Hello everybody!

If you received our last communication you’ll know that we advertised My Parrot Shop for sale. We had quite a few inquiries to say the least! It was heartening to see that people really wanted My Parrot Shop to find a safe home.

It was REALLY hard to go through all the applicants to find the right match for My Parrot Shop. We wanted someone who KNEW parrots, someone who KNEW crafty things, someone who had exhibited the diligence and intelligence required to research materials for your feathered friends' safety, and someone who had the energy and desire to love My Parrot Shop and all its loyal customers. 

There were lots of chats and interviews and meetings and the final decision was a traumatic process, but we promise you all – we made an excellent choice. They’re everything we wanted and more; you’re gonna love ‘em! 

So, this is it. On July 1, My Parrot Shop will be under the management of it’s new adoptive parents: Nikki and Steve. We’ll still be hovering over their shoulders for a while (what parent wouldn’t when handing over their baby), but really, they’re going to be great at this regardless. 

RELOCATION! 

So, it’s a bit of a hassle, but My Parrot Shop will be relocating from Melbourne to rural NSW as part of all this! We apologise for this inconvenience, but because there will be a large amount of packing, transporting, unpacking and sorting to be done, we have the following announcements:

• There will be a temporary delay on the shipping of orders received from midday on Wednesday the 27th June until the 6th July.
• Please feel free to contact My Parrot Shop via phone or email during this time though. The 1800 number will continue to work and the new contact details will be updated on our Contact Us page this weekend.
• If your order is currently on hold - don't worry. The change of ownership will not affect your order's status, and it will be a sent to you as soon as possible.

Keep watching this space for introductions to the new owners and exciting new announcements and specials in the near future. My Parrot Shop will continue to be the parrot shop you know and love, with a few new and exciting things around the corner! 

Yours sincerely,

Caroline and Vicki

Though, saying that, I have bought the bosch drill twice (one for home and one for the factory) and the cyclone pruning saw twice (because my son somehow dismantled my first and lost the all essential yellow knob that connects the blade to the handle), and the Fiskars secateurs (ye gods I had to look up the spelling for that one!), though a relatively new replacement for my old pair of unknown brand are totally floating my boat at the moment. So I guess I am happy to recommend them, from personal use, as beautifullly serviceable budget friendly examples of their kind.

But I digress.

These tools are really super duper handy to have if you own a parrot. And that includes apartment dwellers too.

And let me tell you why.

Small Cordless Drill/Screw Driver

You can turn anything into a toy part with a drill. Found a self-help book on your bookshelf that you're now embarrassed about? Drill a hole through it and hang or bolt it in your bird's cage. Give that book a second (and probably more productive) life as a shred toy!

You can add a hole to a perch to put a bolt, screw, kabob or other object of your choice into. You want a coop cup there? Drill the right size hole and you can screw one in. You want to be able to hang a toy from that spot - drill a small hole, add a screw eye and voila your perch has become a play station.

How about making up that cage you just bought. OMG don't screw all those bolts in by hand! You have a little cordless screw driver you can use! 

If those possibilities don't tickle your fancy then think about how serving up the fruit and veg on your stainless steel kabob (which we recommend as a far more awsome way to serve your fruit and veges if you're not doing it already) will be made super easy when you pre-drill holes in the food. And I'm not just talking about the obvious stuff like corn on the cob or pumpkin - I've used the drill for single grapes to great satisfaction.

If you have the dosh to spare, I recommend a cheap cordless drill JUST for your fruit and veg. That way you can just whip it out, drill some veg, spin the bit under the tap for a second and then put it back in the draw. It's fruit, you don't need anything powerful. $40 max spend.

Secateurs & Pruning Saw

I keep these in a little bag in my car. My garden is sorely lacking in the goods for a parrot's perching and foraging. But, my goodness, the streets I drive through are always throwing possibilities at me. At minimum once a week I drive by a fallen branch (or a low hanging branch) or a neighbour pruning a bottle brush in their front yard. I'll swerve the car to the curb, grab my little bag to get me some of that goodness quick smart!

The secateurs deals with any foliage I want to collect (or remove and leave behind), and the pruning saw cuts that lovely 4" eucalyptus branch quickly and easily. I used to use a hand saw (though I didn't keep THAT in the car), but they're really not that good at cutting through fresh branches, not compared to pruning saws which have just the right kind of teeth to deal with living wood.

With these tools you are able to furnish your bird's cage with natural perching options, and awsome natrual chew toys in the form of leaves, seeds and pods. And then refresh it all a week later if you want!

Other optionals to keep handy with the seceteurs and pruning saw are some garden gloves, a tape measure (it's amazing how hard it can be to judge the length of a branch in situ) and a big ikea type bag to put the collected stuff in (if you don't want seeds and leaves decorating your car interior).

