Look what Rosie layed!

We have been letting Beaker and Rosie spend time together recently. As young studs will do, Beaker has been practicing his 'mount' with Rosie and the other day (12/16) I found this at the bottom of her cage.




Now that we have seen one, we expect that she may lay a couple more (about 3 days apart) so I put a box with nesting material in her cage and she has been laying on the egg. Time will tell if the egg is fertile or if she lays any more eggs. I will keep you all posted.

This could be fun!!!!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader

Vote on this!

Hi bird fanciers,
The title of this post is just keeping with the theme of my last post. hah! We have been so busy with life.... that I have neglected my posts - shame on me.

Well, Jeremy and I recently had an updated photo taken of us with some of our birdies. We have added this picture to our brochure and also refreshed the picture of us on the main website and I thought I would share it with our bloggers too.

Here's who we have (the birdies) in the photo... from left to right: Our very own Beaker (SI Eclectus), Zeus and Moe (Congo African Greys) and Cupcake (Greenwing Macaw).

Now, ending with the voting theme... who gives this picture a 'thumbs up?'

Yours truly,
The gorgeous gal in the photo... Elena

Exercise your right and VOTE!

Last night we all sat down to review the ballot and discuss each initiative to understand the real meaning and implications of each, paying particular attention to arguments for and against. Well, I needed some help so one of our babies, Cupcake helped me figure things out. Here are a couple of snapshots, enjoy.

And remember to VOTE next Tuesday November 2nd.


Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Happy Hatchday Lola!

One of the things we love to do is remember our babies with a hatchday card celebrating their first year. And we are especially blessed when the baby's parents send us pictures commemorating baby's big day. Here is a picture of 'Lola' Albright, Solomon Island Eclectus. As you may know, Jeremy and I have a sweet spot for ekkies and Lola won our hearts the moment she arrived to our nursery, gosh... one year ago last month.

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

I took a nap and woke up over 1 month later!!!

Hi all,
Holy cow, where has the time gone? Seriously, one of our dear customers and friend, Patty, emailed today to let me know that I have not posted in over one month... ouch! [thanks Patty].

I could make all kinds of excuses but I won't. With all the festivities around the wedding and many, many birdies moving on to their permanent homes, I just let things slide.

So what's new.... well, we have three birdies with us - one Congo African Grey (operating name Moe), a Senegal named Kiwi who will be transitioning to her family on 10/18 and then we have a newer arrival, Cupcake, Greenwing Macaw. Here is a cute video clip of Cupcake taken recently. Cupcake's family lives in beautiful Bellingham, WA. Enjoy the video clip!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters (online store)

Wedding Bells!

On a personal note.... We had the most beautiful wedding here at our place last Saturday - it's hard to believe that one week as passed already! Our son, Lachlan, married Susy Behne and we are SO thrilled to welcome Suzy to the Galbraith family. The wedding was intimate, and the weather held.... outdoor wedding. Here are a couple of pictures...

The lucky in-laws,

Elena and Jeremy

It's feeding time again!

In this post you will see a very cute video of one of our customers, Eugenia, feeding her baby Mexican Red-headed Amazon, Chelo, some hand-weaning pellets. Enjoy!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Happy Birthday Baby!

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Dottie and David....happy birthday to you!....and MANY more!"

Blessings to my little brother and sister on your milestone XX birthday!

Hugs from your older sis... :-)

Elena

Shower Pals!

The following picture and video come to us compliments of Cyndi and Terry - one of our wonderful customers who purchased two macaws from us - Tonka (Greenwing) and Tiko (Blue and Gold).

Tonka and Tiko are bound to be great friends as time goes on and in this picture and video you see them showering....

What a hoot! Here is the picture...


Now, enjoy the video... it is a MUST see!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Pint-size, yet mighty... Watch out it's Sprout!

This past Wednesday Jeremy and I sang 'happy trails' to Sprout.... what a cool bird! We have had the pleasure of hand-raising many baby Poicephalus parrots, but this was our first opportunity to hand-raise a Meyers Parrot.

