Tips on Keeping our Feathered Friends Safe During the Holidays

The holidays are joyous and active times for people and their pets. Our feathered friends partake in many of the seasonal festivities with us which makes the holidays that much more special. However, many of the decorations and objects we have around the household during the holidays may be dangerous to our birds. By taking a few precautions, we can make this wonderful time of year a safe one for our pets.

Toxic Foods- Avocado Caffeine Chocolate
Dairy (in excessive amounts) Mushrooms (potentially toxic) Onions (in excessive amounts)
Rhubarb Salt (in excessive amounts) Sugar (in excessive amounts)

Food Preparation -. Birds have a very effective respiratory tract and coupled with their relatively small size are susceptible to toxic elements in the air. During cooking if food burns or smoke is produced, any birds nearby the kitchen could be at risk of fatal smoke inhalation, remove bird from area, offering fresh air. A vet visit may be in order.
Keep your bird out of the kitchen when oven and stove are on. The potential of the bird being burned, stepped on or spilled on are high risks.

Christmas Tree - Keep birds away from lights, electrical cords, ornaments and tensel.
The trunk of a live tree is often coated with chemicals, such as fertilizer or insecticide. When the tree is placed in the stand and watered, the chemicals from the trunk contaminate the water. If your bird drinks it, they may become sick.

Poisonous Plants
Many homes are decorated each year during the holiday season with poinsettias and mistletoe. These plants do represent the season; unfortunately they are toxic for our feathered friends.

Holiday Decorations/Packages
Many people place decorations throughout the house including lights, evergreen branches, holiday knickknacks and other assorted objects to provide a festive environment. Lit candles can burn a curious pet or could be knocked over and start a fire. Icicles and tinsel draped on a mantle are as dangerous as tinsel on a tree. Monitor your pets and watch out for any evidence of chewing on these objects.

Have a wonderful Holiday season with your feathered friends, I know we will with our African grey," Rosie Red Bottom."

The Cupboard Grey One

Rosie's cage is always open, making her roaming the house easy. If Rosie is issuing an undesirable behavior her cage is used as a timeout, with the door shut.

When we are in the kitchen cooking, hot stove, hot oven or hot food, it is not the place for Rosie and her roaming. Because the closed cage is used as a time out we really do not want to put the grey one in there for roaming.

Instead, Rosie has her own cupboard in the kitchen. We emptied out the cupboard only putting in canned goods that she cannot harm or hurt her.

The only bad thing for us is, she rips off the labels having so much fun. We are sure to write the name of the ingredients on the top of the can.

Rosie seems very pleased in her cupboard that is in the middle of all the kitchen action and out of harms way.

One time, I forgot she was in the cupboard and shut the door. Soon I could hear a mysterious knocking coming from the kitchen. It was Rosie, knocking with her beak from the inside of the cupboard ( in parrot Morse code I am sure) saying "get me out of here."

If you are interested in Rosie's book, please click on the link below

http://www.luckypress.com/rosie/

Happy Parrot Halloween

It's that time of year for decorating and carving pumpkins. As usual Rosie must impose her critiques and help with carving. Rosie's help consisted of ripping the guts out of the pumpkin and flicking seeds all over the table and floor. There are several beak holes in the nose and eye holes that are hard to see. Rosie in fact had a great time and there was plenty of laughter! BOO

If you are interested in Rosie's book, please click on the link below.

http://www.luckypress.com/rosie/

Rosie's Tea Party

As I have mentioned so many times before Rosie roams the house, looking for action of any kind.

On this particular day the kids had the brilliant idea for a tea party. As you can see from the picture the kids managed to find pieces of this and that for a table cloth. I can see the T Rex has a skirt on, Brat the Cat sits in the middle and Long Neck finishes out the trio. I could hear the kids giggling and decided to investigate. As I stood there in amazement with a big smile, I could hear Rosie clickety clacking down the hallway. Rosie not wanting to be left out of anything entered the bedroom, eyed things over and climbed up on the table, using the long corner of the tablecloth. Rosie just stood there on the table as if thinking "now what."

I could not resist taking a picture!

And then there was a foursome for the tea party. :-)

If you are interested in ordering Rosie's book, please click on link below.

http://www.luckypress.com/rosie/

Grocery Bagging Bird

One of Rosie's favorite things to do is help us un-pack after a shopping spree at the grocery store.

Rosie enjoys picking through all the bags, pulling items out, nibbling on what she can and of course, listening to items hit the floor.

Once all is un-packed, we will pile all the empty bags up on the counter. Rosie will play with the empty bags, climbing in and out, seemingly enjoying the crackling sound they make.

Once The Grey One is done, the kitchen is a mess as usual!

Listening to Rosie laugh while having all the fun is well worth it! We wouldn't want it any other way.

If you are interested in purchasing Rosie's new book, please click on link below.

http://www.luckypress.com/rosie/

Iguazu the Conure

The following story and picture of Iguazu the conure was sent to me by a Facebook friend. I thought the picture and story was cute enough for a post on Rosie's blog.

