What are Probiotics and WHY should we care?

BACK IN THE DAY, when our food was pure and untainted from chemicals, additives and the like, our guts produced all the good bacteria naturally.... so when we got stressed, our bodies were able to naturally offset any weakening of our immune system.

Well, long gone are those days. And our companion parrots have the same problem as we do with regards to dealing with stress. Even though we TRY to feed our birds an excellent diet of fruits, veggies and the like, we are feeding them foods that have often been chemically altered or fortified with vitamin this and vitamin that (because food processing has killed all the "good" bacteria).

So, we need probiotics!

What are Probiotics?

Probiotics are compounds that are comprised of naturally-occurring intestinal bacteria. They have the ability to reduce the proliferation of infectious, pathogenic gut bacteria. There is a process called competitive exclusion whereby "good" bacteria (probiotics) out-compete potentially harmful organisms in the gut. It is every important to provide our birds avian-specific probiotics for their optimal health and longevity. STRESS (good or bad) weakens the immune system, reducing our ability to resist infections in people and birds. Stress leads to many issues. The safest and most natural way to counteract the effects of stress is to add avian probiotics to our bird's diet. The benefits are MANY - helps with feather plucking, fighting infections, skin and feather conditioning... and on and on!

Here is a GREAT article - learn more on the Value of Probiotics

Elena
Beaker's co-flock leader

Free labor!

We had a wonderful day today - and it's great when our customers get into the action... FREE LABOR! LOL

In the photos you below your see Wayne feeding his family's new addition - baby Scarlet, Titan and patiently standing by Wayne's side was our new addition Gertrude Weinstein (Gerty), Greenwing begging for a handout too. Enjoy!



See you guys in two weeks for one more visit before the big "going home day."

Elena
Beaker's co-flock leader

Sleepwalking baby Greenwing????

OMG (Oh my gosh) what more can I say - It's a startling thing to tip toe into the babies room to get them ready for a feeding and to find that one baby is missing... yes, missing!
Backgrounder - last evening Jeremy and I went to SEATAC to pick up 4 new additions - three 5-6 week old Congo African Greys (CAGs) and a baby Greenwing. After feeding everyone we tucked them into their bins nicely warmed on heating pads and turned out the light. This morning, well I only counted 3! It's a good thing the room is not too big because we found him (we believe his name will be Beaumont)...

God only knows how long baby Beaumont was out of his bed... Did he wake up and take a walk about, or did he climb out and fall to the ground? My guess is the later - It's good thing we have nice kooshy carpet. As you can well imagine Beaumont needed some snuggle time and I was happy to give it.
Aftermath - After snuggle-time with me, I went to put Beaumont back in his bin and it took him (yes, he is a BOY) about 2 seconds to make his way up the side of the large bin and sit on the lip of the bin (hatch date 6/25/2011 - 8 weeks and 3 days old today). At that age, Jeremy and I should have known that he would NOT stay put but - extend some grace please... it's early morning the day after his first midnight feeding... LOL As Jeremy fed Beaumont his morning feeding I prepared a very temporary room for him - a small step up in size until we move him into a big boy cage. Here is Beaumont settling in for a nap in his new digs.
It's always nice when a story has a good ending and we I am happy to say, the end.

Elena
Beaker's co-flock leader

Titan's attempted Escape from the Nursery

Everyone is fledgling and some are trying to FLY the COOP!!!! LOL

Enjoy this short video of Titan, 13 week old Scarlet Macaw, trying to make an attempted escape from Beaker's Parrot Place nursery.

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader

Loki, Sasha and Pepe's sweet song... Happy Trails!

Three baby Eclectus down and one to go. We have been having a blast hand-raising four baby Solomon Island Eclectus - 3 boys and 1 girl. The youngest of the four, Sunny, will be with us for another couple of weeks and then he will be going home to his new family in Auburn.

We sang happy trails to three of our babies in the last week - it's sad to say good yet we are hopeful that our new friends will come to visit us and bring their babies back too - we offer complimentary wing trims and nail clipping to the babies we have hand-raised.

The first to go was Loki....
His new mom and dad are Bryan and Liesel. When we met Bryan and Liesel, they were still deciding the specific species of bird they wanted... and then they met our SI Eclectus, Beaker. Sold - they decided on a baby Beaker. We usually don't run into problems finding sweet babies within our breeder network but everywhere we looked, our breeders were only producing baby girl ekkies.... We waited and waited.... and waited. Eclectus are dimorphic, meaning you can tell male from female by site. However, a breeder cannot tell sex until about three weeks of age when initial feathers start to appear on the head - green for male and red for female. We FINALLY found a baby boy and were able to bring Brian and Liesel the good news.

Here are two pictures - one of Bryan and Loki on visiting day and then a great "go home day" picture of Bryan, Liesel, and Bryan's mom. Happy family!


Then we lost two - to the SAME family...
This was a cute story, a true story, and a story that has happened more than once at Beaker's. Kim came to meet her new baby (a male SI Eclectus). And while Kim was visiting her baby Jerry decided to hold the baby girl SI Eclectus we were hand-raising (available without an owner). Kim and her little guy (picture 1 below) and, Jerry, well he fell in love with the little girl he was holding (picture 2 of female baby). One the second visiting day, Jerry pulled us aside and found out the baby was still available so he decided to take her off the market. LOL (it was love at first sight!).

Kim and Jerry came to visit a couple of more times and they named their babies Sasha and Pepe'. Unfortunately on "go home day" Jerry was not able to make it to Beaker's so I captured a picture of Jeremy with Kim and the two babies (picture 3) and then a picture of the two babies in their transport carrier (the last photo).

We are getting real good at singing this familiar song.... and we look forward to singing it again.... and again... and again until we lose our voices LOL.

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader

Boy they grow fast! Baby Greenwing

Over the past 4 weeks I have captured some video of a baby Greenwing we are hand-raising. I brought three short video clips together so that you could see just how fast these birdies grow. I hope you enjoy the video.

I hope to be more faithful to posting once my consulting gig is up end of June - it has been a very hectic 4 months.

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock Leader

Those Crazy Caiques are back!!!!

One of the things we LOVE is the variety of birds we get to hand-raise. If you want a FUN bird that has the personality, the looks, and a busy... busy and zany attitude in a small package - check out the Caique. We just welcomed 3 baby Black-headed Caiques to our nursery the other day. Here is a brief video. This lot is selling for $895 each if you know someone interested in a sweet companion.

From Bird Channel: There are two species that make up the Pionites genus have more energy than probably any other parrot kept as a pet. Caiques are nonstop. They’ll dangle from your fingers as you walk around the house, throw toys from the top of their playgyms and summersault on the bottom of their cages. They’re clownish, acrobatic and a – in a word – handful!

Scientific Name: Pionites melanocephala
Size: Medium, 9 inches
Native Region: South America
Life Expectancy: 30 years
Noise Level: Medium
Talk/Trick Ability: Fair, likes to play, so benefits from trick training and can mimic sounds.

Having fun, as always!


Elena, Beaker Co-flock Leader