Jane08

I also think our birds dream. I have slept the night with our two in a room a few times and I always hear them making noises and they sound like dreaming noises. MIT have also done some interesting research on animals and dreaming. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/dreaming.html

I call ours when I am away and have them on video so they can see me and I talk to them. Makes me feel better to see them and they know it's me as well and seems to work to let them know I am okay. You might see some sulking when you get home, our male is very good with that when I come home after traveling. He won't look at me or come to me and just ignores me for awhile. I can see on him though that he is excited to see me but trying to contain it. So funny as he can't hold out long before he is flying over to me for a cuddle.

I feel for you we went through this with both of ours when they were young. It got so bad we had to think up new ways to out smart them. I was late for work so many times when they were young. The most creative thing we did was put a treat on the open door of the cage, our male would fly to the perch and eat the treat and we had a string tied to the door and as soon as he landed we pulled the string on the door and closed it. He thought he was ok there as he was still outside the cage and didn't see the string that closed the door. haha. Another trick I used was have them on my hand and when we go towards the cage I turn my hand so they can't see the cage and are facing me and then I lean over them a bit, basically to cut down on the chances of them flying off and have them close to my stomach and just as I get to the cage I turn my hand and put them in and give them a treat. I also started talking to them when they were young and tell them beforehand what is going to happen and why they need to go in. I say to them that they have to go into the cage now as I have to go shopping, work etc. I give them a reason every single time I put them in and spend a few minutes explaining to them. I also reassure them that I will be back soon so they know. I even do this now after 6 years. I know they understand as when I say I have to go to work they now say back to me " go into the cage" and I know they understand. Basically every time I want them to do something I talk to them and tell them why and explain it. It probably sounds crazy but this has really worked for us.....not a quick fix, it took years but it's really worth it. Now it's a piece of cake to get them in.

With our male it was love at first sight. He was a baby sitting there fluffed up looking all majestic and he let me scratch his head. With our female it has taken about 5 years and now I feel that towards her. It has taken that long for her and I to come to a place where we both feel comfortable. She now gives me the best kisses and my heart bursts with love when she does that.

You can get them online in Sweden from here: http://www.djuraffaren.se/index.php?route=product/search&keyword=harrisons%20pellets

I also don't think you made a mistake or damaged your chances. You will be surprised how adaptive they are. We also have a male and a female and they were about the same age, we got the female (who was 3 months then) a year after the male and wanted them to live together. We had them in separate cages when they came home and let them out together at the same time. Our male was a bully to her but she just learned to fly away from him. After 3 moths we noticed that they seemed to get on and one day the female screamed when I put her in her cage and when I took her out to see what the problem was she wanted to go to the males cage. I let her in and sat there for an hour and watched them. She checked out his cage (seeing if it met her standards to move in, hehe). I then took her out and put her back in her own cage. Over the next week we increased the time she was in his cage with him everyday until finally they were happy to be together full time. They now live together and are bonded together, but they are also bonded to us. Like you say just let them work it out for themselves, you do have a good chance as they are so young just give it a few months.

If you need any help with the investigating let me know as I live in Sweden. The info Birdhouse gave comes from the Swedish Agriculture Department and is the latest information as I also checked it in Swedish.

Interesting, but not something I would use on our parrots. Predatory birds have very strong legs to be able to deal with the prey they capture and our greys don't wrestle with food that fights back so their legs are for standing on their perch and climbing. I would be afraid something would happen to their legs as they are not strong like a predatory bird.

Check out this video that another member posted, so you can see what it looks like when they are bonding. http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?196082-What-does-this-mean&highlight=regurgitating

aaww, he is saying he loves you.

LOL yeah they are a couple of pigs they eat anything. Yes maybe I need to say big boned. The picture is also funny because one day he put his whole head through the hole and was the stuck and couldn't get his head out. After a lot of coaxing and gently pushing his head we got him out. We were at a bird meet a couple of months ago and this person was in front of one of our birds looking at her and then I hear them discussing how fat she was. I didn't know what to say. I then went up to our bird and starting to tell her how beautiful she was.....I sing that song to her "your beautiful it's true, there must be an angle with a smile on her face when she thought up that you should be with me". We took them for a health check up as I was concerned but the vet said they were fine and she actually likes to see them with a bit of meat on their bones.

Wow I must have a couple of fatties, mine are both 500 and 510 (Cags).

I think it is good to get another early on if that is what you want and can handle. We had our male and when he was just about one we got him a girlfriend. We felt sorry for him being home all day alone. We were lucky and they got on, so 3 months later we had them living in the same cage together. We have never had any problems with this and I don't see any reason why they can't share a cage if the cage is big enough and they get on. Ours are bonded to each other and do all the mating rituals but they are also in some way bonded to us and make the mating noises with us as well. Of course we went through stages of the normal grey challenges, screaming, biting and both were different in this respect. I can say it is rewarding with 2 as you really see how happy they are together and do things together that we could never do with them with regards to playing, preening and even learning from each other.

We have closed bands on ours and if someone found them or stole them they would need to be very dumb to try and cut off a closed band. I could also identify ours by the things they say, they know our names and where family lives and they say these things all the time. Even if they were traumatized I am sure they would scream for us. Of course you could also show it by being the only one who could touch them. Its like that one in Japan that flew off and after a few days started saying a phone number and it turned out to be the owners phone number.

I also give ours egg, boiled and they really like the egg shell so I leave some egg in the shell and give it to them. Chicken is a big winner in our household, they love it. They don't like tuna, but salmon is another story, love it to the point where they take huge bites of it and I think they might choke on it.