Iguazu the Conure

Iguazu on occasion eats with us, plucking food from our plates and drinking from our glasses. One day after lunch, we opened the dishwasher preparing to load the dirty dishes, Iguazu had other ideas. As always Iguazu wants to be part of everything, he flew in the dishwasher and remained then until we were done loading. All the while seemingly wondering what we were doing.

I started to close the dishwasher wondering how Iguazu would react., he would not move! Finally I had to ask him to come to my shoulder because he would not leave on his own. He definitely loved the dishwasher!

By Matnilde/France

Silly Rosie

Rosie just loves playing games just as much as we like watching and interacting. Most of the game playing is made up by her, her rules, her way! If we try to elaborate the game she at times will get mad and show her distaste. So, we go with the flow and follow her lead.

One of Rosie's favorite game is playing in the dog food container. Rosie is always delighted to see the plastic bin sitting on the counter and will make her way to the area. Rosie loves throwing dog food, laughing and running around the edge of the container. There is a little tin cup in the bin used for measuring. Rosie love throwing the cup on the floor and yelling "yea" when it hits the floor. Rosie will say "come over here"wanting us to pick up the cup bury it in the dog food so she can dig it out. Rosie will climb in the bin scratching at the food like a chicken until the cup is unburied. Once again throwing the cup on the floor! Rosie certainly enjoys herself and the dogs like cleaning up the mess. Silly Rosie

If you are interested in ordering Rosie's book please click on link below.

http://luckypress.com/rosie/

Roaming the House

Rosie pretty much owns the house, directing us and the dogs on a daily basis. Luckily, Rosie and the dogs get along very well!!!! If I had to venture a guess, the dogs are afraid of Rosie.

Our grey one loves roaming the house, walking down the hallways looking for action. Typically, Rosie will roam looking for the kids or us if we are in the back of the house. We can hear her peeping and clicking on the floor and she gets closer.

Her newest pay ground seems to be the dogs water and food dishes. Rosie slides down her pole from cage to floor aiming right for the dishes. As Rosie is laughing she will yank the dishes out of the holders banging and rolling the dishes on the floor. Once she has completed the empty food dish mess, she will take a bath in the water dish. Once she has emptied one dish she heads for the second, water all over the floor and cupboards. Keeping in mind Rosie is laughing, burping and sneezing the entire time.

Rosie also enjoys walking along the bottom of the kitchen cupboards ducking down and running along this space. Around our house you always need to look before stepping! Goofy Grey Bird!

If you are interested in ordering Rosies book, click on link below.

www.luckypress.com/rosie/

Dishes Anyone?

Rosie loves to be included in everything! My husband and I are always thinking of new ways to include Rosie so all is challenging for her.

Doing dishes in our house is always fun for Rosie and us! Not only do we include her, we make it a learning game teaching Rosie new words.

If we have forgotten to include her, it isn't long before we hear her clicking on the kitchen floor waddling up to us and saying "step up"

Rosie enjoys sitting on the dish-strainer or on the pulled out rack in the dish-washer.

My husband washes and I dry. Each item I dry, I say the name of the item to Rosie such as, pan, glass, ladle, spatula, fork, knife, plate, etc. As I put items away Rosie will walk along the counter and say "here"

We continue the same routine if we are loading the dishwasher. Rosie will hang upside-down on the pulled out rack laughing and saying the words she has learned.

Rosie seems to enjoy the interaction with us the most and she surly makes the task of doing dishes allot more fun.

When Rosie starts rambling, she runs all the words together and starts us all laughing. Rosie sounds like a futuristic kitchen appliance commercial.

Goofy Grey Bird!

If your are interested in ordering Rosie's book, click on following link.

http://www.luckypress.com/rosie/

Book Review for "Rosie Red Bottom"

5.0 out 0f 5 stars Especially recommended to the attention of anyone contemplating having a pet parrot of their own! August 8, 2009

By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) http://www.midwestbookreview.com/
go to site punch on "whats new on this site" and type in "Rosie Red Bottom"

Parrots make fascinating pets in general, and African Grays are particularly beautiful, intelligent, and engaging parrots in particular. In "Rosie Red Bottom: A Comedian With Feathers, Alaskan author and parrot owner Donna Mann tells the story of how one very special parrot became an active and integral member of the Mann family. But "Rosie Red Bottom" is so much more than just an utterly charming and personal story of a family and their parrot companion, it's also 81-pages packed with solid and usable information relevant to the challenges and concerns of raising parrots. Readers will learn of the environmental stimuli and variables that affect parrots, along with the routines, physical set-up, diet, and training techniques appropriate and essential for healthy parrots. Of special note is an appendices with 150 references and web sites for further research and study on parrots and parrot care, including import/export regulations. Entertaining, informed and informative, "Rosie Red Bottom" is especially recommended to the attention of anyone contemplating having a pet parrot of their own!

If you are interested in ordering "Rosie Red Bottom" please visit the following link
http://www.luckypress.com/rosie/