 Guys, it's Marlene and Jersey. We got a problem. We have to hide in this room because there's literally intruders in my house. I'm gonna try to show you what I mean, okay? Jersey, stay there. I don't know if it's safe. One is literally trying to get in the door right now. But as you can see, the lamp's not that hot. Oh! I heard one. See if you can find one. There's one right here. Yeah. One of them spilled the coffee mug and got coffee all over my shoelaces. But that one I've since forgiven. Guys, my name is Marlene McCohen. This is Jersey and that intruder right there is Vinnie. And yes, they have ransacked my house today. In fact, it's been a very interesting day already. But I want to welcome you to my channel and let you know that I'm here to show you how to love, engage with, and take care of your birds. Hashtag, engage, not cage. Now, that can get a little bit crazy sometimes. I'm not gonna lie. But it's definitely a lot of fun, though. What I want you guys to know is birds can be a lot of work. So I prefer if you live vicariously through my channel instead of getting one of your own if you're not prepared. What do you say about that, Cody? What kind of naughty things did we do today, Cody? That led to this sweeping brush being ready all day. Vinnie, if anybody tries to get through the door, you dive bomb them, okay? You want me to get out? No, he's not gonna let you get out. You really do. Okay. What's all this water on the floor? Oh! Oh, somebody had a bath. Oh, somebody's having a bath? The little dinosaur. What's going on? I threw a walnut through the back. It got it all over my clothes. I'm gonna go do this. Yeah. Hi. Jersey's like, hi, I'll be on camera. This is a normal day in the house. What are you doing? What's going on? You look excited. Do you wanna hear your song? Should we go dance to your song? Yeah? Okay. That's your song. Okay, guys, you wanna see Jersey play hide and seek? It's the cutest thing. So here's how I play hide and seek with Jersey. I run around the counter and I hide. So you're gonna be my eyes. Are you ready? Jersey, you ready for eyes to see? And then also you have to like, you can burn calories playing with your breath. Oh, here's Blue. She wants us to talk about Merlin. But before I get to Merlin, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Blue. So the great thing about Blue is that she basically has free reign of the house. She loves to go from this tree to that tree. From her real tree to like, obviously the manzanita tree. She integrates well with the other birds. But she's still scared of hands. She does like to be included. Like she'll take food from my hand and she'll sit with me in certain rooms. You know what I mean? Like just me and Blue. But she still has a ways to come as far as like being like a little bird that just always wants to be with me. Part of the reason for that is, well, there's two reasons for that. The more birds you have, the longer it's gonna take to form a bond with not necessarily a baby bird, but a bird that is perhaps maybe had been wild or less tame because those kind of situations are great for when you have way less birds, if you know what I mean. But she's coming around really well and she's integrating herself well. Obviously Brando came after Blue and he's doing exceptional as far as all that goes but it's just kind of a different situation. She's playing with that. Guys, watch Cody play catch. These are the games you gotta be playing with them, you know? By the way, if you want your bird to play something like catch, one way I notice like when they're not interested in playing catch, a strange thing. I play catch with myself in front of them and it going up and down. Do you want to play? Jersey looks like she wants to play. Come play. You can play catch. And that gets them interested so it's hard to show, but like see how she wants to be involved now. So that helps. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes these things work better than an actual ball. They like, yeah, it's lighter for them. It's more fun for them to throw. Not all birds put some. I find when my birds be like a rolled up tissue. This is the kind of engagement you want to have with your parents. They're extremely intelligent. They get bored easily. This is the engagement part of engagement. You want to stimulate their brain, make them find things, especially with cockatoos. You want to make them put two things together. They like to undo things. Look at this tiny little ball that I'm going to make. Another game I like to play with African graze is I'm going to get your tail. I love playing this game. I used to play this game with George where I would pretend I'm going to get his tail. I'm going to get your tail. I'm going to get your tail. I'm going to get your tail. I'm going to get your tail. I'm going to get your tail. And so George used to laugh and laugh and laugh when I did that. Watch the seduction. What's about to happen? Oh. Yes, my baby. I'm waiting for your speech, Leo. I'm expecting it. When should I expose you? Just one slug. He's a good one of time for speeches. I'm just one love right now. