Ring Tossing Trick is derived from the Ring Tossing Game that we often play at carnivals. A simple game that is fun and well suited for people of all ages and now even parrots!

In my own opinion, the ring tossing trick is indeed a difficult and challenging trick for most parrots. With the training experience I had with Kiki and Kermit, I had seen them “struggle” to meet the objectives. The training progress is slow. I still clearly remember that I took close to month just to shape my lovebird, Kiki to perform the Ring Tossing Trick.

Surprisingly, Kacy learned this specific behavior within a short time frame of 2 days. That’s a big contrast with the lengthy training sessions I had with Kiki. I ought to praise my little Kacy for the wonderful effort. Well done! Kacy.

Hope everyone had enjoyed watching the video! Stay tune on the blog for the next amazing parrot trick from Kacy!

One final reminder, don’t forget to vote for us as Best Individual Blog in the Singapore Blog Awards 2009!

Related Posts:
Kacy Plays Basketball
Kacy’s Cup Stacking Trick
Kiki’s Ring Tossing Trick
Ring Phobia No More
Kiki learning in frustration

Kacy loves playing with water. She can spend nearly 2-5 minutes happily playing and getting herself completely drenched! She enjoys that, but often left me with cumbersome chores of wipping tabletop and mopping the floor dry!

I personally do ensure that all my parrots get clean up and wash themselves virtually everyday! Even if they don’t feel like dipping in themselves, I will still mist them and wet them slightly.

It not just for hygiene, but also to encourage preening, promoting healthier plumage and easing stress (frequent bath does improve most behavior problems like screaming and feather plucking)!

Related Posts:
Warmer Climate = Frequent Water Bath
Kiki taking a Short Water Bath

The race has finally began. Kacy and I need your full support, so please vote for Bryan’s Angels as the Best Individual Blog category in the Singapore Blog Awards 2009.

Voting had commenced yesterday and will end on 31st July 2009, 11.59pm (GMT +8) sharp. Voters will stand a chance to win a total of 5 Creative Vado Pocket Video Cams (worth S$169 each) and 5 ST701 Portable 250GB External Hard Disk! Here’s a clear instructions on how you can vote for us…

How to vote for us?

1. Go to http://sphreg.asiaone.com/RegAuth2/omySignUp.html to register as an Omy.sg member. For non-Singaporean voters, enter your passport number under the field, NRIC/Fin Number. If you are already an existing Omy.sg member kindly skip to Step 2.
   
2. Go to http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/category.
3. Click on “Login to Participate” on the top right corner of the page to login to your Omy.sg account.
   
4. On the left pane, click on “Best Individual Blog”.
5. Click on the avatar of Kacy to vote for Bryan’s Angels.
   

Voters are allowed to cast one vote per day. We will be more than happy if you can vote for us everyday. *Giggle* Not only you will help us but also increase your chances of winning great prizes.

Kacy and I thank you once again.

Related Posts:
October Kibibi’s Award Recipient
Bryan’s Angels in Singapore Blog Awards
Blogger’s Choice Awards

Basketball has now become Kacy’s favorite sports game, and she plays it almost everyday! Whenever I setup the prop and taking out the ball, she just can’t wait to snatch the ball from me and dunk it into the hoop! *Giggle*

Probably, most of you noticed something weird. Kacy’s basketball is blue in color instead of orange! Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with the video clip or your screen! Kacy’s ball is indeed blue in color!

My apologies! It’s really hard to find an orange ball and of the petite size suitable for Kacy. Luckily, I still had this little blue ball (which is merely 1.5cm in diameter) previously used by Kermit and Kiki. Seriously, if any of you had any idea or suggestions on where to get a small orange ball, please don’t hesitate to drop me a message.

I hope everyone had enjoyed watching the video! Do stay tune on the blog for the next trick performance from Kacy!

Related Posts:
Kacy’s Cup Stacking Trick
Kermit’s Basketball Trick Training
First Progress Report on Kiki’s Basketball Training
Kiki doing the Fetching Trick

Till now, she already can perform 5 amazing parrot tricks! Among the 5 parrot tricks, one of those is the Cup Stacking Trick.

Some of those who have been keeping track on our blog will find the Cup Stacking Trick familiar. Indeed, both Kermit and Kiki had also performed the Cup Stacking Trick before. Unfortunately both of them were no longer around to witness Kacy’s success in performing the trick.

