Things To Avoid:
Eclectus should never be fed: Avocado, foods that contain large amounts of salt, sugar or chocolate.
Teflon should not be used in a household with birds. When overheated it can kill your beloved eclectus within minutes. Lot's of products besides pans contain teflon. A few examples are: irons, curling iron, electric heaters, toaster ovens. Be sure to check your products before using them around your eclectus.
Lead Poisoning Kills: Be careful not to give your eclectus toys or clasp that contain lead. Stainless steel is the safest way to go. Rusty cages should be discarded.
Celing fans should be kept off when your eclectus is out of their cage.
A good list to read through to keep your eclectus safe, by Carolyn Swicegood.
Safety Precautions For Birdkeeping
Another good article by Carolyn Swicegood.
Eclectus do not do well with added Vitamins or Minerals, a pelleted diet, spirila or table food. These things are believed to cause toe tapping (involuntary opening and closing of the feet) and wing flapping (involuntary flickering of the wings).
Some plants and trees are unsafe for birds. Do your research to be sure the trees and plants your birds have access to are safe for them. Here are a couple websites to start your research.
http://www.mdvaden.com/bird_page.shtml
http://www.cockatielcottage.net/houseplants.html
What to do if your bird flys away.
http://birds.about.com/od/livingwithabird/a/flyaway.htm
http://www.cafabirdclub.org/lost.htm
http://www.goodbirdinc.com/help-escape.html
SHOWERS: To maintain good feather and skin condition they should get at least one soaking bath per week. Mist showers should be given several times a week in between their soaking shower/bath, a spray bottle works well for this.
TOYS: Supply an ample amount of toys for your eclectus to keep them happily entertained. Soft wood toys, shredding toys, soft plastic toys and baby toys like the v-tech phone are some of the favorites amongst of flock.
CAGE SIZE: You should plan on purchasing the largest affordable cage that your home will accommodate. Eclectus need room to move around and play. In my opinion the minimum size cage for a single eclectus is 3 ft by 3ft. Bar spacing up to 1 inch is good for an Eclectus Parrot cage.
Click on Willow's picture below to visit dogs-n-more.com/ for quality bird cages at a great price.
PERCHES: Provide several different perches in the cage. We use sandy perches, wooden perches, rope perches and real wood perches from safe trees.
You should provide at least an hour a day out of cage time. Several hours out of cage per day is even better.
A playstand should be purchased to give them a place to hang out away from their cage.
SLEEP: Eclectus Parrots should get 10-12 hours of sleep per night. A small sleep cage works well if their regular cage is in an area where they are unable to get 10-12 hours of quiet time.
Sun / Lighting: Sun and/or full spectrum lighting should be provided on a regular basis to your eclectus. This provides them with much needed Vitamin D. Full Spectrum lighting should have a CRI of at least 95. This mimics natural sunlight. All you ever need to know about lighting can be found here http://users.mis.net/~pthrush/lighting/kinds.html