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Ready? What? I'm pretty tired here. Taking a break? So I'm out of sight. That's what happens. They want to see me. I'll tell you guys, no, like, when birds scream because you're out of sight, it's not a bad thing. You don't have to treat it like, oh my God, the bird is screaming. I have to, like, that's so annoying. He's just like, yeah, that's what you took on. Like, you took on a little baby that feels like it needs to see you all the time. Just like, you know, a regular toddler. So, yeah, that's never gonna end. Be aware of that. You heard her voice. She's fine now that I'm here. So what you have to do is find ways to make sure that you include your bird unless you're grooming them to be in a different cage somewhere, somewhere else. I personally like to include them in my living, you know? One cute thing about Merlin is every time before you get him out of the cage, he wants a head scratch, like, before he step up. Step up, and he's a righty. He always steps up with his right foot, very specifically, even when it would make more sense to step up on the left. Okay, Merlin, just water. Show everybody your Merlin is Mr. Moneybags. He's Merlin the Explorer, and he's always looking for change, right, Merlin? This is the stuff he's found so far. This is your stuff. And Merlin likes cans. Let me see if I can find something. Usually it's cans, but sometimes he likes red solo cups, so let's see, it's really funny. Otherwise, I have to get like a can out. I have not officially introduced Brando to the other birds. Ooh, someone's excited. You excited? Why do we do that right now? You wanna be introduced? Go meet Nellie. Nellie? Okay, so I wanna tell you guys something. One thing that I wanna get across is that even if you think, let's say your birds are of different size and you're worried that one would attack the other, you still have to introduce them like this in a controlled environment where maybe you're holding one and you're holding the other or someone else is holding the other, because you need to know their instincts towards each other. The worst thing is not knowing because let's say you were to go on vacation and someone else was gonna watch your animals, you need to know exactly what could happen to prepare for all of that. So sometimes in the first meeting, you might see one kind of like lunge at another as long as like, you know that you're set up in a very controlled way where you can pull one away if you thought it would be dangerous or something. It's important to know. So for example, the other day, George told me I wasn't here, that blue stood on Rocky's cage. Blue loves to go and stand on top of Rocky's cage, but on this particular day, Rocky was there. Usually I'm like, we need to move the bird right away, but George waited to see it because he had a handle on Rocky and they didn't bother each other. She's a little overstepped and I know I get it. She's trying to take over your home, take up all the locations that you have. That's, she's trying to call it her own, but she's so cute. How can you not let her have it? I think he posted it on his Instagram, actually. I think Rocky did a tiny bit of a lunge and Blue just didn't back down and it was fine. This to me looks like, like Nelly's not as interested. It's okay as Brando, but here's an important thing. You wanna make the bird that you've had first feel very comfortable and loved because they can get very jealous. It's okay. And you also wanna remember that your new bird probably has been in quarantine. So they feel like they're the only bird a lot of the times. It's good if they hear the other bird. Nothing. Okay. Nelly, we'll put Nelly down. Come on. You look so funny. So it's, are you jealous? It's important to make Monty feel comfortable and loved. Yeah. The jealous one here is obviously Brando. It's okay, Brando. Birds often don't react to each other. So now, okay, see Monty's lifting his wings? So it seems like for the most part, if they got too into each other's space, there'd be a little bit of lunging. You don't like my nail polish because it's okay. Now later, I'll try to put them all on the same stand just to hang out. You know what I mean? And that will be a little bit more integration. Oh no, because you're not eating my baby. And Monty's my baby too much, too much. And another thing you may be wondering like about that cage and also about what's going on because I think some of you noticed the little blue budgie. So this is a bird. This is obviously a blue budgie. He is very, very scared and timid. This is not my bird. This is a bird that is lost and we're trying to find the owner, but the bird is extremely timid, not tame or anything like that. So I'm just trying to hang out with the bird a little bit. So my friend found the bird when he was riding the bike on the ground. He has posted on his next door app and I have looked through numerous, numerous postings. What's actually kind of funny is that it seems that there's so many more found blue budgies than there are lost blue budgies. So the bird has been posted about, but obviously I don't know how to explain this, but I'm sure you guys will understand. Not under my name, because you just don't know, just like with Picasso being lost and stuff. So much was harassment and pranks and the bird was not lost in my area. So it's being posted about in the area that the bird was lost in so that the right people can find the bird. But you know, this bird is not tame and very scared of everything. So there's a good chance this is the kind of bird that escaped out of an aviary or maybe someone let a bunch of birds go. Someone brought that to my attention just because of the amount of blue budgies that I had found. This bird loves the finch. So I just don't know, like this bird's really like into the finch. So I might explore kind of having them together a little bit until we can find the owner. I just don't know, it's not been easy and it's also probably not gonna be easy, any easier now that you guys know because I really can't have a bunch of emails saying I think it's my bird because it really has to come from that area and be responded to the post that we have put out about the bird if that makes any sense. So my friend named the bird Pablo, not really officially just kind of gave him a name so that he could call him something because of my bird Picasso because my friend loves Picasso. Yeah, so that's Pablo. So I'm letting Pablo kind of hang out, chill on the couch, chill in different areas of the house just to get used to the fact that I am not going to try to intrude upon the bird if you know what I mean. So what I'm trying to do with Pablo until we find the owner is basically just kind of, you know, integrate him into the idea that he can be on cage first, like you see his cage is open but he always goes right back in and here's the thing, a lot of people will say, oh, my