Austin Parrot Society and More

After much procrastination a lot of things are happening... this is an exciting time to be a parrot owner in Austin!

For starters, due to the apparent lack of real organization amongst the Austin parrot community I (with the support of my close friend Emily) am trying to form the Austin Parrot Society. This will be a group that will meet monthly and focus on improving the lives of companion parrots in the Austin area by learning and discussing the very latest on husbandry, veterinary advances, behavior and training (to name just a few topics).
It has always seemed a pity to me that we have so many parrot resources in the area (Barbara Heidenreich is an Austin native, there's the Schubot Center at Texas A&M), that we have not really tapped into them. Take a look at speaker schedules for parrot related topics and you'll find dates in DFW, Houston and San Antonio, but rarely Austin. So I thought it was about time to get organized, get together and work to build a group that will be able to bring these insightful, experienced professionals to Austin for the benefit of our birds.
I also feel there is a hugely untapped source for learning from each other. Personally, I work in the disaster management field and would love to share information about disaster response and preparedness as it relates to parrots with the community, this group will provide a forum for that too.
And it's also the opportunity to meet regularly with other people who like to smell their Amazon parrots (you amazon owners know what I mean!) without the rest of the group looking at you like you just sprouted antenna.

There are a couple of people who have volunteered to put up flyers around town to generate more interest, and I have started in South Austin, so far response has been enthusiastic. If you are interested in receiving more information about the Austin Parrot Society (and especially if you would like to put up flyers) please send an email to austinparrotsociety@gmail.com

More huge news is that my fellow parrot enthusiast (and great pet sitter) Emily Strong of From Beaks to Barks Pet Sitting
is going to be teaching free (yup, that's right, free) parrot ownership classes at Gallery of Pets (Duval and 183), starting Friday January 30th at 7pm. These are going to be comprehensive classes which will hopefully teach prospective, new and experienced bird owners an overview of parrot care, from cage selection to diet to training and everything in between. There is even a downloadable PDF ebook covering all the topics in the class available at her site. I highly recommend downloading and reading through the book, even experienced parrot owners may learn something new.
Sign ups for the class are via email. More details (and the ebook) can be found HERE

So as you can tell, there's a lot of potential for great things in the Austin parrot community in the coming months... I hope you will join us for the ride!

This was Inyoni the freezing night she was left on my doorstep. Please consider taking the parrot ownership class and joining the Austin Parrot Society, so that we can reduce the number of birds abandoned like her