Poicephalus means (short-tailed parrots) and consists of nine parrot species that are native to Africa. Here are the most common - Senegal, Meyers, Jardine and Brown-headed Parrot. Poicephalus (poi-ce-phalus) are considered a great choice for those who want to "step up" to a mid-size parrot. Compared to their larger cousins, they are easier to keep in apartments, as they are generally quieter and smaller. They are animated, clownish birds that can learn tricks and many learn to talk. And Sprout is sure to be a charmer and entertainer.

Here are a few pictures of Sprout as she developed while here at Beakers and a cute pic of her and mommy Denise on go-home day. Enjoy!

4 weeks 5 days old

First visit 6/6/2010

6 weeks old

6 weeks old

Go home day 7/21 - Sprout 11 weeks 3 days old

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters (online store)

Ziggy wins beauty contest!

Who's Ziggy and what are we talking about? One of the things we love about our work with parrots is the pleasure of raising any species our customers want and, therefore, work with many different kinds of parrots as we take them through our hand-raising and nurturing process.

Ziggy is a black-headed caique - average length of an adult caique is 23 cm or 9 inches in length. They weight around 150 to 175 grams or 5.3 - 6.2 oz. Their average expected lifespan is 30 years. They are very distinctive and beautiful in appearance, often referred to as the "Seven-Color Parrot" because of their highly defined black, green, yellow, orange, white and blue feathers. Here is little more about the caique:

• Caiques have probably more energy than any other parrot kept as a pet. Black-headed caiques like to be the center of attention but do NOT require constant attention.
  
• They can be fun birds to watch as they entertain themselves by playing and wrestling.
  
• They’ll dangle from your fingers as you walk around the house, throw toys from the top of their playgyms and somersault on the bottom of their cages.
  
• Caiques are busy parrots who love to learn. They do best when challenged to learn new things.
  
• They’re clownish and acrobatic and a great companion!
  

Ziggy's transformation from the time he arrived to the nursery to now is astonishing - therefore, Ziggy wins Beaker's 'first' beauty contest.... congratulations Ziggy! Here are some pictures of his transformation. Daddy Vu is a blessed man - Ziggy is an awesome little guy and a great companion.

5 weeks 2 days old

6 weeks old

6 weeks 3 days old

7 weeks 4 days old

7 weeks 4 days old

10 weeks 2 days

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Three beautiful words

Hi all,
As a parent you are thrilled beyond words when your baby starts to talk and string words together. Today was such a day for me.

I have been hearing Beaker (about 4 yrs old) practice saying words routinely and often you are not sure what he is saying. He says a few things including his name 'Beaker.' Recently he has been practicing a two word phrase which turned to to be 'good morning.'

Today, for the first time, I heard him say 'good morning Beaker' and he repeated the three word sentence clearly and repeatedly.... how cool is that? I just thought I would share with you this great moment. Have a good day.

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Everyone holds babies

If you come to visit us, you hold babies - ANY baby you want. We encourage this intentionally to 'sweeten' babies up and get them comfortable with lots of people. Here are some recent shots taken of visitors and families holding babies... enjoy.

Why not come and see us and hold babies - you might decide you want one!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters (online store)

CRAZYiness & farewells to Squeaker, ZuZu, Arlo and Jonah

Hi all,
I can't believe that my last post was 6/10 - shame on me. It's been one month since I sat down to update you on happenings. I fully intend to change the frequency of my posts and you will see them more frequently from here on out - there is so much going on these days - with our own personal flock, and stuff - that I'd rather keep the posts shorter and to one topic.

Over the past month we have had some sorrow :-( which I will go into later on another post... and much joy, in the sending off of babies with their new parents. Here is a brief recap.

Adam and Squeaker - Senegal

Lori and ZuZu (with Jeremy, Beaker's Flock Leader)


Kristine and Jonah - Blue-headed Pionus


Judith and Arlo - Congo African Grey


We consider ourselves matchmakers of sorts and we are thrilled when we make a good match - since my last posting we have had four- times the pleasure! This is our true reward.

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters (online store)

Are we Crazy?

Well today Jeremy returned from the airport with two more babies - a Hahns Macaw and a Double Yellow Amazon (pictures below). We now have seventeen babies going through our Beaker's Process. You could say the 'Parrots Hilton' has hung out the NO vacancy sign for a few weeks! Hah....