1) Manhandle

If you are careful with your selection of branch you can often just jam the bugger in to good effect. The trick is to get a branch with a decent amount of slightly bendy twig stuff at the end and to cut the branch just a bit wider than the space you want to put it in. You put the main end of the branch in first, nestle it up again a cage strut or corner and then push and shove untill the rest of the branch goes in. Then you re-arrange the twiggy ends into several different spots, and keep doing it until you've found the right angles so that the branch just STAYS. 

In the background of the image below you can vaguely see a 'twiggy end' arrangement. It's not the finest example of what I mean, but you can at least see that gravity isn't shifting that perch downwards without the main twig/branch resting in the corner having to undergo some serious breakage, and there's a decent size twig/branch at the bottom that goes through a hole in the wire to stop the perch from moving forwards or backwards. There were further points of contact but I can't find a photo that shows the whole thing. It's a shame because I still remember this branch fondly, despite it being few years ago. That's right, I have spaces in my brain reserved just for remembering awsome branches.

When placing a new branch into a cage I'll start with maximum twiggage and edit twigs as needed to get it in. After placement I'll remove any extras that I feel are just cluttering the space rather than adding to the layout, and often times a branch will start off super bushy, to be edited down gradually over a period of weeks as bits die off, get chewed or get pooed on.

You can also go the other way and shove the twiggy end in first, forcing the big end in and letting the rebound push it into a secure placment.

Believe it or not, but the branch below was manhandles into place.

Warning 1) DON"T do this when your bird is in the cage. You'll scare it's little socks off.

Warning 2) Check the stability every few days. As the branch drys out it will shrink a bit (or your bird might do some pruning) and it's positioning may loosen up and need readjusting to avoid the whole thing falling down. In the image above force of personality kept the branch in place BUT I added screws and washers (covered in # 3) soon after placing the perch because, seriously, that monster falling could kill. It was probably about two weeks in when the branch had shrunk to the point that the screw started taking the weight.The other end (which I don't have a photo of) was secured at multiple points with twigs jammed through the wire in various places and larger branch ends pressed up again cage corners. I never needed to edit that end.

Negative aspects of the manhandling technique is that you don't often get the perch where you actually want it, but rather have to just put it where it works. It also takes a bit of practice. You also run the risk of bending bits of your cage out of shape with your forcefullness, not to mention poking yourself in the eye on a twig. Regardless, I have used this technique often and have been satisfied with the results more often than not.

2) Cut Notches

Choose your branch, measure and cut it so that it is about 2-4cm longer than the space you intend it to traverse. Use a saw to notch each end. These notches are meant to line up with the cage bars, so it is imperative (trust me on this) that you check the alignment first. Cut only one end and test it out. Put it in the cage with the notch nestled into its designated spot, then figure out where the other end is going to be. Now in this test phase you obviously can't have it going straight across yet, because it won't fit. You have to place it higher or lower than its intended spot (if you're working on a vertical bar, back or forth if you're aiming for a horizontal bar) so that you can then draw the mark for where your notch should be cut. Without this drawn line, you're bound to cut the notch at the wrong angle. That's certainly how it works out for me anyway!

Once you're sure you can cut the second notch, and with a bit of fiddling, get the perch in place.

Disadvantages to this method are plentiful in my opinion. But that could just be because this technique and me don't mesh. Getting the perch just the right length can be remarkably tricky, and often you have to make several extra cuts after the first cut to get it down to the right length so that it will fit. And you run the risk of cutting it too short on one of those refits, making the perch useless. And it's amazing how often your notchs don't line up with the bars despite the measuring. Finally, your perch can't be too fat, or you'll need more than one notch on each end to fit it against the bars. One notch is tricky to line up, but to line up two you need an engineering degree. 

You can see why the man handling technique became my default.

3) Drill, Screws & Washers

This is definately one of my favourite options, and works well in conjunction with the manhandling technique. Measure your perch up. If you can employ a helper for the next part things will go swimmingly fast. I've frequently done this all by myself, even with big bastard branches to go in a macaw's aviary. It's much easier if you have someone to help though.

Drill a hole into one end of the perch. Place perch in the cage at the spot you want it. Get someone to hold it there while (from the outside of the cage) you hold a washer in place and then screw in a screw. Get the screw all the way in so that the cage bars are squeezed between the branch end and the washer. With one end attached, you can now attach the other end. Now you could have drilled the hole in the other end before placing in the cage, but I've often drilled the second hole after placing the perch. This is frequently because the other end is all twiggy, and I do a bit of manhandling to get it where I want it, and then pick the choicest branch to add my 'better safe than sorry' attachments to.

Now with small branches you don't need a lot of screw, and sometimes don't even need to bother with predrilling, but with bigger branches I recommend using a good 50mm long screw for a cage set up. If you're using a large washer for the attachment, you might need to add a small washer on top of it, so the screw head doesn't go all the way through the hole.

An advantage to this technique is you really can put the perch anywhere you want, because you will be securing it in place with a washer and screw. A disadvantage is that to move (or remove) the perch you need to get your tools out.

