[FONT=&]I've lurked on this forum for quite some time, reading everything that people post, but actually joined so I could be able to post in this topic. My experience with my green aracari differs from a lot of people's and so I thought it might be useful to share.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Many people talk about the mess of aracari's but mine is probably the un-messiest bird I've ever met. Some people claim that the size of their food doesn't matter but I don't believe that at all. From day one, I have always chopped his food into VERY small chunks (to give you an idea, I quarter grapes and those are about twice the size of anything else he eats). I chop everything by hand using a santoku knife and a paring knife -- I've yet to some across a food processor or chopper that does nearly as good of a job. If a piece of food is too big, an aracari will do one of two things: they will either squeeze it repeatedly with their beak which causes juice to squirt all over the place or they will bang it against the perch they're on which, again, causes juice to fly. My aracari never does that. He picks up a piece of food and swallows it -- no mess, no fuss. [/FONT]
[FONT=&]Blueberries are their favorite food and I've found that even with halved, fresh blueberries, he makes a bit of a mess with them. I use Welch's frozen blueberries. They're MUCH smaller than fresh or any other frozen blueberry and he gobbles them up just as much as fresh ones. [/FONT]
[FONT=&]As a precaution against mess, I hung vinyl shower curtain on the inside of his cage behind his dishes but, honestly, I hardly ever have to wipe it down as he almost never gets anything on it. I have him in the double flight cage that others on here have and I can completely and fully clean his cage in under half an hour -- he's really that un-messy. I do, however, change the papers lining the bottom of the cage daily; the dropped fruit and their poop tends to get a bit smelly otherwise. [/FONT]
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I also only chop his food once a week. I get up at 5:00 for my job, and the prospect of having to get up even earlier to chop fruit wasn't a pleasing one. I chop his fruit on Saturday mornings for the week and it takes me about two hours. I measure out two cups of fruit for each day and store it in individual Lock-And-Lock containers in the fridge and it stays completely fresh all week. I also sprinkle the fruit with dried oregano which has terrific anti-fungal properties and helps with freshness. Additionally, I supplement his fruit with a 1/2 tsp. of organic coconut oil every other day which does wonders for his plumage, not to mention the benefits of the lauric acid and medium-chain fatty acids found in coconut oil. All of my animals get coconut oil. [/FONT]
[FONT=&]Many people swear by Mazuri pellets, but I use Zupreem exclusively. The third ingredient in Mazuri is corn gluten. Even though it's popular as a feed for livestock, corn gluten is basically indigestible and I don't think it has any place in an avian diet.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Many aracari's bathe in their water; mine almost never does, but I think this is because I shower with him every day. He has a perch in the shower and absolutely loves it. He'll get directly under the shower head until he's completely waterlogged and he also loves being blow-dried after. [/FONT]
[FONT=&]My aracari also doesn't sleep in his cage. At night, when I turn off his full-spectrum lights ( I use Lumichrome 1XX bulbs, the best full-spectrum light on the market bar-none) he flies over to me on the bed. I wrap him up in a receiving blanket and he falls right asleep. Once he's asleep, I put him in his blanket into a wicker basket on my nightstand and he stays there until the alarm goes off. It's pretty cute.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Aracari's are incredible animals. Very un-parrot like in so many ways and I think that's a good thing. They're not the emotional basket cases that parrots can be. They pretty much take everything in stride. It amazes me that they're not more popular than they are. I've had lots of experience with various hookbills but I consider the aracari to be the perfect bird.[/FONT]
Thanks again for all of your help! I really just want to do everything right for my current birdies and my future birdie.
I was just looking at the toy links and I have or have had almost every one! 
