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A Snickers (CAG) favourite. Setup: Nighttime/bedtime. You're are riding your Mum's hand to your cage and decide you aren't ready for bed. Simply put one foot on one human finger, swing downwards and just "go limp" and hang upside down by one foot. Your upside down body sways gently as she walks you to your cage. "Now let 'em try to put you back in your cage!!!" Bwu ha ha. "I'm upside down here! I can't possibly stand, I am too weak, I can't possibly step onto my perch while hanging upside down!!!" Adorably cute. And, if you're in a hurry, a huge drag. I have tried just laying him on his back on bottom of cage but lemme tell ya -- that foot NEVER lets go of your hand. The harder you try to dislodge the foot -- the tighter the hold becomes! A second hand used to forced an upright position is wasted, does absolutely nothing to force my CAG to stand up again!!! This 'limp body" can waste an additional 10 minutes each evening when his ingenious 'I'm too weak to stand upright/my body is completely limp" trick is played. Gotta love a grey -- they're just too smart!!!! AND, of course, Snickers earns an additional treat reward (mostly just so he'll let go) -- so a double win with this self-taught trick! C'mon guys -- what 'tricks' has your Grey learned by him/herself???

hello...I'm Luca's mom and I am new to Greyforum. - I have had my 19 year old Grey shortly after she was hatched in an incubator! We know she is a "she" as she lays eggs quite regularly(2 - 3 times a year). For the past eggs, I have just discarded them (one a day) while she is distracted with eating or drinking, but this time, I decided to leave them and see what she does. My research and common sense would tell me that the best time to remove the eggs is when she gets tired of them and ignores them, or tries and push them out of her nesting box. WELL, she has been sitting on her 3 eggs and two wooden balls(from one of her toys) for the past 4 weeks! She allows me to feed her her regular food(by hand) and she is drinking, but is not budging from those eggs. Just recently I moved her food and water dishes down closer to her. She is not getting a lot of exercise and no play time. She acknowledges me by watching me and occasionally lunges at my hand if I am offering her food etc. Now what?Any ideas? Thanks

I'm sure the birds are training the humans instead of the other way round... Alfie rattles his food bowls when he's not happy with the contents. He grabs and pulls on them to make a loud metallic clicking noise which is highly irritating. I stupidly fell for this and would take his food bowls away for inspection/refill before bringing them back. Sometimes I'll change the food completely, sometimes I'll add a few tasty morsels on top. If it's fresh food that he's just refusing to try I will take it away, move it around the bowl a bit and bring it back to try and trick him into thinking I gave him new food. Either way, he knows this is a good way to get attention and will do it repeatedly. Even if he's just had his food changed. I do my best to ignore him now and only change the food when it actually needs changing. He's a fussy bugger and sometimes can't be bothered to rummage/forage in his bowl for his favourite bits. He knows if he does it long enough then I will come over though. 😂

I bought the African Grey specific pak-o-bird and GreycieMae destroyed the insides including chewing a hole in the stainless screen mesh. Also their zippers wear out after a little while and I can't find anyone that will put on a new heavier duty zipper. I'd save your money.

Hello and welcome to the forums! I'm afraid I don't have any experience with egg laying as I think Alfie is a male (though have no actual proof) and "he" has never laid eggs. Hopefully someone else will come along soon with some more advice. However, please do know that none of us here are vets so if you have any doubts it might be best to consult with an avian specialist.

Welcome!!! While I've not experienced bird layers-yet-Lol! I've heard people mention replacing them with dummy eggs. I've also heard that eventually they do grow tired of trying to incubate them. While I do realize that 4 weeks is a long time to be sitting on eggs, at some point she will abandon them. Hopefully others who have experienced egg laying will chime in soon.

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Salut tout le monde ! Our bird Timmy has a perch - the kind on wheels - that's been in the garage since we moved. It sat there over the winter and got pretty cruddy. Today I gave it a good cleanin', so Timmy can hang out with me up in my room! Each branch of the perch has a hook on the underside to hang toys, but they're all a bit rusty now. I know the right thing to do is to change out the hooks, but my mom is being stingy about it, as though me changing out the hooks - of which we have plenty more! - is somehow an inconvenience to her. She seems to think that rusty hooks and rusty toys are just fine. So what do I do? How do I handle this situation? For reference, she also thinks that cigarettes and bugspray are just fine as well...

I thought it would take me forever to get Alfie interested in his back pack because of the all the troubles I normally have convincing him to go in his travel cage. I was really surprised when he showed so much interest. I haven't been able to get him outside for a little while because the weather has just been rubbish. It's always sunny when I'm stuck at work and when I'm at home it's too cold, raining or REALLY windy. We also seem to have multiple seasons in one day quite a lot so you never know what the weather is going to do from hour to hour. Very annoying!

In which case then I'll just replace like for like as and when needed. It's a cheaper alternative and seems to do the job well.

I spend enough time getting Snickers in his cage or carrier for the vet -- totally envious of you guys who manage a backpack!!! Too cute to see though! I so wish Snickers would welcome such outdoor adventures....

I've known my macaw to sit on eggs for several months -- to the point that some were going bad and 'had' to be removed. I do know removing the eggs just caused her to lay more -- and I didn't want her to deplete all her calcium by excessive egg laying. It has to be their choice to stop brooding; so removing the eggs early to "speed up" the brooding process can work against you -- they'll just lay more. Fake eggs are a good alternative if yours will accept them. Also, reducing hours of light a day reduces urge to lay more eggs. The old rule of 12 hours day and 12 hours of night helps (a little) to prevent over-broodiness. The tend to lay eggs and brood them when the days (light provided) times are longer than their night/dark times. I offered a calcium mineral block for mine, and just accepted that about once a year she would tear up paper for a nest and sit on eggs a few months. (I don't breed, so hers were infertile duds). Welcome to the forum!

Personally I would definitely swap them out, especially if you have spares handy. They could be toxic to birds if the metal contains zinc or lead. See: https://www.beautyofbirds.com/refinishingcages.html https://birdyrevolution.blogspot.com/2012/10/bird-metal-poisoning.html If you're able to change the hooks out yourself, what input do you need from your mum? I'd just go ahead and get it done. Cigarettes and aerosol sprays are a terrible idea around birds as they have sensitive respiratory systems... but I suspect you're already aware of that. I don't have much advice except to maybe arm yourself with some resources and try and educate your mum... however I do appreciate that this can be tricky.

It's one from a website called northern parrots which is a UK based company: https://www.northernparrots.com/parrot-backpack-carrier-prod831300a/ I'm not sure it's quite as good as a pak-o-bird but they are trickier to get hold of over here. I have since located a website which will sell them - so if Alfie does start to put any holes in his current one then I'll get an upgrade to the reinforced pak-o-bird carrier.

That's very good to know! 😉

Oh cool! I'll keep an eye on it then. Such a great idea and I don't believe there any services like that over this side of the pond.

Once I've figured out all that's involved with international shipping, then most likely yes! I'm still in the process of setting up the shipping parameters for my new business.

How exciting! I hope it works out for you! I'll take a look at the site when I'm at home. I'm assuming you won't be able to ship to the UK though?