Private Tour of the LARGEST Parrot Store in Florida 🦜 | Everything Birds

We're here at Everything Birds in Tampa, the largest bird store in Florida, and today we're going to tour the store. We're going to check out their birds, their toys, their cages, their... Guys, they have everything. It's in the name. Let's go. Going away at the amount of different birds we've got here. We have some Indian ringnecks. Indian ringnecks require a lot of touching to keep their bond and keep them tame. Just know that they're very popular on the internet for going like, what you doing? Hi! But you really have to work with one to get it up to that level. And also, their behavior is significantly different from other parrots. I've always wanted a canary for myself. They're very peaceful compared to parrots. Not much screaming. It's just pleasant chirps. So one day I may get myself a canary or two. The canaries are very popular with especially older people that don't want to get a bird that lives for 30 or 50 years. The guldeons are very popular, so are the zebra finches. Would you say there's a specific type of bird that works best for someone that's entering parrot keeping as a beginner? Green-cheeks and cockatiels. I've bred them for about 10 years and you're totally right. The personality, they're spunky. Almost like the personality of a large parrot, right? They're just like, they have it all. The minks. Very, very rare mutation, huh? We only get a few of those a year. Yellow-sided green-cheeks. We've got jendays. Crimson-bellied conures with their bright red bellies. Oh yeah. Very cool with the crimson belly because initially they start out almost looking like a green-cheek, right? There's no red and eventually it just turns into this big red jacket. They add more blue highlights as they get a little bit older. We are very lucky to have many different colorations of cockatiels that come through the store. We've got one parrolet and one plum-headed parakeet. Over here we've got some yellow lord amazons. Our budgies are over here. Oh yeah, the cave parrots. They're beautiful. You want to come out? What a good baby. When they get a little bit older, their cheeks and their neck are like a beautiful iridescent silver, and their head is this salmon peachy color. Yeah, very cool. We are preparing to move into a new space. We're moving from about 6,000 square feet up to 7,500. Wow, so you guys are the second largest bird store in the U.S. Are you now going to be the largest? No, but still the largest in Florida. What would you say is the most popular parrot here at Everything Birds? What are people coming and saying, you know, do you have this, do you have that? We have a lot of people looking for green-cheeked conures, and we are fortunate to have many different color mutations. We also find homes for lots of cockatiels and quaker parrots as well. And do you breed your own birds, or do you work with breeders across the country? We work with breeders. Many of them have been working with this store for like either 20 years or close to it. Those people get their birds tested, like the parents, every year. And then we test all the clutches of birds that come in as well for the four major bird diseases. Oh, that's fantastic. The first thing I think of, too, when I buy a bird, OK, I've got to get it tested. But you guys are doing that proactively, learning a bunch of protocols. You guys are doing it the right way. That's fantastic. These are our youngest babies, pineapple green-cheeked conures. How often are you hand-feeding? Every few hours. These birds are receiving four hand-feedings a day. Next to them, we have some cockatiels, four gray and two white in there. Everybody's got a little bit of millet if they want to start nibbling. Starting that weaning process early. Three white-bellied caiques, two white quakers, and a sun-cheeked conure. Nice. Everybody gets colorful pellets, along with a little bit of seed, and then a fresh fruit or veggie. It's important to us also that every bird has a perch and a toy. We want our birds not only to survive, but to thrive and be happy. We've got our mustached parakeet and suns, which are a hybrid bird. Of course, we've got the cape parrots and the golden conure, cockatiels, and other conures there. Sounds like you all have a lot of experience with birds. How long have you been in business here at Everything Birds? The store has been in business for about 23 years now. We have owned the business for the past six years, and we love what we do. This is Rainbow, right? Yes. A 22-year-old double yellow-head amazon who has an excellent personality. What's Rainbow's story? Did you have him for 22 years? No. Rainbow is one of our re-home parrots. Rainbow is awesome. I believe he was talking to me earlier. We have no judgment at all if someone needs to re-home a bird. Anybody buying a bird from us, either a baby or an older bird, gets a consultation so that we make sure that they understand what bird ownership is about and give their bird the best life possible. It's always great when you're also a place where they can come back if something happens. I'm curious, what is your philosophy on diet? With parakeeting, everyone's got a different opinion and a different approach. We really like to give them a variety. In general, we want to use a yummy pellet for them. We use a lot of the Zoo Cream fruit blend. We give everybody either chop or a fresh fruit or vegetable every day. Got it. What brought you guys to do that? Were a lot of clients just looking to get some chop and they didn't have the time? When we purchased the store, there was a little bit of chop happening with the old owners. We just thought it was so good for the birds that we just promoted it more and more. We would take beautiful pictures and we bought our own freezer just for the chop. This is about a one pound container and then the snack bags. How are you chopping all of this food? I have a Ninja blender, but a lot of it is chopped by hand. Wow. Working hard for the birds. Getting that chop ready. That's awesome. How many ingredients are you putting it in? 30. 