Life With Parrots

Grooming Overview

Welcome to LifeWithParrots! We are a home-based business that offers a quality grooming service providing our client’s feathered companion with safe beak, nail, and wing trimming. We’ll do everything we can to ensure your bird has the best experience possible and you can feel confident knowing your bird’s beak, nails and wings will be properly groomed.

How We Do It:

For beak and nail trimming we use a dremel at low speed without sedation as it reduces the risk of breaking a blood vessel and removes the risks associated with sedating birds. Dremel bits are always disinfected after each grooming session using a steam cleaner to keep them clean and sanitary for the next bird. If we are unable to trim a bird’s nails with the dremel due to the bird’s comfort level, we will use nail clippers instead with “Kwik Stop” on hand if any bleeding occurs.

Blood Feathers And Nail Quicks:

Please note that blood feathers (immature feather shafts) and long nail quicks (blood vessels) may prevent us from trimming wings and nails to the preferred length. We will do our best but it may take a couple of nail trims for the blood vessels to recede enough before we can get the nails down to a normal length. If your bird has blood feathers, it usually takes a few weeks for them to grow out and may enable your bird to partially fly.

Clipped Birds Can Still Fly!

Unfortunately due to popular belief about clipping, many clipped birds who were taken outside without a harness, carrier, or travel cage have ended up flying away and getting lost. Clipping wings may limit a bird’s ability to fly but does not take it away altogether. A strong wind or getting spooked may be enough for a clipped bird to take off and fly out of eyesight. Please do NOT take clipped birds outside without a harness, carrier, or cage!!!

Does my bird need a beak trim?

Many birds do not require beak trims unless the beak is deformed in some way (such as scissor beaks), grows at an abnormally quick rate, or has become overgrown due to a number of reasons. Performing beak trims on birds who do not require them is ill-advised as it can cause pain to the bird from over trimming which can make eating, preening, and climbing (with their beak) very uncomfortable. If you’re not sure whether your bird needs a beak trim, you can send us a photo and we’d be happy to offer our suggestion and book an appointment if they should have it trimmed.

HealthGene DNA Sexing:

DNA sexing can be done through HealthGene by eggshells, feathers, or blood. For owners who may not have their bird’s eggshell on hand, we recommend lightly bleeding their nail quick on the test kit. It may sound horrible to do but it’s the safest, quickest, and least painful way to obtain blood for the test. You could also send away feathers but they’d need to be fresh (not molted) which means you’d have to pluck a few from their chest. We don’t recommend doing this because it may not result in enough cells to test and if the bird has plucked in the past, it may result in them starting again. If you’re not comfortable clipping their nail for the test, we can do it and send away the test for you or give you the test kit and form to send away yourself. A few species are sexually dimorphic (Eclectus parrots for example) and wouldn’t require a DNA sexing test but for those who aren’t, we’re happy to help you find out if you’ve got a male or female parrot.

Leg Band Removal:

Leg bands are a great way to identify birds but they can also pose some risks of getting caught on things, becoming too tight as the bird grows, or even cutting off circulation to the foot if the leg becomes injured and swells. For these reasons, we offer a band cutting service for any size of aluminum or plastic leg band, even if you just want to remove it preventatively. Unfortunately due to the strength of stainless steel, we can not remove stainless steel bands and suggest you contact your local vet or the Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) for recommendations. 

Booking:

We ask that you make an appointment at least 48 hours ahead of time to ensure we will be available. We will do our best to accommodate last-minute appointments but can not guarantee that we will be available. If you need to cancel your grooming appointment that’s no problem, just let us know as soon as possible.

Bird Requirements:
  • Be in generally good health. Plucking/barbering due to stress, habit, or hormones is acceptable
  • Be completely weaned for at least 2 weeks
  • Have no open wounds or recent major injuries (occurring within one (1) month before the appointment date)
  • Be harnessed or in a carrier when entering and exiting LifeWithParrots
Pricing:
  • Beak trim $35
  • Nail trim $25
  • Wing trim $15
  • HealthGene DNA sexing $50
  • Leg band removal $30

If you’re interested in bringing your feathered companion(s) to us for grooming, send us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible to book an appointment. Any questions? Check out our FAQ section or contact us anytime by email, text, or Facebook Messenger. (Calls from 1pm-8pm on weekends). Thank you for your interest, hope to see you and your feathered companion soon!

Pictured is a before and after overgrown beak trim. Super sweet bird and very happy owners!

Meet some of the previous birds who’ve come for grooming!