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Hi everyone! Long time since we've been here. Life was busy and then I entered into the world of assisting with elder care for a dear 90 year old relative, who peacefully passed away late fall. Am just now starting to catch back up on my regular routine, but wanted to jump in today to give a quick update on HRH Inara and some important info. During the holiday season, I was away from home a lot helping my relative. At some point in the middle of the holidays, HRH started plucking for the first time in her 8 year old life. I kept my eye on things, chalked it up to the stressors of me coming and going -- especially since my Joe has always been the one to travel and I was always the one at home. Then she hit her usual mating/hormonal season and so I still was not super concerned but was concerned enough to give her (wonderful!) avian vet a call. Still not a huge concern because she was not doing super drastic type plucking -- just "snow flurries" in the bottom of her cage each morning and we thought that now that my routine was back to usual, that she would settle back down. However, something just kept nagging at me as things did not settle down, despite that nothing else was changing with her. Her appetite was fantastic, she was chatting up a storm all day as usual, her weight was holding perfectly steady, she showed no signs of weird poo, and no respiratory distress signs. In any event, since it was time to take her in to get her beak tidied and polished and her talons blunted, I took in her morning poo sample and jogged our Vet's memory about what had been going on. She asked me: With her new feathers that keep coming in, does the shaft casing look black or whitish pink. I said, hmmm.. now that you mention it, black. But since her feathers are grey, I just chalked that up to her coloring. Vet immediately said -- nope, that is an indicator that something is amiss. They should always be a whitish pink. So she was glad I had brought in the poo and when she was doing HRH's talons she did a shorter snip on one for a blood sample. Because she is an Avian vet and surgeon, she runs all of her own lab work herself right in the office so within minutes we knew what the deal was. Inara had a yeast infection and a bacterial infection. We could not pinpoint how she got the yeast infection because she does not get foods that are yeast based in her general diet. The bacterial infection, the Vet said was likely from her scratching herself open slightly with her beak while plucking a feather. Then, our visit became like an episode of House, DVM ! Our lovely Vet looked at me with an expression akin to a light bulb going off, and asked, "When you were traveling so much, did your guy order in a lot of pizza?" I said, "Yes!! How did you know?!" She asked further, "Did he share with Inara?" I said, "Yes, actually and was tickled because they really bonded over it." She said, "Well their pizza parties have to come to a halt (I am paraphrasing this conversation) because pizza dough is one of the worst offenders for yeast infections." The pizza crusts often don't get cooked thoroughly enough to kill off the yeast and her little bites of pizza crusts were the culprit. It was a food she had never had in her little life, and is one that is of course completely off of her menu now forever. My guy felt terrible -- I said, don't because who knew? And I felt terrible because I had fallen into the trap of "She's a Grey, Greys can be notorious for plucking when stressed." Then I conflated that with her hormonal bout and so the problem went on way longer than it should have especially because she was not plucking herself naked, just lots of "snow." And mostly some time during the night, which I now figure is because she was getting her usual shower every day, and is so busy during the days that even though she was probably itching to high heaven she was distracted all day. Then at night, when she was not distracted the itching would get to her and she was going to town on her feathers. So good news: The antibiotic in her water dish daily, and her drops of antifungal daily have cleared up the entire shebang and she is back (so far) to leaving her feathers alone except for her normal preening. She has always been a super rough preener, she actually pulls my hair out when she tries to preen me (EEK!!) unlike my Congo (R.I.P.) who was so gentle that he would preen my eyebrows and eyelashes (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!). I would never let HRH anywhere near my eyes, as she also is just a completely different personality. Very long story but the moral is: Even if you think that some plucking may be going on because of 1) Greyness, 2) Change in routine or stressful event, or 3) seasonal/mating changes, or 4) because you think it is just your bird's "habit" --- make an appointment with an Avian Vet, take in a poo sample and get a thorough once over. ASAP. Fortunately, I know that I am not a bad parront. Most of my friends say that if they come back in another life they want to come back as one of my birds. But I do feel bad that even with close to 30 years total of living with birds, that I missed what a *new* parront might have been on top of in a NY minute. I was concerned, but conflated several things, and since she did not have any bare to the skin patches, I was not alarmed. Sometimes we need to take off our "experienced," lenses and re-look as a hypervigilant new parront might see things. ------------------------------------ Usual update: OMG she gets funnier with each passing year, and is still learning more and more language and astounding our friends and family with her use of complete sentences. She now refers to herself as "Birdy" or "The Birdy." She will holler, "Hey Sweetie? Come get The Birdy out." or "Birdy wants to go out there to the tree, OK?" or "You go get The Birdy a carrot cookie, yeah!" And she argues now. If I tell her no, she will reply with, "Yeah -- or Yah!" And then she will keep asking for the same thing in several different ways, as if I am a dullard and just did not tell her No but instead did not grasp what it was that she really wants. She kills me! I have figured out how to upload to youtube, so will start posting some vids if I can get her where she does not clam up when she sees the phone/camera appear. Here is one of the two of us chatting from two different rooms (as we do) -- you may have to turn up your volume so that you can hear her. HRY Inara trying to convince me that "everybody is at the tree." We've missed you all, and have a lot of catching up to do! xoxo Jane and HRH Inara

