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I don't think that I'd like to save any eggs unless I've first pin holed one end to drain out its contents. 8 of my 13 fids are DNA'ed males, so that certainly helps prevent future egg laying!

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere but Alfie is an extremely picky eater. Anything new is either stared at or flung as far away as possible. His absolute favourite treat right now is cedar nuts - so I keep them for training and positive reinforcement purposes. He enjoys dried banana chips. He used to love fresh banana but has gone off that. Grapes are another favourite. His daily meals consist of a seed mix with dried fruit, dried veg and a few nuts. He seems to preferred dried fruit and veg over fresh or cooked - though he does sometimes eat sugar snap peas, mashed potato and cooked peas and sweetcorn. He did try some butternut squash and sweet potato recently as I found a couple of pieces with bite marks. But I don't think he approved because any subsequent attempts to feed him those two veggies ended up on the cage floor. I have tried every pellet that I can get my hands on with no joy. I have tried every trick in the book to get him to eat pellets as part of his diet but he resists every time. I will not entertain the idea of only ever leaving pellets in his bowl with no other food source as I think he would rather starve himself than try them. I persevere and try to present food in different ways to see if I can crack him. He seems to like it when I created a foraging tray for him and hide food in there, so I'm using that method to try and sneak some veggies in. Most still get flung though, with the occasional beak mark! I recently tried sprouting but that went down like a lead balloon. I am toying with the idea of getting a dehydrator but my kitchen is so small I don't currently have the surface space or storage space for one. But if he carries on eating dried veggies then I may have to go back to that idea. Not as good as fresh of course, but I'll take it!

All 3 of my greys are great eaters! Their breakfast consists of power greens, snap peas, sweet potatoes, banana, pomegranate arils, a grape, sprouts, my homemade birdie bread that is baked with all the veggies they turn their beaks up at, a drop of organic red palm oil, and my freeze dried blend of veggies. In the evening they get raw soaked nuts, more birdie bread, and a tsp. or two of large billed deluxe avian cuisine that doesn't contain any sunflower seeds or peanuts. They each love to snack on any steamed vegetable that I'm eating, usually broccoli and/or carrots. Most of my other birds are more selective.

Alfie just uses his beak to scoop and fling food 🙄😂

Afterthought.... Incidentally, I saved my parrot's salvageable eggs (of the 75 [maybe more] or so she laid, maybe 18 survived unbroken or non-disgusting -- they basically dry out and become very lightweight over time), so I kept them for posterity. Granted, these were macaw eggs -- nearly the size of small chicken eggs. And, she acted like they hurt to pass. Luckily she never got egg-bound. Anyway, just a suggestion to save yours! I also have a tiny box somewhere with my cockatiel eggs protected by cotton balls in them also. Cockatiel eggs were tiny; but having raised zebra finches in the 80s, I can say that cockatiel eggs are a good size larger than finch eggs. (An accident caused all my finch eggs to break -- so they got tossed ) Anyway, decorate with eggs! We save their feathers, why not salvageable eggs too???

Alfie loves to whistle. He's not a singer. (Not an amazon either, but figured I'd join in the conversation anyway!) He will copy whistles but does enjoy to make up his own tunes. He's never really learned to whistle any actual songs/tunes - despite my best efforts. He does do a good spaghetti western whistle (the good the bad and the ugly) though.

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 have been blessed with a CAG who will try most fresh veggies/fruits (esp if he see me eating them first). Have many here had difficulty with 'seed junkies" or "picky eaters?" Been there, done that. I truly feel your pain. My CAG came to me believing only seed and pellets were edible. That said, only certain 'coloured' pellets met his approval (still true -- the orange round 'basketballs' in Zupreem are deemed inedible -- who knows why??) He refuses all other brands of pellet brands and WILL NOT eat non-coloured pellets. (sigh) I am so thankful today to have a CAG who will eat most anything. Granted, I've had him 22 years and I don't pretend that was an easy road. His fave these days are his morning apple/grapes/melon, (whatever fruit I have on hand) etc.. (But apples ARE his favourite -- not red/yellow delicious or rome -- he likes the crisper, sweeter, less mealy types -- the "special" apples). Yeah, he's picky now re: apples. Don't ever offer a special apple to a CAG who gratefully accepts red delicious or romes -- they get SPOILED like us, desiring only the crispest sweetest apples available! His favourite supper is fresh veg (sometimes frozen, sometimes actually fresh, sometimes a mix) with some rice (and sometimes pasta -- whole wheat). I always keep a bowl of Zupreem pellets available for him to snack on, it's like an "all day" available snack. What does YOUR Grey eat and enjoy??? Thanks in advance -- I am always curious.

Timber does the foot toss also. I think I mentioned on another post that he does this when someone is in the room that he does not like. Funny!

Timber is a very picky eater. He will eat cooked sweet potato, cooked mixes like Higgins and soak'n'serve. He won't eat chop or birdie bread, both of which I have tried numerous times. He will eat sweet peas and a bit of broccoli if I put it on a skewer. He is a junk food junkie of course, and will eat anything deemed bad for him (i.e. pizza, cheese, hot dogs, etc.) He does like pasta and meat, which is a little surprising to me. Since he is so thin, the avian vet said to feed him meat if he will eat it and he does. He likes several kinds of cooked beans. He likes to shred artichokes (I cut the ends off, peel off some of the outer leaves, wash it well and open it up then toss it in his cage). I'm not sure how much he actually eats, but he enjoys the process. As for dry items, he eats nutriberries and a quality seed mix. I still give him 3 cc's of juvenile formula morning and night per the vet's instructions. He's a mess!

My macaw had a food throwing trick. The beauty is in its simplicity! Said parrot simply puts her foot in her pellet dish and stirs the food around and around with her foot (unaware her human can see with her with their peripheral vision and HEAR her); this ritual continues until dumb human finally makes eye contact. Then parrots grabs a handful of pellets in her foot and just tosses them in the air. Rinse and repeat as desired. Humans eventually learn when hearing that foot/dish stirring sound to NOT LOOK!

If you have the hooks on hand, would your mom notice if you changed them when she wasn't around?

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.

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.

Sometimes I also have a few choice names for Snickers I don't actually say out loud... for obvious reasons.

Snickers can do some amazing whistling (beginning part of Bridge Over River Kwai troop whistling) but alas, no singing. I can even remember my cockatiel "making up" his own whistle songs (he didn't really have an 'ear' for it, honestly). But he would whistle while standing on only one foot, with his other foot held dramatically up in the air like a hand, like "wait for it -- here comes the good part!" Um, no 'good part' ever came -- but at least he tried to be creative.

I love that! Thanks KevinD.,❤️

Exactly 🙉

Our Amazon is not a singer but Pookie a Congo Grey loves to sing however off key and uncertain of the words.