Roll call Please... **Currently in the Nursery**

• 3 CONGO African Greys - AVAILABLE - Accepting reserves
• Hahns Macaw - AVAILABLE
• Male Solomon Island Eclectus - SOLD
• Greenwing Macaw - SOLD
• Eleanora Cockatoo - SOLD
• Senegal - SOLD
• 3 more Congo African Greys - all SOLD
• Black-headed and White-Bellied Caiques - both SOLD
• 2 Blue-headed Pionus - both SOLD
• Meyers Parrot - SOLD
• Double Yellow Amazon - SOLD

Welcome "Packer" Double Yellow Amazon
7 weeks old - hatch date 4/22/2010

I'm baby Hahns Macaw
4 weeks old - hatch date 5/13/2010

So, are we crazy? Maybe but we are having a blast!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters (online store)

Drum roll, please!

Announcing the arrival of five new arrivals to Beaker's nursery... We just love driving to the airport to pick up new babies. The airport is about 50 minutes from our place so we make sure we check flight arrival times and get there with time to spare. We want to make sure that we can get babies home and fed as soon as possible since some of our babies are Floridians (hah!)

Over this past week - we picked up two Caiques (one black-headed and one white-bellied), two Blue-headed Pionus and a baby Meyers Parrot. Here are pictures and hatch dates for each one.... With the speed that these babies will grow, we almost need to date and time-stamp our pictures.

Looking ahead to next week - we go back to the airport to pick up two more babies: a Double-Yellow Amazon and a Hahns Macaw - Yippee!!! Of the total 7 babies, all are sold except for the baby Hahns Macaw.

What's really thrilling for us is the initial visit of customer and baby. - And this weekend we had the pleasure of uniting four new parents with their baby! And next week two more. Here's the list of our new parents!

• Judith - Congo African Grey
• Vu - Black-headed Caique
• Denise - Meyers Parrot
• Kristine - Blue-headed Pionus
• Barbara and Glenn - Double-Yellow Amazon
  
• Jean - White-bellied Caique
• Janet - Blue-headed Pionus
  

Enjoy the pictures of our new arrivals!

Meyers Parrot (hatch date 5/3/10 - 4 wk 5 days)

White-bellied Caique (hatch date 4/4/10 - 9 wks 1 day)

Black-headed Caique (hatch date 4/28/10 - 5 wks 2 days)

Blue-headed Pionus (hatch date 4/17/10 - 7 wks old)

Blue-headed Pionus (hatch date 5/1/10 - 5 wks old)

Elena
Beaker's co-flock leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters.com

First Feeding and First Flight... a great way to end May!

Wow... where has the month gone? This has been a very busy month for us - bringing in 3 Congo Grey babies to the nursery, boarding one of our former babies (Buddy the Senegal) here at Beaker's Spa, and making flight arrangements to bring in a Blue-Headed Pionus, Meyers Parrot, two Caiques and a Double-Yellow headed amazon for new customers in the first two weeks in June . It's going to get even busier with 5 new mouths to feed along with the 4 we currently have going through our process (Eleanora, Senegal, Eclectus, Greenwing).

And then there are visiting days, which we LOVE. This past weekend, we had another two firsts - Daddy Steve (of the Greenwing) hand-fed Levi for the first time and ZuZu, the baby Eleanora Cockatoo took her first 'controlled' flights and I captured both on video. You know how I love to take my little videos :-)

Well, enjoy these two latest installments via YouTube. You can see all our videos at YouTube under the Beaker's Parrot Place channel.

Here is the video of ZuZu

And here is the video of Daddy Steve feeding Levi

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Precocious Baby Senegal

About two weeks ago we brought in a couple of new birds to the nursery - a baby Greenwing Macaw, an Eleanora Cockatoo named Zuzu and a baby Senegal. We think about our baby birdies and the early development stages they go through akin to what human babies go through from total dependence, tracking objects, mobility, learning commands/recognizing words, etc.

Jeremy and I have both been amazed at just how alert and precocious the baby Senegal is - we both agree this is a VERY smart bird... not to mention cute. We just know that this baby will enrich some lucky families life.

