Trying to be a more concensious blogger..

Normally I feel proud of myself if I manage a post a week. I read blogging for dummies today, and doh, did it make me feel lame! A post a week? They recommend a post a day, or ever other day. Ooops.

So, here is my -every-other-day-turning-over-a-new-leaf-post:

I hope you all got to listen in on The Bird Talks on July 6th. I was the guest speaker, and was fortunate enough to be able to talk caiques for an hour! Complete and utter bliss, I assure you. I was asked back to do another talk in the fall- woohoo. Please kee your eye out for future speaking engagements - the new store 'The Platinum Parrot' has also requested my collaboration in holding a caique seminar and mini event sometime this year. Yay! I am very excited. I love nothing more then talking about these birds.

If you were unable to catch the live podcast on the 6th, please go to our Emily's articles page- www.caiquecrazy.org/emarticles.html a stream of the podcast will be available shortly for you to download.

Green Thigh Caiques

Until recently, there were only a couple of breeders within the United States that bred the green thigh caique (Pionites leucogaster leucogaster ). Green thighs are not available in the pet trade- a hybrid of a green thigh x yellow thigh may pop up every now and then, but the main reason for breeding is to increase the captive population. Ralph Lima was once a well known caique breeder and had a good deal of information regarding different species of white bellied caiques on his website. A few years ago, most unfortunately, he sold out his caique stock and scaled back breeding to only select few species. Nancy Speed of P Patch Parrots was one of the remaining breeders that still was actively breeding green thighs. Most unfortunately it has been reported that Mrs. Speed has sold her collection of caiques and is going into semi retirement. When the stock was sold out and whom to is not known at this time. I hope for the sake of the caique community that the breeder(s) who have invested in the green thighs will start updating caique enthusiasts on breeding status and any other pertinent information. Up until now, little to no information has been revealed on the status of the green thighs within US aviculture. Hopefully things will change!

Caique Seminar

On July 11th, 10 pm EST, there will be a live caique seminar at www.caiqueforum.com

Caique guru John McMichael of www.caiquesite.com has graciously agreed to come and do a live chat with all members interested in attending. The chat will be a roundtable discussion, and should be very interesting! Please come and join us if you want to learn more and are interested in hearing about Mr. McMichaels longtime work with these wonderful birds.

If you are interesting in joining, please:

sign up for an account at www.caiqueforum.com
on July 11th, login
hit the chat button in the navbar, and you'll be there!

Remember the chat is at 10 pm EST.

Sponsors for site

I just wanted to take a moment and thank our new sponsors, for helping keep the caiquecrazy.org alive!

www.birdcages4less.com
www.birdscomfort.com
www.hqbirdcages.com

You can view their ads on the website. Please take a moment to visit these fine vendors.

Book Review

I recently ordered a caique book from amazon.com it was titled 'Caiques' by Mary Gorman. Initially I tried to lookup Mrs. Gorman, to see her other works and her relation to aviculture. I could not find any information regarding Ms. Gorman and her parrot experience, which left me a bit wary about the books potential.

Nevertheless, I ordered it to skim over.

The information is very solid, basic information. Good for a newbie to birds, or a new owner that has no idea about caiques at all. The information does not talk about breeding, which I like because most handbooks such as this do, and its not relevant to the new pet owner. A short list of pros and cons on the book are as follows:

Pros-
solid basic information
gave good advice as to cage size
gave good advice as to what a basic diet it
gave good advice as to the needs of a caique
gave good advice on energy level of a caique
gave good advice as to not buying caiques for children

Cons:
left out the differences between young black heads and white bellies
did not tell how to distinguish a male from a female
was extremely basic, not good for a owner that already has a caique or is previously experienced
showed pictures with caiques with other species of birds with no mention of their tendency towards aggression
said caiques can be housed with multiple species
gave no solid caique references in the index

mediocre:
Did have lots of relatively nice pics, but the majority of pictures were black headed caiques, not enough white bellied caique representation
did not give solid facts as to when caiques were first kept

Overall on a rating scale of 1 - 10, I would give this book about a 4. Good solid information for a first time owner, or person researching a bird, but not for the experienced birdkeeper.

I also ordered and am awaiting another book titled Elsewhere In The Land Of Parrots. Review to come shortly.

If you are interested in buying the caique book mentioned above, click on the following link.

Caique Beak

I've seen lots of questions around the internet lately, in regards to caique beaks. Is my birds beak too long, should I get it trimmed, what is a 'normal' or 'safe' length. Here is the skinny on caique beaks:

Caiques have longer beaks then other similiar sized parrots. What looks OK on a senegal, medium sized conure or other similiar size bird can mean 'short' or 'acceptable length' on a caique. Why? Well, caiques are built differently. Their beaks are slightly longer as an adaptation to their natural diets, which include the nectar and pollen of native flowers. To be able to access the goodies, they have to have longer beaks to reach deep within the flower or fruit.

You can see here, the beak length of a senegal parrot.



















Now, compare this length to that of one of my own caiques, a female black head.




You can clearly see the difference in length. But for a caique, this length is more then acceptable, and not to be considered 'long'. I've been approached by many people, asking if their birds beak at this length is too long. Nope, thats just a caique for you.

While this is a very short and informal post, I hope this clears up some beak misconception.

Avian Artist

Thank you for everyone who has voted in our informal poll. The gathering of information is still continuing, so if you have not already voted, please take a couple minutes to do so! So far there has been an interesting correlation between males, and birds that are older then 2 years in regards to 'tailfeather tipping'. When there is a broader spectrum of input I will post the results here, in case anyone is interested.

I found this website while browsing the internet and thought I would post it here for interested parties. The site is dedicated to avian portraits. I have been watching the progression of several portraits and they are turning out beautifully.




Click the banner to be taken to the website.

7/12/08 edited to add: unfortunately the avian artist site appears to be unavailable and no longer working.