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We have feeding cages setup in the living room. It just became insanity trying to eat with them. When we eat, they get a seed treat or something that they really like - usually only dinner time.

Kevin, I am so very sorry for the sudden loss of your father. As you know, I lost mine 1 year ago, and it does make you see life with different eyes. Always know he is watching over you and I am sure incredibly proud of you and all you do for others. As as for this site, you know how I feel about all the work you did to save us. I disagree with Judy, this site was quiet before the change and it has been picking up little by little. People are busier these days with so many other social media sites..so we aren’t always the first choice, but since you have made us so mobile friendly, hopefully members will start to take advantage of that and post more! If anyone was upset...the shame on them! God Bless ❤️

When I got Dorian and it had been a year he was still afraid of my hands, biting when he felt I wasn't listening to him, which in turn made me afraid to put my hands anywhere near him. He was not stepping up, and still totally cage bound, So I got desperate and hired an animal behaviourist to come over for a couple of hour to observe us and 'talk' to Dorian. The best advice I got from her was to approach him as if he was already the bird I wanted him to be. With the stepping up that meant to offer it as an option to him and allow him not to choose it right now. Same with being cage bound. I left his door open and allowed him to choose to stay inside that day. As silly as it sounds I became aware that I approached his cage with different body language when I kept this advice in mind. It was a few weeks of this and he became noticeably less bitey, and one day he left his cage and had a little wander round the outside! I really believe my change of attitude made him feel safer. Have you checked out the tread, in the training room I believe, called Behaviour Most Commonly Seen, or something like that. It will help you pick up on your birds subtle body language before they get to a bite. My Dorian usually wakes in a lovely mood, but every now and then he wakes up on the wrong side of the perch, and I now can tell before I even open the cage door. On those days I don't offer my hand for the inevitable bloodletting. You need to learn your birds body language so you can cut him off at the pass before he gets to a bite. Part of that is keeping him off your shoulder where you can't see his body language. If you have to get creative, do. Maybe sew a stuffie to each shoulder so there's no room for him? Has anyone ever taught you the Egyptian pose? If he lands on your forearm, drop your elbow so it's lower than your wrist. It goes against their instincts to climb down. This worked for me. Dorian used to try to climb to my shoulder all the time. Now that I'd actually trust him on my shoulder, he's not at all interested! When you hear flapping wings put your arm out as a place to land. If he lands on your forearm go into the Egyptian pose, if he lands on your upper arm immediately put your opposite forearm in his way blocking his path to your shoulder as was suggested above. If he does get to your shoulder, have you ever tried getting him to step up onto a perch? I've trained Dorian to step up onto a perch and now he does it obediently 99% of the time. I use it if I want to move him from a place like my desk, or his playstand at bedtime, but he isn't in the mood to obey. They can get in downright pissy moods at times. I usually give him one chance to do things in a civilized manner, then I bring out the perch. To be clear, he's not at all afraid of the perch, he just seems to recognize that he's pushed mommy just a little to far at the moment and steps up for it. I even give him a minute to take out his frustration on the perch when he's been returned to his cage by grabbing it by an eye hook I've got screwed into the end of the perch and beating up on it for a minute. That part is quite cute, but I'd never tell him that! As for his fear of men, have you ever wondered if a man did something that scared him badly while he was in transit to you? I don't think a reputable breeder would have shipped a bird with this intense a fear response. You may never know what happened, but anything you can do to bring down your birds' overall fear and increase his confidence will help his reaction. When I rescued Dorian his previous owner told me I could never date a man with grey or white hair because Dorian reacted so badly towards them (her husband had white hair). But then again Dorian was overall a very fearful bird. Now he's such a confident little bugger I doubt he'd even have a reaction. Anyway, for this reason I don't think I'd clip him right now. He sounds like a very fearful bird. You need to increase his confidence in his ability to handle situations that are frightening to him. Clipping would do the opposite. By all means put the travel cage out where he can get used to it. It will come in handy if you ever have an emergency. Let him explore it when there's no emergency and he won't freak out by being put in it if there is one. Sorry, this turned into a long post. I hope there are some tips here that you can use.

It's a bedroom window that used to open to the outside. We just close the window and put the blinds down, but that doesn't stop them from knocking incessantly when they know you're in there.

We share dinner but don't let him at the table. He sits near and we feed him bits and bites.

I commented about the loss of your dad but not your apology. I thought I missed something and didn't want to show my ignorance. If you are talking about the site, it is far better than it was! Sorry if anyone was giving you grief about your good work. Change is difficult sometimes, but we were having so many problems with the old site that it was necessary. I'm just glad you had the knowledge and willingness to do it!

