Hello Everybody

Welcome to the My Parrot Shop Newsletter for May 2009.

This month we have some exciting new products, a special offer to our newsletter subscribers, an article about penguins(!), gallery update and more . . .

New Products!

Foraging Wheels

As we understand that foraging is such an important factor in the social and mental interactions of parrots and birds in the wild, we have expanded our already huge range of foraging toys to include the Foraging Wheel for your parrots to have a variety of foraging experiences in your home and aviary.

» Foraging Wheel . . .

Happy Huts

Here by popular demand! Many of the smaller birds just love to snuggle into these fabric tents. Some will even sleep in them.

» Happy Huts . . .

Cholla Toys

Last newsletter we said a regretful goodbye to one of our favourite toys – the Beaded Cholla, but promised a replacement. And here they are: The ultra cool cholla buddies in three sizes, and the large one's a doozy!

If your bird is a fan of cholla these toys won’t disappoint. Cholla with its myriad holes makes for a clever foraging toy or just provides a jolly good chomp. Some birds out there simply can’t get enough of it.

The large cholla buddy has a 30cm long body with four decent sized limbs attached with natural sisal rope. Originally hanging from zinc-plated chain and hardware, we replaced them with untreated sisal rope and reattatched the eyes with stainless steel screws, for the safety of your parrot. You may also wish to trim the excess sisal rope to prevent entanglement if you get one.

» New Cholla Toys . . .

Senior Accountant

We've been keen to get out a larger version of our Junior Accountant toy for a long time. And now we have! Some of you may remember the earlier plain 'Accountant' toy but that one has been discontinued because this one's better! With the Junior and Senior Accountant toys ALL parrots can have fun shredding, ripping and unravelling the refillable paper roll.

Strung on bird safe and dishwasher safe stainless steel chain the huge 4.5cm plastic beads, dice and textural star rings spin, creating a delightful interlude to the paper shredding. We have also added animal and pony beads threaded on poly rope for your bird’s added manipulation pleasure.

Suitable for the bigger birds such as Eclectus, Macaws and Cockatoos this parrot toy can be hung in a variety of ways to suit their ripping needs. Don't forget the Junior Accountant for the smaller birds.

» Senior Accountant . . .

» Till Roll Refills . . .

Super Foot Toy Packs

Foot toys that will last a long time! In these super acrylic foot toy packs you receive 5 different parrot foot toys. One has a bell permanently locked in the hollow core, another has a marble that rolls within four rods. Yet another has an oblong toss ring trapped around a spindle. Crazy shapes and interesting movement will entice your feathered friend to fiddle its time away. Coming in three sizes these bird toys cater to all parrots big or small.

» Super Foot Toy Packs . . .

New Payment Method - ANZ eGate

For a while now our website has been having intermittent trouble communicating with PayPal, which is the payment method people use if they wish to use their credit card to pay for their order over the internet. We have now finally got ourselves hooked up with ANZ egate. This new payment method means people who don’t have a PayPal account won’t have to suffer through the sometimes confusing interface to make their payment nor, hopefully, suffer the occasional communication difficulties between the websites that cause an error message.

Safe and secure, your transactions are done via the ANZ Bank internet payment facility. No credit card details are kept on file by us and of course you have the security of all the latest encryption technology. And it’s quicker and easier! We invite you all to use it the next time you make a purchase. Of course, for those of you with a PayPal account and/or the desire to continue using PayPal to make your payment, PayPal is still available for use.

» More info on Payment Methods . . .

Starbird Prices going up in 5 days - get in quick!

We hate to do it with these fabulous products but with the exchange rate, shipping costs and manufacturer’s costs all having risen quite a bit over the past 6 months, we’re having to reprice most of the starbird range. Everything except the Brainiac and the SeekaTreat will be rising in price by about 20% (some products a little more, some a little less, it depends a great deal on their individual shipping costs). On Saturday May 25 the prices will change.

The Get a Grip cargo nets, which are simply one of the best environmental enrichment products around, will feel it the worst! If you haven’t already had your eye on one, have a look. We highly recommend you get in quickly!

» Starbird Products . . .

Penguins!

A while ago the Melbourne Aquarium arranged the transport of 5 King Penguins and a bunch of Gentoo Penguins from a captive breeding program in New Zealand to their newly purpose-built, $28 million dollar, ultra-cool (in temperature as well as looks!) penguin exhibit in Melbourne.

Whilst the King Penguins are intelligent, aloof and regal in looks and personality, the Gentoo Penguins are inquisitive, boisterous and always on the go. They’re both well worth a visit next time you’re looking for something to do in Melbourne. One of the delightful aspects of the cute little Gentoos is their propensity for play.

When we were asked for a few toys to help keep them entertained during their journey and introduction to the new exhibit we were very keen to provide! So below we thought we’d treat you to a few pictures of some of our toys in another kind of beak!

» See the Gentoo and King Penguins in the My Parrot Shop gallery . . .

Gallery Update

We've just added a bunch of new customer photos to our Gallery! A nice selection including Kakarikis and a Kea from New Zealand, a Black Cockatoo, and more! We love seeing your photos so please keep sending them to us. The new photos start about halfway through page 6 of the Gallery.

» Gallery Update . . .

» Tips for taking great photos of your parrot . . .

Cages

Well, we’ve promised cages and we bought some and we built them and we . . .  just couldn’t do it to you. We realise that cages are a big purchase and buying one online can be quite scary. Having it turn up with a bit of rust, a bar bent out of shape or a bolt hole not matching up is not only extremely disappointing and frustrating, it's also costly and time consuming (building cages and then dismantling them for return is not a morning tea task, let alone coordinating a return!). Our apologies for the big cage drama, we'll keep looking, and will let you know if we find some cages of decent quality.