Muse

I think you can order most of Bob's stuff on their website. Not sure how much the shipping is, but they have things you can't find at the stores.

Oh, he surely does. It seems like I love him more each day. He now hangs in the kitchen with me a lot. He will stay on the stand for long periods of time, but then will want to fly to me. If I don't offer the stick, he lands on my head. I let him stay there for a while the other day however he started gently tugging the hair, and got more and more 'enthusiastic' with it until it hurt. I asked him nicely to step on the stick, and he did with no problems - except taking some hairs with him. I wish he'd pick on the grey hairs and leave the brown alone, lol.

Amen! I have an industrial class steam cleaner and clean everything from play stands, cages and floors to bird toys with it.

Amen, Nancy! He amazes me more each day!

Tonight I actually moved the stick VERY close to my chest. He was maybe FOUR INCHES from my shoulder and sitting calmly. I looked at him and smiled and said "Do you realize how close you are to being on my shoulder, Little Man?" (my nickname for him - My Little Man) I cannot believe how quickly he's getting used to me.

ROFL - if we wanted extra money hanging around, we wouldn't have birds, eh?

Emphasis mine - I agree! We do not feed pellets here. When a bird comes in on pellets we slowly wean them over to a natural diet. We feed a high percentage of fresh along with a mix that consists not just of seed, but of dehydrated fruits, veggies and greens. Megan has been pellet free since she was a baby, and her last three physicals have been great. I don't like the fact that most pellets contain menadione, something I eliminated from my dogs' and cats' diets years ago - only to find out they were putting it in bird pellets. The few that don't have it (so far I have only found Harrisons, Goldenfeast Golden'obles and TOP pellets) have other things I am not sure I want to feed my birds. Many are mostly corn or soy. Some contain peanuts. I found it easier to just not feed processed foods like pellets and go with pure, natural foods and give lots of variety. Our vet said make sure we give the Greys figs. She said they have a lot of things that are good for them.

Some day he will step up onto my hand. I have a feeling once he does there will be no looking back. At first he didn't want to come out of the cage. Then he didn't want to leave the safety of the cage. As he gets more used to us, he is now flying around the house. He did a great wing-tuck to fly through a small gap in the curtains to get into the dining room the other day. I can't wait to see him when he reaches his full wild Grey potential!

I tried that with the stick. Maybe it has something to do with him being caught as a young bird, but he seems to not trust my hands. He always lands on the end of the stick away from my hands. I suspect he may be afraid I am going to reach out and grab him. But he's coming along. I was just searching for an email and ran across one I'd sent to Matt Smith from Project Perry - who introduced us to Peck's family so that we could adopt him - and that was back in April and in it I said he did not try to fly. HA! That didn't last long. His last owner said he could, but would only do so when spooked. Now he follows me from room to room. He also flies up the top of the fridge. He does not get in to anything, just sits there patiently waiting for me to get the stick and ask him to step up to bring him back down. Slowly, I am getting closer and closer to him. So far no bites and I think he's learning to trust more and more. He's really a pretty awesome little guy.

Ouch. Your vet charges a bit more than ours. I think our exams are $45 here. I just had two Greys in and one had a beak reshaping and a pedicure and the other was in for a followup for plucking. No tests, just some advice and orders to get her some Rescue Remedy. (The previous visit we were prescribed Soother spray). The total bill was around $101, I think. I don't know about the Lupron. Some drugs are ridiculously expensive. Especially since it is used as a cancer treatment. As satan told God when he was asking to further tempt Job - "Skin for skin, all a man has he will give for his life." Drug companies know this and take full advantage. Is the Lupron a treatment for the hormonal (egg laying) behaviour? I know they mentioned this for Aria when we thought she was a he with a testicular tumor. Makes that $72 for the blood draw and DNA sexing seem like a pittance. I am glad she turned out to be a she! Good luck with Gee. I hope you can get her to stop plucking. We are only having limited success with Megan. (It appears to be behavioral - related to my new job).