30 ingredients. Depending on what season it is, we have special ingredients. At home, just for one bird, getting 30 ingredients into one chop mix would be pretty difficult. Very convenient to have it here. If you're making chop at home, if you pour something in there like quinoa or vegetable pasta, that will help absorb that water and is kind of a trick to make it a consistency that the bird will like. Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah, that's a great tip. This one is the dehydrated chop. Do you typically feed it dry or do you add water? We do feed it dry and my birds will eat it that way. If someone has trouble getting their bird to eat it, we recommend cutting up a fresh apple and putting it on top. That way if the bird starts nibbling the apple, the juices kind of get on this and then they take to it. People say, my bird won't eat my chop, but they'll eat everything birds chop. That's crazy. I'll tell you what the secret is, too, because I just want to spread the secret. Sounds good. So whenever we are using our blender to chop up the greens, we throw a handful of nuts in there. Oh, okay. So it mixes the nuts right with the greens and then the birds have to pick through it to get all those nut pieces so they get some of that nutrition, too. More tips and tricks. I'm always open to learning. Let's check out Atlas. He is about two years old. He's a little iffy on if he likes to step up or not. Are you going to be lucky, Jason? Oh, there we go. He likes to say his name. I thought I heard him talk to me on YouTube. And hello and a few other things. It seems like everyone's interested in macaws heavily these days. Is that right? Usually we have more macaws, which would be on these different stands. Got it. But they have been going home pretty quickly. Wow. Do you find that their personalities change a bit as they get older, like five, six years old? I would say it's based on the individual. They definitely get a little bit more bossy when they're young. I love to smell them. They smell like roses and popcorn and candy factories. What kind of events have you had at the store? Events on training, free flight. I'm doing a series called Dream Bird Series, where we focus the whole event on one species to help people kind of drill into if this bird is right for them. So many specific things that need to be done for certain species and highlighting them is really informative. When we hold big events, we can actually push some of the cages out into this area and make like a whole cornhole thing in the middle. I love this store. This is fantastic. You have everything. One of our events that we hold every now and then, usually two or three times a year, is a taste test. And we set up TV tables with little perches on them. People can bring their birds in. We give everybody a little cup and put a little of each food in it, including our chop, and let people try it with their bird. But here's the funny thing. I have the people try it, too. Oh, wow. Pellets are made of seeds and plant material. It's not like we're eating dog food. Exactly. Harrison's, for the most part, has kind of like a peanut buttery taste. They also have a hot chili version. Birds do not have capsaicin receptors, so to us, something might be too spicy to eat. But to them, it's just yummy and delicious. Rowdy Bush, I kind of compare to steak. It's very savory. Which one would you say is the best? I've never asked someone this, but you've actually tried them. Which is the best tasting pellet? The Zoopreme Fruit Blend. Okay, I gotcha. It's like candy. As we are weaning birds and we want the birds to want the food as much as possible, making the base of our own mix be Zoopreme Fruit Blend helps those birds start gobbling it as soon as they're ready to. This is where we keep our mixes. We keep these in a freezer because we make one or two cans of this a week. Small, medium, and large. There's like seed pieces and we've got the bigger one. And then the base on the nut blend has actual nuts added to it, along with those dehydrated fruits and vegetables. We have a few of these that are, you know, where you can just like take a bag and get yourself a half pound of whatever you want. It makes an excellent training treat and an excellent treat to shove in those foraging opportunities. Got it. Interesting. I see Brazil nuts. I see a little bit of everything. Hemp seed. I haven't seen that too often. What are your thoughts on hemp seed? Is it... So this has good nutrients and oils in it for the bird's feathers. I know it's called hemp seed, but you're not going to grow anything like that. So don't even try. We do put a little hemp seed in our chop. And that is one of those things that encourages the birds to eat the chop because they want to go through it looking for that. We have the fill-it-yourself bags and then people can get a rough weight so they know when they come to the official scale what they're going to be looking at. You guys set everyone up for success. Everything they need is literally here. Our toy wall is over 100 feet long. Wow. Here we have some of the different foraging cages. You can do things like put apples in these. You also can put foot toys in there. Great way for the birds to forage. When my bird destroys the toys, I have nothing to do with those pieces. So I could just literally load them into this device here and he could have another foraging activity. This is also very popular, the indestructible bell. This is the most unbreakable one. What would you say is the most popular toy in your household? The sola can stick balls. Also the mahogany balls. That is the mahogany pod pieces. This is the sola can stick ball. So with this ball here, how would I give this to the, would I just put it on the bottom of the cage? You could put it on the bottom or the top of the cage. We actually recommend to people to take slivered almonds and kind of shove them in there between some of those pieces. And it is wood. The birds recognize that it's wood, so they don't swallow it or anything. We have little