Turns out the three implicated foods were all tested to be safe and untainted so I suspect maybe something in the home was at fault. Ingesting bad foods does not kill so quickly it takes hours or weeks in some cases not minutes it is still a very tragic loss remaining unexplained. Hope they did a necropsy.

First, I am sorry to hear of your Dad's passing, we wish we didn't have to say goodbye to our parents but that time comes and we deal with it the best way we can, lots of good memories will help ease the pain and I have lost both parents so I know what you are going thru. Second, I don't know what you need to apologize for, the only thing I can think of is because of the new format not many people sign in and post anymore, this forum used to bustle with activity but is fairly quiet now, I think it will eventually pick up when a few things settle down. You have done us a great service so forgetaboutit.

Back in 2010, I posted this, Nothing changes. I edited it and re-posted. We need to put a moratorium on breeding until our vast amount of sanctuary fids are adsorbed into society. Greed/money, Hallowed be thy name... Sanctity of Parrot Life. In the year 2000 the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and the World Parrot Trust published their “Action Plan.” Noting that “No other group of birds has been subjected to more exploitation, numerically and financially, than parrots,” the WPT called upon the millions of ordinary people who keep psittacines to “accept more responsibility for the survival of parrots in the wild and the welfare of existing captive parrots.” I’m one of the millions of ordinary people who live with a parrot, so I’m going to try to do my share. According to journalist Mira Tweti, author of "Parrots and People," there are between 40 and 60 million companion birds in the USA alone, perhaps half of them parrots. If just 1% of us bird "owners" began to lobby vigorously for the conservation and protection of parrots, we’d have an enormous influence. But we can’t do it alone. We also need the cooperation of the parrot industry—those who profit from parrots. They includes cage and accessory makers, food suppliers and distributors, pet stores, and of course breeders. On the conservation side of the equation, 28% of the 330 known parrot species are threatened with extinction. The parrots we love are decimated by the bird trade, destruction and fragmentation of native habitats, and hunting for food, feathers or for crop protection. Parrots did fine for many millions of years before they ran into people.Birds in general are perhaps the only living dinosaurs. They survived the extinction events that finished off other dinosaurs because they had the most powerful brains. That made them more adaptable, more capable of prospering in emerging ecological niches. European parrot fossils have been dated at 54 million years, although modern parrots may be “only” 20- 23 million years old. Parrots flourish in warm regions of South America, Africa and Australasia. They love the sun, the verdant tropical forest and the open sky. What got them in the most trouble with us? Their brains, their looks and the fact that we want their land.But conserving their habitat and outlawing their importation is only half the battle.We also have the vast responsibility to protect those many millions of parrots who live in captivity. Most of that job is educational. We need to teach our children that parrots are not commodities, not things. We need to acknowledge the sanctity of parrot life. As awareness increases, we’ll become better (and surely fewer) parrots. We won’t buy and sell parrots on a whim. We won’t release them to fend for themselves or kill them when we get bored with them. We will treat them with the respect we accord to people, to each other. They will join our “each other,” our community of consciousness and conscience.

Just saw this thread and am hoping your pain has settled down. Sciatica can be so unrelenting and debilitating. My orthopedic surgeon taught me a trick many years ago that can be very helpful. Take a tennis ball and put it inside of a long sock or stocking down to the toe area. Then grab the open end of the sock up at the top. Lean up against a wall on the side where you are experiencing the sciatica. Place the tennis ball between the wall and the hollow of your buttox muscle while holding onto the top of the sock to keep it from slipping away. Then using the wall, press your muscle into the tennis ball and move around thus massaging that muscle. This can help it release it's grip on the sciatic nerve. It hurts, but just in the way that having someone massage a sore muscle hurts. It is back related for sure, which also causes the butt muscle spasms that can clamp down on that nerve. I do this daily (twice broken back, too long of a story for here) and it really helps over time to keep it settled down. I follow with a hot bath. Acupuncture really helps me as do regular chiropractic visits and physical therapy. I know these are not affordable for many people if not covered by insurance. The tennis ball tip is sort of like being your own physical therapist. You can also have another human get the same effect by placing there elbow in the same spot in your muscle and massaging with that. My physical therapist does that but she knows how much pressure to apply. My heart goes out to you, and HRH and I both send you lots o'love!

I know a new format can be shocking, and sometimes I take things personal. I should have not taken them personal, but understood that it would be hard on everyone. I know new things are hard to except, and I am sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. But the truth of the mater was change or die. My father passed this week, and I got a new perspective on things. Sometimes it is not being right, but doing what needs to be done and helping people through the change. We are creatures of habits, same as our Grey's, and sometimes you need to have compassion and understanding. To those of you that were upset, I am truly sorry. But as Grey's do, slowly you will adapt. I didn't do these things for fun, they just needed to be done. K