COME ALONG WITH ME

A good Monday morning to you. I am beginning a new journey (from an old one) and I invite you to come along. I started an Esty shop back in 2008 with a few of the toys I made for my birds. For the last few years I have been dragging my feet and only dabbling with my Etsy shop. I put my heart into making the toys, but as for the running of a business, I lacked dreadfully. But I have grown a lot in these years of dabbling and am now ready to put 100% into my Etsy shop. My toys sell very successfully here in my town at a local bird shop, so I know I have a product that sells.
I picked up this book on Amazon.com and it has captured me from the word "go." I approached this book with the attitude of starting over, like I had never had an Etsy shop before. This attitude has served me well, as Etsy has made significant changes over the past couple years. I have finished the first section of the book and am now ready to start re-building my shop. Also, I have been refining my toys, tweaking them to better serve my feathered clients. It has been over this refining process that I have fallen even more in love with birds and their mental well being.

Here is a picture of one of most popular selling toys.  It will be available for purchase in my Etsy shop starting February 1, 2012.  All the details for this toy will be on the site, including all the parts I use to make the toy.  I will also be featuring one of my toys per week on my blog.  It will contain detailed information on the designing and making of the toy.  The toy of the week will also be on sale in my Etsy shop.  Stay tuned for this exciting adventure to unfold!

BIRDY BANQUET

Recently I have been diving into my books on bird nutrition.  I am determined to create a better diet for my birds and have found many great recipe's in this book: The Healthy Bird Cookbook.  It takes you step by step through the importance of a balanced diet, vitamins and minerals, hazardous foods, mountains of recipes and so much more.  I was not aware of the need for washing the skin of a banana before peeling it and feeding the fruit to your bird.  The reason to wash it even though you don't feed the peel to your bird, is because, monkey urine is on the skin.  Ewwwww....now that was a fact that I was not aware of for myself or my birds.  Needless to say, my banana's skin will be squeaky clean from this day forward.

Here is how my first batch of muffins/bread turned out.  Kinda lumpy in places, but the birds didn't mind.  I must remember the next time to fill the cups only half full....a lesson well learned in this recipe.

A close up of my creations.  I ended up cutting the muffins and the bread into bite sized chunks.  Each bird has his favorite way of eating yummy treats.  Gabriel like a piece stuffed in between the bars of his cage, Zeek likes them on a skewer, and Timothy likes to take a piece from my hand and hold onto it with his foot. I will be making more recipes out of this book, as it has everything but the kitchen sink!  You can find it on Amazon.com