4) Suspension

Choose your branch, drill a big hole through each end, and thread kabobs or chain through the holes and hang your perches. If you're using chain, you can use pliars to attach o-rings to the ends or, easiest of all, quick links. Really simple.

There's no problem using rope tied around the branch to suspend it either, but please try and avoid ropes that have been treated (favour plastic rope and smell it first - seriously you can smell if its been treated), as your bird WILL be chewing on it. On that note check the state of the rope and general set up of the suspension every day. You do not want it falling.

I only vaguely remember the branch shown suspended by rope below. It looks pretty dodgy if you ask me now, and I can only imagine that it was one of those times that I cut the perch too short and this was me making the best out of a screw up.  Despite how dodgy it looks, I know I would have been happy with the stability and religiously keeping my eye on the state of that rope. There are many bird's I wouldn't ever entertain this sort of set up with, as they might cut through the rope whilst I wasn't looking. The other end of the branch I believe had many prongs which were nestled through various holes in the aviary wire, and whilst it looks like the branch is free floating at this end, it's actually rested up against the wire, and the rope is deliberately spread out to reduce the possibility of the perch shimminging out of its hold. That's what I'm telling my self anyway. It really does look dodgy doesn't it!

5) Buy a Bolt On Perch

They won't span your cage, or come with foliage attatched, but they are super convenient! It's easy to rearrange the perches as well as to remove for cleaning. They often lend themselves to good interior layouts that encourages good use of the cage space by your parrot too. 

So there you have it. An article all about putting branches in your bird's cage. If you want to learn more about why to use natural branches, or where to place them in a cage. Well, right now, you'll just have to wait for another blog post.

However I can point you to this blog post which covers the three essential tools you'll need in order to collect and put branches in a cage.

Most of the prices provided came from the generic Aus Post plug-in; they're not the greatest rates and we don't actually use Australia Post for anything but the occassional international order. But it was that or delay the launch for an indefinate period of time.

We were waiting on Startrack (who basically IS Aus Post in a different guise) to provide a new API key for the Aus Post plug-in which was meant to magically make our own Startrack rates appear as options for you all.

Not surprisingly, but incredibly frustratingly, this didn't eventuate. It took two months, changing our contract with them, changing My Parrot Shop's entire dispatch system (Did your parcel seem to take longer than normal to be sent? The new dispatch system is the reason why.), and many phonecalls and emails to Startrack/AusPost employees all over Australia, to finally get to the "Whoops, sorry, we can't actually provide you with real-time shipping quotes on your website" stage.

Not that the "Whoops, sorry" part was included.

Well, anyway, I have now completed building my own Startrack shipping quotes into the website, and disengaged the Aus Post Plug-In. Hooray!

But before I continue... a brief pictorial interlude. We started out with Aus Post, then used Fastway for a while untill finally finding the courier Australian Air Express (who were awsome).

A year into our relationship they joined with Startrack Express (who we didn't like)

To become

(who we considered so/so)

Which is now:

(who we have lots of expletives for, but stick with, because the other options for our freight needs are still awful)

Interlude over.

I have updated our Shipping and Returns page to reflect the new shipping options provided as well as noting when it might be worth contacting us for a 'better' shipping quote. I'll repeat it here so you don't have to go clicking about the place to find out, though it will be in the more long-winded format (this is a blog afterall)

All Australian Suburbs (of which there are about 17,000) are placed into four zones in our calculator. These zones are for our Fixed Price Premium rates for which there is a 1kg, 3kg, 5kg, 10kg and 20kg option. These options are perfect for orders up to 5kg all over Australia, which covers most of our orders. At around the 10kg mark things get a little tricky and that's when it is sometimes better to send using the Startrack Premium (fast) rates or the Startrack Express (slow) rates. Unfortunately the zones used for these rates are completely different from the zones used for the Fixed Price rates. Not to mention that one postcode can cover several different suburbs with each suburb falling into a different zone.

Just a quick example: PostCode 0822 has 102 different suburbs assigned to it (!), some of which must be islands or something, and the charge per kilo ranges from $1.86 to $42.00. It's a nightmare.

Anyway, the upshot of it is I had to 'average' out some of the zone shipping quotes. This means there will be the occassional postcode that gets lucky and charged much less than it actually costs us to ship the parcel, but it also means there will be some postcodes that get charged more.

For orders under 20kg the cost difference is generally not worth quibbling over but after that... well if it seems outrageous to you, you're probably in one of those tricky post codes and I suggest you contact us for a 'better' quote. The fastest way to make it work is to complete the checkout with the 'dubious' quote, and write a note asking for the shipping cost to be checked. You can either pay then and get a credit or refund for the difference, or select a non-instant payment method (bank transfer or credit card over the phone) and wait for the adjusted invoice total before deciding to proceed with the order.

So, yeah.

That is, if you CAN leave comments... I really must check on that...