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

We're having a Galah time!

Hi all,
Jeremy and I are having a GREAT time hand-raising our first Rose-breasted (Galah) Cockatoo. For those of you not familiar. Here is a short video clip of baby Galah the day she arrived to our nursery on April 20th. Baby Galah is 7 weeks old - hatched 3/2/2011.

For those of you not familiar, here is a little bit of info about the Galah Cockatoo, aka, Rose-Breasted Cockatoo (Source: About.com)

Origin and Size: Australia; 12-15 inches in length from the beak to the tip of the tail feathers.
Average Lifespan: up to 70 years in captivity.

Temperament: Affectionate and friendly, the Rose-Breasted Cockatoos have a reputation for being loving pets. They are sensitive birds, however, and require quite a bit of attention and interaction from their owners. Those interested in owning a Rose-Breasted Cockatoo should make sure that they have plenty of free time to spend with their new pet.

Rose Breasted Cockatoos as Pets: Their bold colors and friendly personalities have made Rose-Breasted Cockatoos increasingly popular as pets in recent years. While it can be tempting to rush out and buy a Rose-Breasted Cockatoo, potential owners should know that these are sensitive birds and are not right for everybody. If you want to own a Rose-Breasted Cockatoo, the first thing you should do is make sure that you have enough spare time to spend with it. Rose-Breasted Cockatoos are very social, and they require a lot of interaction in order to maintain their emotional health. Birds that are neglected may resort to screaming and destructive behavior, so it's important that Rose-Breasted Cockatoo owners invest as much time as possible into their pets.

It only took Baby Galah a couple of days to adjust to his new surroundings. His mom and dad came to visit (Jessica and Ray). Here are a couple of photos from their first visit.

And babies grow FAST because today baby Galah took his first real flight around the nursery at just shy of 8 weeks of age. Did I say we are HAVING FUN!!!! :-)

Elena
Beaker's co-flock leader

Our first Baby Cinnamon-Blue Green Cheek Conure

Wow... two posts in a row. I will try to make more of a habit of this.

Yesterday Jeremy made two trips to the airport (50 minutes one way). The first trip was to pick up three babies: a Cinnamon-Blue Green Cheek Conure and two Jenday Conures. Then he turned right around after feeding them their first meal and picked me up at SeaTac following my two week trip in Delaware. Boy do I realize how much I miss home once I walk through the front door.... and my bed never great too :-)

This morning I took a short video of baby Green Cheek for his mom Katie who will not be able to come and visit him right way. I thought you would enjoying see this little guy too. Here is the clip, enjoy!

Elena
Beaker's Co-flock leader

New YouTube video about Beakers Parrot Place

Hi all,
It's been a crazy month (last 30 days) - your bloggest (me) as been out of town more than in town and it's been hard to keep up on all the stuff I love.... parrot stuff, of course. Thank God for my life's love and partner in crime, Jeremy. He leads the "parrot experience" at Beaker's and I manager the "customer experience".... and could do a better job I guess by blogging more often... hah!

To help get the word out about Beaker's Parrot Place and the unique buying experience we offer local Washington area customer's, I just created an "About Beaker's Parrot Place" video and published it to YouTube. I would appreciate you spreading the word about us to other bird lovers, such as yourself.... Thanks and have a great day.Elena

We hope you like our promo piece!

Elena, Beaker's Co-flock Leader

It's been a LONG and winding road by Moe and Zeus

This post is compliments of Moe, Congo African Grey...

Hi, this is Moe... It all began back in May 2010 - Zeus and 1 were hatched. We are Californians by birth. When we were VERY young we went to live with Elena and Jeremy. There were 3 of us - me, Zeus, and another cousin they called Silverback who was the youngest.


Silverback was the first to be adopted by very nice lady; her name is Denise. The second one of us to be adopted was Zeus - he went to a nice home too but things didn't turn out so good for Zeus. Due to unforeseen circumstances Zeus returned to Beaker's and rejoined the flock. On the day we were reunited and Zeus and I saw each other again after a couple of months - we actually did a happy dance with beaking and bobbing and all that. We knew then and there that we should be buddies for life.... little did we know then we would be buddies for life.

Jeremy put us together in a large 40" x 30" dome top cage and we were happy as can be (take a look at the picture). It was then that Jeremy decided that IF the right family came along, who wanted to love us and adopt us as part of their family, he would be willing to sing the "Happy Trails" song to us.

Above (Zeus and me in our new cage)

Above (Zeus hanging around)

Above (Me having a snack)

Well guess what??? That day came and we met Wayne, Audrey and the kids.... WOW!!!! it was great, and they thought so too because we are now part of their family. Take a look at the cool pictures Elena took last Saturday when the family came to take us home. Zeus and I now have 3 new brothers (not shown in the pictures - Eduardo (the oldest - like me), Matthew and Elijah. With so many guys in the family now we hope that Audrey can handle all that testosterone!

WE ARE SO HAPPY!!!!! We know that Jeremy was a little sad when we left but we promise to have Wayne and Audrey bring us back for visits - we need to get our nails and wings trimmed in occasion. Thanks for giving us such a great start Jeremy (and Elena) we'll be in touch.

2 lucky guys!,

Moe (and Zeus)