The Latest News

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Written by George Thursday, 31 December 2009 12:43

It is that time of the year, where we say good bye to one year and welcome in another new and exciting year. Looking back this past year has been a really wonderful year. We had lots of babies, we expanded and updated our aviary a lot and we surely made some really good friendships that we cherish a lot. We also had some fustrations and disappointments - mainly from our bigger birds, and we sure are ready for some Macaw babies. As expected they are a little pickey about the breeding and we know that for sure now. We also did not help matters by messing with them like changing the cages around and all but we were just upgrading the old cages into new ones hoping that the birds will like them better. I am sure they do like it but the move and change in atmosphere is another setback in the breeding process. We are hoping to provide them with some stability and hope that they go back to breeding and giving us some wonderful babies.

Towards the end of the year, we did add a lot of birds especially green cheeks and quakers and we have literally ran out of room in our aviary, so this coming year there will not be any major expansion even though we might add a few smaller birds (turquoise green cheeks - we are looking for you!). We are hoping all the setup we have done will start paying off as soon as spring and we are really excited about it.

We sure hope that the new years brings everyone happiness and joy. Are you looking for some specific birds, let us know and will keep you updated about them. Take care and once again 'Happy New Year'

Kiwi & Kiwi goes home

Written by George Sunday, 06 December 2009 11:49

Kiwi and Kiwi went home yesterday to their new homes. They are our Sun Conure babies and what a surprise it was for us when the new parents came to pick them up, both babies were names 'Kiwi'. One went to Mike and Karen in Buffalo and the other one went to Fisher family near Albany. Good Luck with the new babies and as soon as we get some updates and new pictures, we will post them. We are left with 2 more babies from this clutch, of which one is going to stay back with for breeding while the other is going to a new home in time for Christmas.

We have a few other babies growing up - 2 of them have feathered enough that they will move from the brooder to the small cage pretty soon. We do have 2 little ones with eyes not open and 2 more the parents are feeding. We hope to find good homes to all of them soon.

Holidays are here

Written by George Friday, 04 December 2009 13:24

The weather is turning cold, we have started to see snow on the ground and that could mean only one thing - Holidays are here. This is the time of the year that we like all our birds to settle and eat up and get ready for the spring breeding season. Even though being in an indoor heated aviary that should not make any difference, looks like the natural day light peeking through the windows do give the sense of season to the birds. Other than the birds, everyone here is ready for the holidays. Jodie is busier than ever before, she is getting slammed with orders (her craft and painting business) which in one way is good but at the same when you juggle that and feeding baby birds, taking care of kids, house and all results in only one thing - elevated blood pressure on a constant basis. Just for that I cannot wait for the holidays to get over soon.

All the new birds (Quakers, Green Cheeks, Cherry Heads, Patagonians and the Severes) are settled in and now know the routine of our aviary. They do look forward to their fresh food and the nut treats every day. We are hoping that they feel comfortable enough to breed for us soon. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best. Our Sun Conure babies are doing wonderful. We have couple of the babies going home this weekend and we have another clutch of babies (4 so far, waiting on the 5th egg) from one of our pairs. Two are being hand-fed by Jodie and the parents are taking care of the other two at this time.

The biggest surprise of the new birds has been 'Lola' - a breeder Harlequin Macaw who was given to us because she happened to like Jodie when we were visiting them. Her mate had died of old age and she was stuck in a cage all by herself. She has blossomed into a wonderful bird at our home - she is out of the cage all the time, just going in to drink and play for a little. She even sleeps outside, as if to make up for all the time she was locked up inside the cage. She is a wonderful girl, who talk a little bit and for a breeder bird she is amazing, letting me and Shaina pet her and play with her. So all in all she has been a wonderful addition our family.

So that is holiday update from us here at the aviary - hopefully every one of you will also have wonderful and rewarding holidays.

George

Little bit of expansion for our Aviary

Written by George Wednesday, 18 November 2009 15:17

We have been thinking about expanding our Aviary a little bit for the longest time. The idea was to increase the number of birds little by little so that we will have babies to offer on a consistent basis. Jodie wanted to concentrate on the Macaws as they are her favorite. But being larger birds they also present a big challenge in getting a nice pair, getting them to acclimatize to our aviary, and the most important getting them to breed successfully. With that in mind we were open to what is available on the market within the budget we have for this little expansion project. We started looking for a pair of Severe's and at a pair of Turquoise Green Cheeks. In our search we came across a pair of Severe's near by. On further contact (emails and phone conversations) we gained a new friend in Traci. Went looking for birds to her house and we came back with 2 wonderful Yorkies. You can read about them here.

Without getting distracted by the wonderful Yorkies, we still looked at the birds she had and she was in a position where she wanted to reduce her work load with regard to birds due to her daughter starting to get allergic to birds. So to make the long story short, we went in to look for a proven pair of Severe Macaws and came away with a lot more in addition to the nice pair of Severes. Lets see where do we start - We took a Conure package from Traci - including pairs of Patagonians, Cherry Heads, 4 pairs of normal Green Cheek Conures, 2 Pairs of Mutation Green Cheeks (Cinnamon and YS and Normals), couple of singles (a young female Yellow Sided Green Cheek who was hand-fed one time) and a cute female Peach Front conure. We also got a Quaker Package - a flight of 14 birds with 5 visual Blues and all the rest Split to Blues. In addition we also got a pair of split to Blue Quaker. We will put more pictures of the new birds and more information about them soon on the site. They are all slowly settling in the new surroundings and getting know their neighbors in the aviary.

I think the biggest surprise of all was the single Macaw that came along with all the other birds. Her name is 'Lola' and she is an absolutely stunning female Harlequin (Green Wing and Blue & Gold heritage) with a deep reddish orange chest. I think her beauty can only be appreciated visually, so we will post a nice picture of her soon. She was a single breeder female who had lost her mate and living alone at Traci's. When we were visiting she took an obvious liking to Jodie and so she was given to us, hoping that she was going to be happy. The initial prognosis is great, instead of the aviary with other breeders she is now in our living room. She loves being outside her cage, she allows a lot of us to pet her and touch her although she is a bit not sure. We are also little skeptical of her and her nice huge beak :) but we are definitely on the path of trusting each other. She talk a little and does not act like a breeder, so we are thinking she might have been hand-fed when she was young. She knows her name and says 'Hi Lola'. The funniest thing she does is saying 'Oh-Oh' in a very surprised tone if she happened to drop something like a piece of food that we give her.

So that is my rant about what is going on around our Aviary - and till the next update, Good Bye.