I agree! Megan has been in the terrible twos since her hatch day and she's three and a half now. LOL I am sporting another nice bruise (with accompanying beak marks) from my last attempt to put her in the sleeping cage so I could get dressed without her eating the bedspread.

So adorable! Made my night!

I have tried that, but Megan knows the sink is where the scary water comes out and won't come close to getting in it. Her majesty prefers to have a bowl (like Greycie - WITH ice) held for her by one of her servants (usually daddy). I suspect she feels it is our duty for putting her through the indignity of getting her feathers wet.

Mar had one of those plastic carousel toys. He broke it the first day. It's on Peck's cage now and he's so gentle with the remaining doors. It's amazing to see the differences in how these birds interact. Mar was all about brute force to get to what he wanted. Peck is more methodical and tries to figure things out. They are such amazing creatures.

Peck is now recalling. He's been flying to me and landing on my head. Not the best experience for either of us. I hold my arm out but he still doesn't trust me quite enough. The other night he looked SO close to stepping up on my arm. I have been trying to spend as much time as I can near him. So I thought, well, why not try to see if he'd land on the stick? The other day, we were all in the kitchen. Now that he steps up on the stick, he goes all over the house with me. Megan was flying from the play stand to daddy, and Peck kept acting like he wanted to fly to me. So I held out the stick and called, and sure enough, he took flight and landed on the stick. I praised him and gave him jackpot (getting to stick his beak in the pine nut container and help himself) and put him back on the stand. Then we tried again. That time, he declined jackpot and acted like he wanted to do it again! He seems to enjoy flying across the room to me and he's not doing it to get a treat. Today he was recalling so I got him on video, and made a short movie. Here it is: I am so proud of this boy! He's only been with us since April 11. He is just such an amazing little guy.

I know Project Perry is on there somewhere. I have been boycotting Amazon over UPS mistreating my packages and Amazon sitting on their hands and not giving me a choice of who delivers the things I buy. But I have been donating directly. Also - Busy Beaks (http://www.busybeaks.com/) does a dollar for dollar match of toys purchased for valid 501©3 rescues (they must have their 501©3 designation to qualify) during the month of May. It's over for this year, but they do it yearly. This is a good way to make your donations go further! If you have a favorite non-profit rescue, tell them to get signed up with Busy Beaks before next year!

Hi, PhillyT, I think Greys are much like humans. You can't say "all female humans are...." or "all male humans are..." - each individual has their own personality. With our babies, Marden, our boy, was sweet and gentle, and Megan, our girl, is high-strung and bitey. She's also super intelligent, has a huge vocabulary, and has talked since she was three months old. Quiet? Oh hahahaha. Mar was a very quiet bird. He rarely talked. He did vocalize when he was playing but the rest of the time he was very quiet. And our "hen" adores her daddy but tolerates me. And I do believe in babies picking you. Mar picked me, without a doubt. Good luck and congratulations on becoming new 'parronts.'

What an excellent post. Very well written!

We do the same with the pets as we did with the kids. I have always worked crazy hours, and usually night shifts. They've been really good about adapting. They all tend to sleep later than the outside birds. And on days we get up early (for vet appointments, etc.) mama joins them for birdie quiet time. I have my own blankey and pillow in the bird room and I sack out right on the floor. Once, Meg and Peck were having their naps atop their cages, and Peck decided to come explore and I woke up to him tugging my hair. I am so glad they all love naps!

Oh, he is just a darling! Congratulations!

That is just precious!

Emphasis mine - but THAT! Soooo true.

Oh so adorable! I love those sweet baby noises they make.

I am just amazed at the difference in how they choose to interact with me. We are looking at taking a very violent wild-caught ex-breeder (unsuccessful) Amazon. Not sure how that is going to work out. But I bet it will be a learning experience as much as Peck has been.

Thank you, Dan. I wasn't aware it took that long. I knew they stayed close to their flock. I know many other birds are ready to be on their own after only months. I used to watch the starlings fledge and it seemed like overnight they were at the feeders by themselves and mom was already on another clutch of eggs. Even if they leave 'home' at five, that's far beyond the abilities of a five year old human.