In fact, it really wasn’t difficult at all to shape Kacy to perform for the following behavior. I only spent with her 4 short sessions over 2 days and 10 minutes each! In comparison with the training session that I had with Kiki and Kermit, Kacy was amazingly fast in learning.

Kacy’s fast accomplishment was partly because of her character traits like most conures, being very active, bold, curious, outgoing and playful. In fact, Kacy like most conures, are very well adapted to new objects and changes. Unlike Kacy, Kiki and Kermit were quite the opposite. Both were much more reserved and can be very wary of new objects and changes.

Based on the parrot training experience I had with Kiki and Kermit, I usually had to allocate additional sessions to introduce and condition both to any new objects before moving into formal training sessions.

As for Kacy, being curious and bold, she can beak on, pick up and play with almost any new objects without much hesitation. With this advantage, I can usually hop on to the actual training without prior introduction and conditioning process, thus resulting in much faster progress in training.

Finally I hope everyone had enjoyed watching the video. Do stay tune for more actions from Kacy!

Related Posts:
Kermit’s Cup Stacking Trick
Kiki’s Cups Stacking Trick

After viewing the video collection, did Baby Kacy melt you? Tempted to get a baby parrot?

Please don’t get an unweaned baby parrot because you find them cute!

Many new owners chose unweaned baby parrots out of their undeniably cuteness, but they failed to realize that raising a baby parrot involved hard work, effort and time. Often the baby parrots died, due to incorrect hand-feeding techniques and owners lack the required knowledge and hand-on experience. All this tragedies can be prevented, give these delicate creatures a chance to live!

Remember the statement I mentioned on my previous post, “Get a weaned parrot! Don’t get an unweaned chick!” Experienced parrot owners always gave this piece of good advice to the new and soon-to-be parrot owners. Firm, yet extremely important message to share!

Raising a baby parrot involve the required knowledge, hand-on experience, lots of hard work, and most importantly time factor! It is definitely not as easy as raising duckling or backyard poultry.

There are vast differences between baby parrot, ducklings and poultry chicks! Ducklings and poultry chicks can readily eat and drink on their own after they are hatched, but not baby parrot. Baby parrots after they are hatched are extremely delicate! They can’t eat and drink on their own, thus requires hand-feeding to ensure they receive sufficient nutrient and fluid. Hand-feeding procedures continue until the baby parrots are fully weaned  – meaning they can eat and drink on their own.

Now back on my sharing on hand feeding Kacy, I personally adopted the abundance weaning concept – meaning hand-feedings continue until they decide that they are ready to eat solid foods and drink water on their own, and used the spoon-feeding technique out of syringe or tube-feeding techniques. Spoon-feeding is a hand-feeding technique which the sides of a teaspoon are slightly bent up to simulate the upper mandible of the adult parrot.

Spoon-feeding technique is much safer and baby Kacy had much more control on the flow and intake of the formula. Although with this technique, it did take longer to feed, much messier, but baby Kacy can truly taste and enjoy her meals at her own pace. In my opinion, Kacy weaned much easily and much faster with spoon-feeding technique.

Finally, I benefited more than just experiences from hand-feeding baby Kacy. It had shaped me well to be much more patient, a much better “parront” in another words parent of parrot, giving me more opportunities to build rapport and stronger bond with Kacy.

Related Posting:
Raising Baby Kacy

These are good words of advice, because unweaned baby parrots are extremely delicate creature. Without ample knowledge and experience, any err in the hand-feeding procedure can lead to death of the chicks!

Although I do agree with the statement above, but it seems that I had never heed to it. Kiki, Kermit and now Kacy were unweaned babies when I got them. I hand-fed them and raised the 3 of them myself. I do know the risk of getting unweaned babies, but looking on the brighter side I get to witness them growing up, fledging and finally learned how to fly!

Raising Kacy was an incredible experience, simply indescribable. In fact, I felt very rewarding seeing her turning into a healthy beautiful queen! Seriously, I had never regret bringing her home unweaned!

Whenever I flipped through these pictures and viewing videos collections of her, it reminds me of the sweet memories and the hard-work I had undergone hand-raising Kacy. P.S. I do get quite emotional whenever I flipped through the album.

