Nychsa

Congrats! I bet you'll start hearing more and more pretty soon I've found that when Bella makes a connection between words and what they mean she'll use it extensively for a while and then "file" it away into her little mental dictionary. This week she figured out what "come here ____ " means. When I want her to fly to me, I say "Come here Bella!", and when she does, she gets lots of praise. So she started using it on all the other animals in the house all week "Come here Jiggy!!" (my conure), "Come here Doc" (my greyhound), "Come here Dream!" (other greyhound). This has been going on all week - Jiggy ignores her and Doc and Dream look at me like "now what???!" :laugh:

What a riot! I think it's time you get him an agent - I mean at the very least a Broadway debute? :laugh:

Hmm, Dave, I'm not sure I agree with you entirely. Bella and Jiggy clearly learn from each other and pick up things from each other. In fact, I leverage that trait to get one to over come something the other has no problem with. For example Jiggy is a very picky eater. I thought I'd never get him to eat fresh food. Bella on the other hand eats anything. So, I decided not even to try to get him to eat the fruits and vegies and only give them to Bella on the play top and let him watch. Sure enough, curiousity got the best of him and now he eats a whole bowl of fresh food every day. With Bella, she of course was wary of new toys a while back. Jiggy on the other hand would go after them with gusto. So, again, I didn't even offer Bella the new toys - I just offered it to Jiggy and when she got tired of watching him horse around with it, she went after it. Now when I get home with shopping bags, Bella begins tearing at the bottom of them before I can even get things out. Bella is very territorial and will chase new comers (humans!) from the center counter. In the evening sitting with me is her spot and she will go after Jiggy if he tries to sit with me. I can't even imagine what she'd do if another bird came along that would require a good deal of my attention because it required some special needs. For one, I don't think I'm experienced enough to take on that kind of situation at this time - I would want to know a good deal more about how to help distressed parrot before I would attempt to rehabilitate one. In fact,there is a sanctuary close by that teaches volunteers how to work with distressed parrots and get hands on experience. I think that is what I would do before I would attempt to do that on my own. Cheers! Terri

Hi - I'm sorry to hear your friend's grey is having so many problems. Has your friend taken this grey to the vet to see if it has any health issues that may be causinghe plucking? Does she have a sense of why it is plucking and being agressive? Of course this is only a choice you can make, but I think I would not put my grey in a situation where she'd have to deal with another grey that obviously has some special and intense needs. I think I would actively help your friend find a good home for this grey if she can't keep it, and I'd make sure it's someone who is experienced and can help this grey stabilize. Cheers! Terri

Hi, I read the same piece of advice very early on so we got a digital scale as well. I weigh both my conure and my grey. My grey Bella weighs 523 gms and my conure Jiggy weighs about 120gms.

Thank you Penny! appreciate it

Talon wrote: Talon, can you elaborate on that? I'd certainly want to let the vet know who told me this that he's handing out incorrect information.

Your routine sounds a lot like ours. Bella and Jiggy are out of their cages all the time when I'm home as well. But, I've found that Jiggy, my conue, will forage at the foraging stations I have through out - either on their play stand (tall one) or the shorter ones, or the ones on their cage tops (I cover the area with shredded paper and toss food around under the paper so they have to hunt for it, and I also hide food in various things). Bella, my grey, will forage, but she prefers to play with things. Her toy boxes contain sea shells, bannana flavored wood blocks, foraging boxes, large wooden beads etc.. She also has a stack of wood coasters she's claimed and I gave to her after they became so chewed up we couldn't use them. If I don't give her toys, or puzzles to play with, she'll start messing with me wanting to play, or she'll start playing with anything else she can find - to include my lamps, tables, chairs etc..! So, even when they're out and about, I've found it important to have "planned" activities for them :laugh:<br><br>Post edited by: Nychsa, at: 2009/03/08 18:37

Char wrote: :laugh: Char! That one turns into all kinds of fun phrases! I have no idea where she picked it up - I've yet to hear ayone else around here say it. So, I'm thinking it was the TV.

