Do you like surprises?

It is SO hard to keep a secret. Have you ever been asked to keep a secret and you were bursting at the seams to tell someone.... anyone? Well, just ask Stephanie's daughter, Lilly. She has been keeping a very cool secret from Jayme; well to be honest Lilly and Stephanie have been keeping this secret. I'll try to keep this story short....

We will be hand-raising a Harlequin Macaw for Stephanie. She wanted to purchase our female ekie to surprise her man, Jamye, for his birthday. Well today was the "surprise" day. Jayme arrived with Stephanie and Lilly just to touch base and see the new babies that recently arrived to Beakers nursery.

To bring a close to this post - the surprise went off flawlessly... Jayme was surprised to say the least. Here is a picture of Jayme and his new baby.

(Jayme, baby girl and Lilly)

(Stephanie and baby girl)

I just love surprises, don't you! Happy Birthday Jayme.... :-)

Elena
Beaker's co-flock leader

It was Christmas.... and now it is March

The older you get the faster it goes... this is a very interesting phenomena. It's been some time since our last post. Life has a way of getting in the way of living - does that make sense? For example, day-in and day-out busyness, consumed by the daily routines and habits we have, tend to put us on auto pilot and before we know it, a day..., a week..., months can slip by.

Today I STOP (pause) and decide to be fully present. I will...

• Savor the time this morning when I feed birdies - our personal flock and Beaker babies (we currently have one African Red Belly, two baby Sun Conures, two Congo African Greys, two Caiques) we are hand-raising in our nursery.
  
  
• Worship Jesus at church - today is my day to pass out bulletins and greet folks when them come through the doors :-)
  
  
• Thank God for my family and friends and for faith in His Son.
  
  
• I'm not sure what else..., but what I am sure of is that today, I will not let auto pilot take over my life... and I will chose to be fully present in each moment that God blesses me with.
  

Life if a gift, don't waste it.

Elena
feeling rather pensive this morning

A story of FATE

This post is really not mine, but one of our special customers, Willie. He can say it best in his own words. What I can say is that Jeremy and I are thrilled to have been a part of God's plan. You will see what I mean...

FATE: "December 8, 2011 was a terrible day, Logan my Yellow Nape died after 31 years together almost to the day. Needles to say the silence in my heart and in my house was deafening! Coming home and seeing an empty cage was more than I could stand. Not wanting to "recreate" my Logan, by Saturday I was researching Eclectus and in my search I found, or was led by fate to Beakers. On Dec. 11 I made the trek from Bellingham to Beakers and found Ruby a beautiful 4mo old Eclectus. Their philosophy and approach to hand raising birds in a home environment is genus, and I would encourage anyone who is looking for a parrot to give them serious consideration since you won't be disappointed!!!!! Thank you Breakers my house and my heart are once again filled! The memory of Logan is now one of love & laughter as the bond between Ruby and me grows stronger every day!"

Here are a couple of pictures of Willie and Ruby, as she is so appropriately named.


We sure cannot take credit for making this match :-)

Elena
Beaker's co-flock Leader

Check your birds feet for Pododermatitis

Do you offer your bird a good selection of perches to rest their pretty feet on? Here's why I am asking.

In addition to a high quality diet, one of our recommendations to new parents is to outfit their birds cages with a variety of perches to keep their feathered companion's feet in good health. Pododermatitis, or "bumblefoot" as it is more commonly known is a condition of the bottom of the feet defined in varying grades of severity from 1 - 7. (Hari Institute has a great article on Pododermatitis that's worth reading, Grooming and Health Assessment. Besides good nutrition (with sufficient Vitamin A & E) and appropriate perches, lack of exercise, and exposure to cigarette smoke can be the cause of bumblefoot.

In an article on Bumblefoot, Dr. Petra M Burgmann states, "Variety in perch diameter is essential, and can be provided by using natural branches from non-toxic insecticide-free trees. Sandpaper perches are like walking barefoot on a rough gravel road. The new abrasive perches intended to keep the bird's nails short should never be positioned so that they are the perch on which the bird spends the majority of its time. Instead, they should only be located where the bird will use them occasionally, such as where the treat dish is located." (Parrot Life; Volume 1, Number 1; page 46).

Do your birds a favor and check the bottom of their feet. They will thank you for it :-)

Elena

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