by the bird store owner that this was safe. I posted pictures of me and my bird (one in 1985 and one current) in another thread... the first one shows us OUTSIDE, his wings clipped, no harness... the second is inside, and he is fully-flighted.
If you'd like to see, here's the thread. BUSTED!
http://www.parrotforums.com/questions-answers/62811-1985-2016-photos-can-you-tell.html

Dinosrawr said:

EDIT: I have to add one more big rookie mistake that I did, after reading April's post regarding training. That was using BRIBERY to train (ie. offering a treat prior to a behaviour to get the desired response). This had a huge negative impact on my step up training with Avery. I inadvertently trained her that you ONLY step up if a treat is offered first, and now three years later I am finding that she is only reliable stepping up for a stick and not for my fingers - plus she was smart enough to realize that if she didn't step up for me, I'd "bribe" her with a treat to get the behaviour. They're way too smart!

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We did the bribery thing too! It did indeed entice him onto our hands and arms, but after he learned we were a stable perch and not going to hurt him, it quickly digressed into he climbs on nicely, takes the treat, eats it, gets praised and as soon as he was finished reached down to remove a chunk of flesh just for bird LULZ. That unfortunate lesson in birds ability to hold grudges against all humans and outsmart us at our own game took a (painfully) long time to correct:16:

I have made tons of mistakes but I think the biggest one was listening to a petshop salesman convince us (Well convinceme and my mom for it was a whole life time ago now ) to buy a tiny cage for a budgie....all I can say is it was the tiniest cage I have ever seen but yet it was sold as a suitably large size for a budgie...that budgie was never very friendly and it bit a lot but would you blame it ...thankfully we did let it out of its cage for most of the day but even as a roost for the night that cage was still way too small. You live and learn I dont think they make cages that small anymore and thankfully people have learned nowadays that a budgie is a very active parakeet and needs a pretty large cage.

Great thread! One of my mistakes was failing to pay attention to body language...Ekko really got me good when we first got him, as I ignored his "ekkie freeze" when trying to get him to step up. He went quickly from ekkie freeze to ekkie try to tear your finger off.

I love this thread! Thank you for posting it.

I started with birds in the early 90's, then with parrots by the mid 90's, so no internet, no forums! It was ancient books, and learning the hard way (and that was with all pets), so yes... there were many mistakes made. But Robin is still going strong at almost 22!

Love this thread
Hmm.. In the beginning I accepted I'd be bit and just rolled with it. Realizing right away that the bites weren't really that bad, Gracie only drew blood twice & only one actually hurt & was deep. Honestly, I was really surprised since I expected way worse damage.

When our son (18 yrs old) wanted to try and handle her I reiterated the above - it's not that bad thinking that she'd bite him with the same pressure/intensity that she had used on me. Well apparently Gracie was taking it very easy on me from the get go - the 1 -2 bite she gave him was right into the finger nail cuticle with significantly more force then she had ever shown me. He backed away quickly & in good nature told Gracie they were gonna have to long distance pals lol

Thinking I had learned from said mistake a few weeks later my boss was chatting with Gracie who was doing her sweet eyes "come hither" look... it's her lure. So he said I think she's ready for me to pick her up - I reminded him she bites & to say "easy - gentle" which she was doing an excellent job at. Well apparently those directions mean squat if I'm not the saying it .. chomp 1.. chomp 2 .. boss had enough. She got him good took awhile to heal & bled quite a bit. I also neglected to consider that he was trying to get her to step up off of her boing - one of her favorite places - Duh me.

Live & learn

wrench13 said:

he gently took my finger and pushed it away. He did this for 3 times and the forth time WOW he showed me how strong that little beak really is. .

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That's really interesting.. the worst bites I had were in the beginning & Gracie would do that .. push my hand aside with her beak.. then again.. that's it lady I warned you.. chomp.
Wonder if she just ended up taking pity on me thinking I was just too dense to get it.

Wow, these are all some pretty good mistakes(good for learning from, I mean.. )!

It's also interesting to see how some people have even made the same mistakes. And REMEMBER, don't ever beat yourselves up about a mistake. As long as you LEARNED from it and did what you could to MAKE it right again, that's what matters! <3

I'm sure there's way more than this that I've made over the years!

My mistakes came from definitely underestimating my birds. I used to leave the food/water doors on Sydney's cage open, until one day he decided he could fit through the door, and I turned around just in time to see him squeeze out and land on the floor!

My SunDay Buttercup I had for a while before giving her to a friend who fell in love with her, was also a famous escape artist. I'd come home from work and she'd be on top of her cage or on my bed, I couldn't figure out how she was doing it until I caught her one day. Note: the door on her cage is wide open and she still chose to do this!

[ame="https://youtu.be/Li2Tun2vGsc"]Clever girl - YouTube[/ame]

Clever and proud of it!

So what do you do to keep them in? A c-clip or such, I guess?

The Rickeybird was able to slide a latch open on one of his food windows. My husband had to bend all the latches so that they require more strength to slide than the RB has.

GaleriaGila said:

Clever and proud of it!

So what do you do to keep them in? A c-clip or such, I guess?

The Rickeybird was able to slide a latch open on one of his food windows. My husband had to bend all the latches so that they require more strength to slide than the RB has.

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She's with a friend now in a better cage, but at the time, I put perches there, and the washer and wing nut prevented the door from coming up! Worked out pretty good for me!

deloresa said:

As long as you LEARNED from it

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That's key but some of us don't learn the lesson fully the first time around.. ME being said culprit.
I use to let Gracie watch the funny LOUD cockatoo video's on Youtube with me.. until I realized I had turned my Grey into a 'Too when she started copying the same sounds.

One would think I would have learned to properly censor what my lil mimic watches/listens too after that.

Nope.. apparently not. If I need to leave the office to run errands etc. I always put on a Youtube video for Gracie I'll pick a long one so she doesn't get bored with the same thing repeating & set it to loop usually bird videos since she likes to talk back to them.

I guess I didn't set it to loop today I walked back in & a video was playing a parrot with a very extensive, very, very colorful vocabulary.

Hoping she wasn't in a learning type of mood today.