Ok, I finally had a good chance to read through this. It is certainly a document that is viewed strictly from the perspective of a biologist. To me, I understood the leading criteria relative to determining whether a behavior/activity is positive or negative is whether that kind of behavior/activity would lead to a thriving situation in the wild. I believe they stated as much in the begining of the document. I thik as parrot "parents", I know I evaluate whether or not Bella and Jiggy appear to be content, happy and well. Happiness is an elusive topic. I think even as human beings we'd be hard pressed to adequately characterize when we are truely happy. Most often we are unhappy because everything is constantly changing and this invokes experiences of loss, fear, aversion, craving in our mind streams. We don't suffer because someone we loved died - we suffer because we experience loss. So, in my mind, when looking at Bella, Jiggy, Doc and Dream, I try to infuse their environment with things that seem to bring them joy, and keep those things at bay which would cause unhappy responses such as fear, anger etc.. As a personal choice, I've left Jiggy and Bella fighted. The house is large enough for them to get some good speeds going, and it allows me to see what kind of choices they make and potentially why. Through out the house they have foraging opportunities. Jiggy (conure) forages more than Bella. Bella seems to be more involved with what the dogs or myself are doing. She's also much more interested in "cyphering" things out - opening things, shredding something, playing with something. She clearly needs more mental stimulation than Jiggy. But, I would be loathe to generalize Bella's behavior and say this is so for all greys. One thing I've found through out my life time is that all animals have their very own personalities, adn while some things can be generalized, I think more often than not, there are bigger personality differences!<br><br>Post edited by: Nychsa, at: 2009/03/08 16:14

Hi, I asked my avian vet this question a well, as I'm lactose intolerant too and Bella seems to love my lactose free milk. Birds don't have the ability to digest lactose, but lactose free milk does not harm them. Since I get the Calcium enriched type, I'm hoping this will also benefit Bella as Greys do seem to have issues with a calcium deficiencies.

LOL Dan, my pleasure - she's a hoot with some of her "songs'.

Hi Shannon, I think the make variations on words and phrases just for kicks and giggles. Bella has this whole thing going on where she starts off with Peak-a-boo, and then she goes to Peak-a-boo-boo, Peaky-peaky-boo-boo, and then she added Peak-a-boo-a-whoop-dee-doo, whoop-dee-doooooo-dah! I was able to catch her doing a few here: http://www.mydeo.com/videorequest.asp?XID=46601&CID=239074

What a chatter box! Thanks for sharing - Bella sat on my knee watching the video quite intensely!

I've always live house palms around Bella and Jiggy's cages. Bella likes to actually sit on them :laugh: In fact, she kept chewing off one of the branches, but one day chewed the branch she was sitting on and promptly landed on her red feathered tush!

Bella chews on wood as well. To distract her from my things, I made her a red toy box with wood items in it, sea shells, marbles, little boxes with paper inside, and a string of wooden beads. When ever she starts chewing on furniture, I get her table top perch and put her toy box on it and she starts playing with her toys.

I would also love to see the pics but also hear more on what Pax did around the Amazon. I initially was looking for an Amazo companion, but Bella, my lovely grey got my attention instead But I do find Amazons to be characters as well....

Great! Congrats! I bet you're delighted Now remember this day, because if he is anything like my Bella,he'll be talking your ears off soon!

Wow, long report David, I book marked it and will return to it - need some time to read that on

Thanks FairY! Even though she's a little roughian at times, she's always had this "girlie" look about her. When she was at the breeders, her feathers would always be nice, and groomed, and she would prance around like a little princess. Her brothers usually had their feathers sticking up on their heads, or looked discombobulated at times, often just sitting around squaking for no apparent reason - Bella though was always on some mission! LOL!

PekingeseMama wrote: I was going to name her Tashi initially, but the more I looked at her when I was visiting her at the breeder's, the more I kept thinking how beautiful she is. So, I thought she should either be named Beauty, or Bella, Italian for Beauty

Char wrote: :woohoo: :blush: :woohoo: Char!!! I think you're on to something!! Maybe that's why she starts acting crazy too! We're all nuts around here!

judygram wrote: {Feel-good-00020114} Awwww!!!

Ouch Pat!!!!!! Wow! You know recently Bella started saying "No! Go! sssshtttt!" when ever she finds something offensive happening around her. That's given me a good deal of insight into some of the things she gets startled by, and it's really not something I would have known about if she wouldn't say something. For example, she was on my shoulder while I was picking up around the house. I picked up one fo the dog toys and Bella jumped and said "No, no no! Go!" The toy was in my left hand, and she was sitting on my right shoulder - I would never have guessed it was bothering her! I thought about his for a while and realized they are prey animals and are even in a domestic situation constantly alert to everything happening around them. Things neither we nor maybe other animals in the house would notice! Hope your pinky gets better!!!!

Hi, how old is Koko? I think without more information about when she screams, and uder what circumstances, it would be difficult to relaly help out. What kind of routine do you guys have?