@SRSeedBurners Thanks so much! I think of GracieMae so often, and your beautiful aviary -- and yep, sometimes you just have those fids that are like Scandinavians, ones of few words. I need you to come set up a birdie cam for HRH! We really *are* lucky to have such a great Vet just right up the road. She's only about 2 miles away, it's just her in a small, country practice, and HRH loves her and never holds a grudge. She is always is happy to hop right up for her. @Greytness She really loves that stand -- she calls it her "tree." It faces out our big southern windows where she can watch all that goes on "out there." She has a perch by the window in the kitchen were she watches the "quirrels," and one in our den where she gets to hang with "Joes." Why she puts an S on the end of his name is a mystery, but so darned sweet. So lots of roaming around the house time since she's my only fid, easy to keep track of her. @Timbersmom Thanks! She talks up a storm all_day_long. Sometimes I tell her, "Let's have some Q U I E T time." Alas, she does not comply. hahahaha She will, however, if she is "night night," and we are being noisy, will give a loud sharp whistle and will every once in awhile tell us "too yowd!" Naturally, we hush up and say, "Sorrrrry." LOL @neoow Awwww..., Alfie! Gosh 16 years already! It really *is* wild how we keep learning. Ever since her Vet visit, I check her new feather casings every morning and am pleased to say that after one week of medicine the new ones are all back to white and I see no signs of the black ones. Just that one little tip, had I known earlier may have let us catch this super early on. It's great to see all of our friends here, and to have life getting back to "normal," or as normal as it can be around here. HRH is snoozing away on her perch in here with me as I type, I think she is resting a lot as her body heals and she can be so relaxed because she is well on the road to recovery. Plus it is a rainy day here today, and she is always quiet and snuggle in on rain days. Wishing everyone a great Friday Junior and hope that you slide right into the weekend and into some sunshine!

Perfect! It's all about them and what they want. My greys love a popcorn piece or two.

Hi Peggy and welcome to the fourms! Thank you for taking in a rescue grey! First of all, these birds operated in what we call "grey time". This is the time it takes for an individual bird to accept changes in their environment- be it a new food, new toys, new people, new cage etc etc. Every bird is different and will accept changes at their own pace. Trying to force the issue will cause a fear response and will damage the relationship with your bird. So it is absolutely critical to observe the birds responses and start learning a bit about their body language. Body language in grey's is quite subtle at times and sometimes we don't always notice it. A bird can be trying to tell us a lot through their body language and we totally miss it, so the last resort is a bite to get their message across. Your bird has just had a massive change to their lifestyle. Did you know or interact with your bird at all before bringing her home? If not then absolutely everything in her life has been tipped upside down and she is probably still adjusting to changes. New home, new flock, new environment, new routines... it's a LOT to take in! She will need some time and space to adjust to all these changes. But she will get there and she will accept you as part of her flock. At two years old, she is still a very young bird so I have no doubt that given enough time you will build a wonderful bond with her. Do you know what her favourite treat is? If not, try offering her lots of different foods and treats until you find one or two she REALLY likes. So for example, if she really likes almonds, do not feed them as part of her daily diet- keep them as rewards. You can then use that favourite treat as a reward for good behaviour - this is positive reinforcement. So if she steps up, she gets a piece of almond (not a whole one - save whole ones for REALLY good work). Do not move away from the cage at this point- just get her stepping up regularly. Always let her go back to her cage or a perch if she wants to at this point. You can then start rewarding her for staying on your hand. Again, use a piece of almond not a whole one. If she's still comfortable and content on your hand for a few more moments, she gets another piece. If she's still doing really well and making no attempt to leave, maybe go ahead and give her a whole piece. Again, always give her the option of getting back to her cage. As she is clipped and maybe unable to fly then always give her the option to retreat back to her cage, as she doesn't have a flight option. Keep talking to her whilst she is on your hand - make it sound like a good thing and sound excited about it. Tell her about all the places she will be able to go with you if she stays on your hand rather than going back to the cage. Make it a fun and positive experience for her. Once she has mastered this (and it may take some time) then SLOWLY start moving her a little further away from her cage. Reward her for staying calm. If she bites, do not take it personally (even when it hurts!) and just calmly return her to her cage and back off. Keep using pieces of whatever her favourite treat is. Only reward with a whole treat occasionally. This helps to keep the bird motivated to work towards the big treat. Or if she has a couple of favourite treats, find out which she likes better and use that as the special treat. Keep these training sessions short to begin with. She might not have had much structured training so it might take her a little while to figure out what's going on. Get her to repeat the behaviour successfully a few times then stop. You can slowly extend this if she is willing- but as soon as she shows sign of boredom (or goes for a bite) then back off and let her return to where she is comfortable (a perch or her cage) Do keep us updated with any progress. We would also love to see photos of her if you are able to.