danmcq

Thanks Barbara. It is just a play area he enjoys. He sleeps on his top perch in a corner or in his food bowl once in a blue moon. Edited to add: He has had a Box like this in his cage since he was about 6 months old. When he was young, sometimes I would find him sound a sleep on his belly and his feet sticking out of the opening. He never does that anymore. We change the box about every 2 weeks, by then he has chewed and scratched the bottom and opening out.

Playing on his bell in the cage: Getting the Casba ready and inviting my wife:

Oh boy, I can feel the burn! I have a better tip for you, to hell with holding the fingers on his beer, drink it and a few more. While holding your burnt finger on HIS next beer.

LOL Steve!!! Well, I have blown on my childrens stomach when they were babies making the fart noise, I left the kisses to my wife. Dayo would bite my face off if I tried that, now Kim can do anything with him and does kiss his back gentle at times.

Oh Jesus, wiping the tears form my eyes from laughing so hard at that mental picture... That is odd behavior, but many do crazy things when the are angry or want something. African Greys nor any other Parrots have a "Penis", the Vasa does have what is called a "Hemi-Penis" which is basically a rather reptilian type obtrusion of the Cloacal enlarged. It would be interesting if you could capture a photo of him when doing this. Here is Vasa Parrot excited:

It could be diluted too much. I found the following very helpful post by another bird person that makes their own colored toys: ***** To get started, make sure you have some plastic containers that are not going to pick up your colors. I highly recommend disposable food containers like Gladware and similar items. Don't destroy your mother's tupperware if you don't have to! *grin* Next, gather your pieces and separate them into dye lots - different piles for different colors. Separate your containers and take out your dyes, then start putting different colors into different containers. I recommend yellow, red, blue and green to get started. Then you can reuse your dyes afterward to make purple and orange without wasting supplies. Now, make sure you add an entire bottle of color per container. Do not skimp or you'll have wishy-washy results that fade quickly. Then boil some hot water and add enough water to each container so that it'll cover the wooden pieces --just guess here, because your pieces should not be in the containers. You can add more later. If using vinegar, add this next. A 1/4 cup per container is plenty and it's not always necessary to use it if you want to avoid the stench. Tip: To get brighter colors, use paste food coloring, commonly available at Wal-Mart and grocery stores with bakery supplies. It's used to color icing and the like for cakes and produces a brighter color, but is more costly. To get the brightest color, rub on with a paper towel as if it were wood stain. Good for coloring perches and other large items. This next step is the easiest... add your wooden pieces and, ta-da, wait. That's right, wait. Let them soak for about 30 minutes in the colored liquid, making sure you stir it so all pieces get good coverage. The boiling water helps open the pores of the wood so it absorbs more coloring, but it also makes vinegar stink more, so keep that in mind. Tip: Adequate ventilation is a GOOD idea. Vinegar won't hurt your birds, but it sure does stink! Lastly, you'll want to dry your pieces, and in order to avoid one piece picking up another piece's color (trust me, I found out the hard way...), make sure you dry your lots separately. You can either lay each piece flat on doubled-up newspaper on a countertop, or use wire baking racks with newspaper under them to catch drips. Tip: If you get food coloring on your counter top, just use something with bleach in it and it'll come right out. The faster you get to cleaning it, the better though. And there you have it, the fine art of dyeing bird toy pieces. Of course, if you're lazy or don't want to go through the mess and fuss, you can just buy your pre-coloured pieces online from somewhere like Windy City Parrot, which I do occasionally. *grin* One Final Tip: Store your colors in the fridge in the Gladware containers for future use, if you think you're going to dye more. Why waste it? *****

Very touching, thanks for sharing this.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Harvey has you kissing his feet, oh Jesus, I'm rolling on the floor laughing after spitting the coffee all over my lcd screen. I think your behavior is the strange one. Wanna kiss some human feet??? :p Great Job Harvey, you have her trained very well as your princely servant.