The Growing Path of Baby Kacy:

Baby Kacy at 4 weeks old, fragile and featherless…

Baby Kacy at 5 weeks old, feathering with lots of pin feathers, but still bald…

Baby Kacy at 6 weeks old, fully feathered and fledging…

Baby Kacy at 7 weeks old, finally a qualified flyer…

In my opinion, if you are well equipped with the required knowledge, skills and done your homework, hand-raising a baby parrot isn’t really risky!

I still clearly remembered before bringing my lovebird, Kiki and my senegal parrot, Kermit back home, I went for the extra miles:

• I gathered relevant information (about hand-feeding, hand-raising, parrot species profiles) from books and internet,
• I acquired the required knowledge and skills from experienced breeders and shop owners,
• I got them to show me the hand-feeding procedures,
• I reassured that my schedule allows me to hand-raise a baby parrot,
• Getting the right tools (i.e. Brooder, Hand-feeding tools, formula).

I am certain I had to carry out these preparatory tasks. I had the responsibility to do so as it’s a matter of life and death of a baby parrot!

With the acquired knowledge, hand-ons and guidance from experienced breeders, I successfully raised Kiki and Kermit. With the prior experience, I now successfully raised Kacy with no problem!

Finally I wanted to say, hand-feeding and hand-raising a baby parrot although can be tiring, but it can be really fun and the returns are boundless. If you had acquired relevant knowledge, undergone hand-ons and confident to take on the challenge, why not?

Other than he usual favourites, sunflower, apples and pears, she craves for noodles and bee hoon (also known as rice vermicelli or rice noodles)! That’s definitely very unusual cravings for parrots, even Kermit and Kiki aren’t any die hard fans for noodles or rice vermicelli!

Whenever I having a bowl noodles or bee hoon soup, Kacy will definitely fly over wanting to get her share of the noodles or rice vermicelli! That is how much she likes about the 2 types of food!

Believe it or not, I can simply use the noodles or rice vermicelli as treats and she simply get very motivated in learning new behaviors! Oh gosh, she is addicted!

With her own poops! Presenting the Kacy’s i-Poop!

Neither me nor any of my family members taught her how to do this. How did she manage to do it? Merely coincidence? But  she got this i-Poop several times this month!
Next, most parrot owners faced problems with their parrots’ poops! Poops on shirts. Poops on furniture. It can be an endless hassle to wipe off those unsightly poops. I faced such problems when I had Kermit and Kiki.

Some parrot owners may questioned, “Why not potty trained your bird?” In my opinion potty trained a bird can be quite useless, it doesn’t seem to help. We all know birds have high metabolism rate and with their short digestion tract, they poop nearly every 10-15 minutes unless the bird had the unique ability to hold its bowels just like humans.

Strangely enough, Kacy had never pooped on me, neither did she poop on the furniture. She seems to know defecating on one’s shoulder or on furniture is wrong. Whenever she feels like defecating, she will fly off to the ground and perform her backward stunts and defecate.

Kacy had never attend any formal potty training, the only thing I did since day 1 was when she pooped I will say “poo-poo”. Furthermore I had never directed and never taught her that defecation had to be done only on the ground.

Either she really shares a common human instincts and understand the basic manners like us, or I really happened to potty-trained her unknowingly.

Kiki’s incident and the death of Kermit had left a deep scar in my heart. I was in dreadful pain and leading a goal-less miserable life. I wasn’t exaggerating how I feel, but Kiki and Kermit are in bigger place in my heart. I care for them and my love for them are boundless. I missed all the fun and companionship from them. I pondered when will I escape from misery.

Little that I knew a cute young fellow turned to be my saviour from my misery. The cute young fellow is whom i named Kacy. Kacy is a Black Capped Conure which I gotten from a friend who is a local breeder.

I still clearly remember the day Kacy arrived at my place, a slightly warm Saturday afternoon on 14th February 2009. The date and very moment that I will never forget. Since then, Kacy was just a cute, small, young and helpless baby parrot. She’s only 4 weeks old coming close to a month old. She was still coated with white fur, hardly any feathers.

But now, Kacy has grown up to a strong, active juvenile. She will be turning 5 months old days later. Since the day of her arrival, she has been flourished with lots of love from me and my family. On the hand, she has brought so much fun and laughter to the family. With her, my life was never monotonous and never ever in misery again.