bird just wants to be in his cage and it may be true in that sense that the bird doesn't feel safe out of the cage because it knows that there's bars between you and him and then the problem is that he wants bars between you and him because he's not feeling safe with being handled. You have to still make sure that you have an open cage and bring the bird out and have him on top of the cage or on a play stand where he gets rid of that first wall where he has an idea up that you are super dangerous. So like part of the engage, not cage just integrating the bird with not being cage even if they don't like you. So right now Pablo's not in love with me and he's seemingly in love with his cage but he's not really no bird wants to be caged. It's just that's where he feels more comfortable from the human being which means that we're doing something wrong. I don't know if this is the time to tell you guys this but I mean, I probably can't say it enough. There's a lot of sanctuaries run strictly on donations because how else are they gonna run? These people that have these sanctuaries and a lot of times the sanctuaries are like in people's homes because not enough people are doing things about parrots and they're really just caged in these home sanctuaries as well. And technically my house is a little bit of a sanctuary. Most of these birds except for Brando is a rescuer, right? The problem we're having is that these things are run by the generosity of people's hearts and when they die, then the birds have nowhere to go because there's no sustainability for the parrots or the non-profit. A lot of non-profits, especially for dogs and cats they can become huge and people know about them and I think that's really amazing but birds they just don't have enough awareness and the mentality of them being in cages has become so normal that we don't really understand that it's a crisis. I've been watching this for so long and in my head I would love to have a sanctuary where birds can fly free and enjoy themselves. There is possibility to do that one day hopefully but all the places that do anything remotely like that they become the one place that can only take in the birds and so they can't turn down birds or they feel like they can't and they end up with too many and then often the place ends up shutting down because they couldn't afford it anymore or it ends up shutting down because the owner dies and the kids are like I can't take care of this this isn't what I wanted to get my life into it's not the easiest thing in the world, right? So I have this idea, my idea in general is obviously that I would love to have parrot stations all over the United States where these birds can go and live like a life where we all can see and know that they're at least somewhat able to fly and be free and be taken care of and not caged it is possible, right? Even if I was able to get donations every month from people to do that if something happened to me it would never be sustainable I just don't know even one place just living in California just be insane here I just want you guys to know where I'm coming from and I create things like boxes and food and collab with people to make other products come out I know it's a small time right now but if I can create a brand and if we can become something really big, okay? If we can become something where people look to and they say this is the brand I trust or this is where I buy my food from then that brand in many years can sustain hopefully outlive me and sustain these bird sanctuaries I just was watching and I was looking at the problem and I'm like how do I solve it? I don't have millions of dollars to build a sanctuary in California I don't have the manpower and I'm like but one day maybe I will so you're watching me just do like little tiny steps to try to make a difference so I just want you guys to know because when you see things and you're like oh that was a commercial for that or oh she's selling shirts or whatever it is I'm trying to do it's all for the bigger picture honestly because the precedent is speaking I just don't know who else is on board with this kind of idea I haven't ever heard anyone say like oh I want to build something for the long term and I'm sure there are people I'm sure there are people that dream of it but this is the way and honestly guys we're all doing it together because every time you try our bird food Marlene's signature blend every time you try to find a way to use the brand that I'm trying to create to also improve the life of your bird I want to make things easier the main things I hear from you guys is in middle America we don't have a bird store we don't have access to these toys that's what I'm trying to do I'm trying to make those kind of things available to you I make them a little more fun and exciting because it wouldn't be the way I do things if it wasn't and I feel like that solves some problems but just building that up will solve a lot more so I just want to let you guys know where I'm coming from because it's gonna be a slow process but I'm sure there'll be miracles along the way and for those of you who are young and watching me we need a lot of good avian vets not just vets that are avian specialists with a certification may or may not give you the sensitivity that you need for birds but you can do it I mean Leo was just a baby with a pacifier and now he's about to run for president we didn't even think he could speak and he makes speeches so you can do anything right Leo? Yeah Vinnie? Where are you? Vinnie? Right here? Where? Do you want your bird to leave your Coca-Cola alone? Panted to Matty Get yourself Marlene McCohen's special blend of bird food and you will not regret it and you'll be able to drink your Coca-Cola all on your own Oh my God guys I, every time I look at it I'm just as excited Can you see how beautiful this is? This is a feathered fun box by Marlene McCohen I'm really proud of this box click the link below and you can subscribe monthly Make sure to secure your box right now