Parrots Magazine Issue 339 Covers Training, Humidity, and Conservation Care

Grey-breasted parakeets returning to the wild and a step-by-step guide to shaping out feather-picking through positive reinforcement sit inside the same issue of Parrots Magazine, and that breadth is exactly what makes Issue 339 worth reading cover to cover.

Sonny Stollenmaier's training piece, "Use Positive Reinforcement for Unwanted Behaviours," addresses some of the most persistent behaviour problems owners deal with: feather picking, cage-biting, and fear responses. Stollenmaier focuses on contingency clarity and timing, working through a small-step shaping approach applicable from budgerigars to macaws. The piece steers deliberately away from coercive techniques, consistent with the magazine's broader welfare-focused editorial line.

EB Cravens takes the environmental angle in The Complete Psittacine column, examining humidity and its relationship to respiratory health and moulting across different species groups. The piece weighs humidified rooms against localized fogging setups and flags mould monitoring and adequate ventilation as non-negotiable alongside any humidification strategy. For anyone keeping birds in a dry climate, it reads as a practical prompt to reassess what's actually happening in the room, not just at the perch.

Two breeding articles appear in the same issue and work well read together. Rosemary Low's "Take Extra Care of Your Breeding Females" covers pre- and post-laying nutrition, egg-binding warning signs, and welfare considerations across captive breeding programs. Rafael Zamora of Loro Parque Fundación contributes the companion piece, "Preparation for Fertility in Breeding Psittacines," examining fertility metrics and the environmental cues that support successful breeding in managed populations. The Loro Parque Fundación byline is significant: it connects hobby-level breeding guidance directly to the ex-situ conservation programs that underpin wild-population recovery.

Leslie Moran's diet column, The Holistic Parrot, names specific foods rather than gesturing at variety: spinach, red bell peppers, apples, and raspberries among the recommended fresh options. Moran offsets that list with a caution on oxalate-rich foods and addresses when a manufactured pellet base diet makes sense, keeping the guidance practical rather than idealistic.

The conservation reporting anchors the issue's larger argument. Features on community-led efforts for rare macaws in Bolivia and the grey-breasted parakeet reintroduction program frame companion bird keeping within the context of species survival, making the case, edition by edition, that responsible ownership and wild-population advocacy are the same conversation.

Issue 339 is available through Parrots Magazine's new-issue page and via mail-order, with back-issue and subscription options on the publisher's site.