Bird keeping has come a long way

[2birds]

When I was a kid we had a double yellow headed amazon named Cleo, a chattering lory named Custer and a spectacle amazon named Liberty. We acquired the double yellow head from a young man who was going door to door trying to sell her. He was carrying her in a brown paper grocery bag and she came out of that thing fighting mad. She was a very young bird and she came around and decided that she liked us fairly quickly. She had a very large cage that she was rarely in. She was a lot of fun and talked up a storm. My mom loved that bird. She was fed pretty much an all seed diet and seemed pretty happy. At about six years old she just fell off of her perch and died. My mom was devastated. She didn't know that what she was feeding the bird was so bad for her. That's what everybody fed parrots and that's what they sell at the stores so that's what they eat. Right? The chattering lory lived to be about 25 or 26 years if I'm not mistaken and the spectacled amazon went with a friend of my stepfathers because the bird fell head over heals in love with him.
It's because of the internet and forums like this one that people are getting more education on how to care for their beloved pets and the birds are receiving a better life because of it. Thanks

[Honesty]

You are so right in what you are saying Lori. I know years ago, all birds were fed an all seed diet. We can't say it was bad, as this is all that was available at the time! Also, we did not have the internet and forums to educate us on this matter :(

Thank goodness for modern technology :)

It is lovely to have a forum where we can all help each other and share each others knowledge. Thanks to this, most of our birds will hopefully live a long and healthy life!

[Grey]

Way, way back many centuries ago...not long after the Bible began (1980 or so) I began keeping birds. I attached myself to the owner of the local pet store, Phyllis Martin. She was an unconventional woman to say the least and so was the diet she was feeding her birds. I fed my birds the same diet and they flourished for many years. Her diet consisted of chopped veggies, and monkey biscuits, chopped hard boiled eggs in the shell, and a small amount of seed. BTW she was the President of the AFA at the time. I was fortunate to meet her when I did and even more so that she didn't shoo me away when I annoyed her too much with my questions. Plus she got free labor in the pet shop

[2birds]

Yes, I remember years back I went into a pet shop. Really they specialized in birds. There were many types of babies there. They also had the coolest bat. Anyway, There were about six birds that belonged to the owner of the shop and they were beautiful, they just glowed. I asked them about their diet and he told me that he fed them 40% fruit 40 % veggies and 20% seed. It was four macaws and 2 cockatoos.

[Turquoise]

Lori, that is a funny story about a young guy walking around with a mad Amazon in brown paper bag!! LOL I can imagine that poor thing was fighting mad~~I know I would have been. :)

George, you're not even as old as me. If you were around keeping parrots before the Bible, then what does that say about me~~Jurassic Era? :th_loltears: Although I didn't keep parrots when I was really young other than Budgies & Cockatiels.

Parrot keeping certainly has come a long long way since then and even since I began keeping parrots back in the early 90s. I didn't have internet to rely on and I dare say it would have been all that much help back in 'The Dark Ages'. I did buy every book I could find on my specific species and parrot books in general. I still have several of those books and I must say the info in them is not so far off from today's books for the most part. There were lots of good info in them and there was some info that has since been disclaimed for the better.

I have always been an avid reader of informative books. I tell people I am "An Intellectual" reader, meaning I want to come away learning something from a book or it will not keep my interest. To me most other kinds of books are just 'Mindless Clutter'. I'd rather watch a movie when I want to be just entertained. Nowadays the internet and forums are my method of choice to expand my continued learning to keep our feathered wonders!

[2birds]

I am an avid informational book reader too. Although I like novels, I haven't had time for them in years. When I was a kid I would read anything I could get my hands on, including cereal boxes. It's just really great that we can get so much information from the internet and be able to talk to people on forums to get the best that's available.