cups of slivered almonds right in our chop freezer as well. Literally everything. I can't say it enough times. Everything is here. This toy right here is also a favorite because you can shove nuts into here to turn it into a foraging toy. Gives them a sense of accomplishment, I guess, huh? Just like, okay, I won for the day. We have large toys hung everywhere. This type of perch is very popular. That is a very creative, and do they climb up on this piece as well? They do. The larger birds really like to chew those like wooden bead pieces, but they are a pretty dense wood. So even for a macaw, it takes them a while to get through that. Got it. When it comes to toys, I see you've got a huge toy wall. We were just taking a look at it earlier. What would be the brand that you love the most when it comes to parrot toys? Probably the Planet Pleasures or the Pet Terrific. A lot of the toys have a variety of materials on the toy. So a person can bring that home and observe their bird playing with it, see what material their bird is drawn to, and then get more toys in that material. These toys tend to have lots of little pieces. They're woven together, and the bird can get their beak in there. This is a beautiful toy. Something about it. Maybe because it looks like a taco. Maybe that's why it's very attractive. This is one of our most popular toys in the Pet Terrific line. This is the Mahogany Pod. That's the same thing that made the Mahogany Slice Ball. With these finger traps, we recommend that people take almonds or cashews, put them in there, makes it a foraging toy. Yeah, see there's a high emphasis on foraging and keeping them busy. I think that's awesome, just to prevent those screaming and plucking and those destructive behaviors, right? Yeah. If you were kept in a cage, you would want a video game to play, right? At least. This is their video game. This is another foraging thing that you can put nuts in, and then the little boings for your little finches and stuff. Your customers never run out of different toys to choose from. Just keep moving down. This is our selection of most of our wood purchases. This is a great variety here. People always want to find the weirdest, crinkliest piece of wood. This is a sandblasted dragonwood, very popular. And there's also little pieces of wood that the bird, when they chew on the perch, will kind of peel up a little bit. And peeling on this wood is another foraging behavior for them. The largest purchases are right over here. Wow. We sell mammoth dragonwood, about eight feet long, fuzzy for the birds to work on pulling up those little wood pieces. If someone is building something custom at home, it's great for that. Do you recommend different types of wood, or is it just okay for one type of wood? I would recommend putting at least a little bit of variety. If you don't have access to that, the focus is more that it's just natural and safe for them. Okay. But variety is always better. We have our trees. This one would be more for a cockatiel, quaker. This is very smooth, and it's a very hard wood, so it takes a lot of effort for the birds to break it. What do you think about these platform perches here? Because I hear all about them. Some say they're good for older birds, but are they for all birds? You could try one of these as one of at least three different perching options in a cage. I've got a rope perch, I've got some natural wood perches, so I think adding a platform would be great. I think I'll take it. Right this way, we have our cages. We might sell four or six cages in a weekend, so sometimes we're just building them as fast as possible and then putting them into a slot. We try to have a large variety to choose from, a variety of colors. This cage, for example, would be good for a smaller conure or even lovebirds or budgies. I love these balconies because they're great for kissing your bird. I really enjoy cages with play tops. Are they all the same? I know stainless steel's a bit last longer, but what are your thoughts? Stainless steel is going to be the most durable, especially in a place like Florida here where it rains a lot. We also have people that might live near the water and stainless steel will hold up better. I've been keeping birds since I was a teenager and I have had some of these cages, even on my lanai, get 15 years out of them. Oh wow. What's your favorite brand overall? Top three. AE followed by HQ followed by Preview Hendrix. Got it. Okay. But I love you all. You all make great cages. I tried to say top three, so you didn't say one, but yeah. What do you love most about doing your work here at Everything Birds? Knowing that I am giving good advice to a person that wants to give their bird a good life because that is putting good into the world. We're here for the birds and then we want to help the people enjoy their bird keeping activities. Everything you mentioned really ties to longevity and consistency and making sure the bird is happy overall. It's a beautiful thing just to see, you know, people in the bird community just pushing things forward, teaching and giving as much knowledge as they can to make sure the birds are happy. So it's awesome. Thank you so much. This has been such a phenomenal tour. Just seeing everything birds, seeing everything you're doing, the decoration, how well you care for the birds, literally having everything here. It just came full circle. It's a wonderful story. I love what you're doing. Thanks again for having me. Thank you. And thank you, Jason. It's been a pleasure. Okay, guys, you've seen it all. We're here at Everything Birds in Tampa, Florida, one of the largest bird stores in the USA. We've seen their cages, their toys, their food, their birds. They just have everything, guys. You need to come down and check them out. Visit their online store. I'll put the link right below in the description. Guys, if you think this store has everything, their next store is going to be even bigger. The time is now. Thank you for having me. I appreciate your hospitality. Just thanking Rainbow for the visit, you know?