kpflynn

We went camping this past weekend and took out grey baby with us. She did very well. The campground was only a 30 minute drive away. We stayed in a 28 foot travel trailer. She didn't seem to like the travel cage all that much, but did enjoy spending some time outdoors and meeting a few new people. She seemed to realize she was outside and screamed very loudly at the blue jays. We were only gone for two days. She was very happy to get home to her regular cage.

My wife is totally on board with owning a parrot now. She buys her special things at the grocery store and is always looking for things to use for toys. Sometimes she records the bird's antics on her phone while I'm at work. My parrot still won't let my wife touch her yet. She will stand on my wife's knee and accept snacks though. I think my wife is still too worried about getting bit. To my knowledge, my sweet little parrot has never bit anyone. My bird loves to be handled by me.

It was totally my idea to get a grey parrot. My wife will usually go along with my crazy ideas. I finally found a grey for sale at a pet store 150 miles away. The bird cost just under $2,000. When buying a bird at this pet store they will sell you a cage at 50% off. My wife is from Thailand and loves to haggle and get something extra for free. The only cage they had was a huge cage with a play area on top. My wife didn't want to buy a cage somewhere else and miss out on the 50% off deal. She also did not want that messy bird in her house, especially the living room! When we got the cage home and assembled, we realized the only place it would fit in our house was a spot between the living room and the kitchen. I convinced my wife that this would just be temporary. We've had Beautiful for over two months now. I think my wife has finally fallen in love with her. I do my best to keep the area clean. She keeps us constantly entertained by imitating the dog barking and by asking, "What are you doing?" every time we leave the room. We spend almost all of our waking hours in the kitchen or living room. I'm so glad we got a cage that was too big!

Our home security system includes a glass-break detector. If someone were to break a window, the security alarm sounds. Once by accident my parrot made a scream that was in the detector's range and set the alarm off. Of course this required me to run to the control box and shut the alarm off. The control box is in visual range of my bird's cage. She did this again the following week. Then she did this three times the next week. By yesterday she was able to hit the note each time she tried. I had to disable the glass-break sensor because it became totally useless. Once the sensor was disabled my bird would screech, then mimic the alarm that she expected to hear. Beautiful learned a great way to make me run to her. Operant conditioning is working against me.

Thanks everyone!

Good morning. I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This is my parrot, Beautiful. She's only nine months old. I've had her for six weeks now. She seems to be enjoying her new home. My wife likes her but is still a little afraid of that sharp bill.

Very cool! How old was Rascal when you got her?

Has anyone seen this? I watched it on YouTube yesterday. The premise seemed to be that no one should ever have a parrot for a pet. Of course I don't go along with this, but there is some great footage of parrots in the wild. Watching them really gave me some insight to their behavior. I think it would be a good show for someone that was considering getting a parrot. Some of the parrot owners on the show seemed to think that owning a parrot would be like having a goldfish or canary.