LOL Jill and Dee - Yes that heron standing around 4 feet tall outside my patio door with one of the Koi at his feet was quite a shocker. Who would ever supposed one flying over would spot one in the pond at the bottom of the waterfall in a back yard? I was taking to a person down at a local hardware store regarding that and he said it happens all the time and many people mus literally place chicken wire or other netting over there ponds or all the Koi will be eaten because those intelligent buggers know where they got their last easy lunch at. Heck even one of my Dobermans was standing behind looking like "I'll let you handle this one Pops".

Great suggestions by all. One thing I noticed over time and offering all types of veggies and fruits, is they may prefer them cooked rather than raw and vice-versa some days. They especially seem to by more apt to try them initially if they are still warm. They eat according to what hits there taste buds that day. One day they may eat corn, the next broccoli and some a little of both, then one day not touch either and only eat for example sweet potatoes. I always offer a bowl of cut up veggies of many types such as broccoli, corn, sweet potatoes, beans, etc. and they eat what they wish that day. So just keep offer a various mix of veggies and fruits and eventually you will see what he prefers.

Great suggestions on the birdie bread mix. We use Harrison's as well and "Add to it" with some RPO, Walnuts, corn kernels etc. Both our birds love it. Just experiment. It does take a while for a bird to decide if they really like something or not. Also, there are always a pile of small crumbs everywhere from anything they eat like that.

Oh Jesus, that was a close call with Phoenix! Glad to hear your ok.

I second Barbara's "Good Job"! Marcus actually sounds like a real sweetheart.

Food coloring is the safest to use. It is what all bird toy manufactures use.

It just struck me as so out of character for him. It also makes me wonder if we had not been home, how much damage he may have done to himself and we would never have known why. You just read so many times of a bird going crazy in their cage and damaging many flights. I guess I now need to make it a practice to pull the verticals when we leave so there is no chance of something startling him out of the ordinary when we are gone. I had never previously considered this happening from an object so far away. We have all types of birds fly over while Dayo is outside, including various species of large hawks and he never reacts like that. If anything he goes to the bottom of his cages and watches until they are gone.

What a wonderful rescue story. Thanks for sharing this and following up with an update.

I was sitting at my PC working this morning around 7:30 and all of a sudden all hell broke out in Dayo's cage behind me. He was flapping all over his cage (No damage to him thank god) and finally came to rest grasping the front cage door peering out the patio sliding glass doors extremely focused and fearful of something out there. So I turn around and look out. About a 100 yards from our house, was a huge crane with an air conditioner suspended in the air over a house they were evidently replacing one on. I calmed him and told him what it was and that it was "Ok" then went ahead an pulled the vertical blinds across so he would no longer see what he perceived as one god awful threat. I have never seen him react as violently with such determine to get the hell out of dodge as this. i know he can see out there all day long everyday when in and outside the house. It just seems so disturbing to me that ONE NEW THING that does not belong in the skyline a 100 yards away would cause such strong fear inducing emotions. Anyone else ever seen such a freak-out from a distant object like this? It is hurting my brain...... Even when a Harley pulls up with thunderous straight pipes, he doesn't act like that. He Just pulls in close and snuggles against me, but does not freak out. When the friend gets off the bike and comes in all is fine.

The others gave great responses. I buy most my parrot toys and parts from windy city parrots : http://www.windycityparrot.com/page/Windycityparrot/CTGY/toyrope It may take a while for your grey to get used to a boing, maybe not, it just depends on each bird. In terms of Pumice, Cement etc. perches the same thing goes, some may get on them, some may not.

Great and entertaining video of Issac, thanks for posting it.

Thanks for the story and the quick thinking to stop the bleeding.

Hi Di!! Yes, that site was completely redone. It's great to see you posting and I am very sorry to hear of that nasty lip bite. It's good to hear it healed well.

Welcome Corvidlist. That is VERY DISTURBING indeed!

Thanks for the update Jill. It's wonderful to hear of Harvey using his voice to start commanding you around. I am looking forward to seeing those photos.

The distance is the key factor. If you have a cage that is say 6 feet tall and your bird stays up top most the time, it may receive a minimal benefit D3 production wise. As you mentioned, the effective UVB falls off drastically once outside the range of 14 inches. The bottom line in your case, would be an Avian Sun 5.0 bulb in that socket would certainly be an improvement over a standard light source containing no UVA or UVB.

Thats great Kim and thanks for the photos.