I captured two short video clips of baby Senegal, aka 'Bruiser' as the operating name, compliments of Jeremy. The first clip was taken on the day Bruiser arrived at the nursery (4.5 weeks old) and the second video was taken today, 5/10 (6 weeks and a few days old). Enjoy!

Cute baby, wouldn't you agree?

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Is baby Greenwing a boy... or a girl? Let the credit card test decide

Yesterday, two families came to visit their babies for the first time - Lori and Greg came to meet ZuZu, their baby Eleanora Cockatoo (pictures below) and the Bianchi family came to meet their new baby - a Greeenwing Macaw (video below).

Baby Eleanora Cockatoo - ZuZu
50 days old

Now for baby GW - Many of our customers want to know the sex of their babies... and for others it doesn't matter. Jeremy heard about an 'informal' DNA sex test that has proven to be spot on for us almost 100% of the time. Check out this video of baby Greenwing - the first part is baby's arrival to the nursery followed by the family's first visit and the 'informal' DNA sex test.

If you are interested in the outcome of the test, you will need to check back for another blog posting to find out. We need to wait for enough feathers to come in (we chose feather vs blood testing) before we have the test conducted. Enjoy the video!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters.com (online Store)

We're singing the "Happy Trails" song again

Over the past week (ish) Jeremy and I have said "Happy Trails" to three more babies... And, we are thrilled they have found wonderful families.

We get emails all the time about how baby did this and baby did that. One of our babies, rides on a motorcycle, another uses the toilet by himself and walks down the hall to check out what mom is fixing for breakfast, and another does gardening with mommy! We just love to hear these stories.

In this posting we celebrate three SWEET babies - in order of leaving we have: Anuli (Timneh African Grey), Layla (Congo African Grey) and Starbuck (Timneh African Grey). Here they are...

Kristi Ann and Teyanna with Anuli
4/23/2010


The Carter Family and Layla
4/24/2010

Mark and Starbuck
4/28/2010

Congratulations moms and dads and kids!

Elena
Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Baby Senegal Arrives!

Today we welcomed two new arrivals to the Beaker's nursery - an Eleanora Cockatoo baby and a Senegal. I took this very short clip of the baby Senegal.... so cute, if I do say so myself. Enjoy.

Elena
Beaker's Co-Flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Who is playing games with whom?

Can you tell who is playing games with whom? I think that the Greys are gaming Jeremy - take a look!

Too cute... I caught this very short video clip recently. Jeremy was playing Halo and the baby greys were out of their cages playing. It didn't take long for them to decide to play with Jeremy or try to play Halo themselves, you decide!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
Rosie's AvianOutfitters (online store)

It's a feeding frenzy!!!

When birds of a feather flock together... Well, just take a look at this short video that I captured yesterday evening at feeding time.

Jeremy was feeding hand-weaning pellets to the four baby greys we are hand-raising. You will hear us mentioned Anuli (Timneh), Layla (Congo) and Zura (Congo). And just today, the last baby Timneh was adopted by Mark. Congratulations Mark on your new baby.... Your next action is to give baby a name!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)

Singing 'Happy Trails' to 3 Sweet Babies!

Over the past two weekends, we had the joy of sending off three sweet babies - all unique in species and personalities! This posting is a tribute to Leeloo (Timneh African Grey), Archie (Umbrella Cockatoo) and Tonka (Greenwing Macaw). Enjoy our walk down memory lane.

Leeloo - hatch date 12/18/2009

Learning to roll over

Precious sleepy baby!!!!

3/21/10 Leeloo's go home date with family

Archie - hatch date 11/6/2009

New to the nursery - Archie at 63 days old

Hand-Feeding time during one of Barbara's visits



3/27/10 - Archie's go home; traveling in style!

Tonka - hatch date 11/22/2009

Sleep baby - Tonka at 9 weeks old

Tonka showing off his wings for Jeremy at 18 weeks

3/28/10 Tonka and family on go-home day

Again, it goes without saying... these birdies are blessed beyond measure - we had the pleasure of spending a little time with these babies to help them get off to a good start in life and then they moved on to their permanent families - sounds like a triple blessing to me: 1) for Jeremy and me, 2) for Leeloo, Archie and Tonka, and 3) for their families.

We just love the match-making business!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader
AvianOutfitters.com (online store)