Kaedyn

Eshana: It's actually really easy to make your own. It's just a few peices of PVC pipe from the hardware store, a 90 degree PVC elbow, two PVC end caps, and a roll of vet wrap for grip. The perch pipe is cut at about 9.5 inches and the long pipe is about 3 feet. Then each piece is just pressed together like Legos. After that, you wrap the perch pipe with a few loops of vet wrap and you're done. The hardest part is cutting the PVC to length. You can probably get your local hardware store to do that for you and save the cost of the cutters.

Life with a fully flighted 16 week old grey and vaulted ceilings can make for some challenging situations. Can you spot what doesn't belong on the chandelier in the first attached photo? Notice that smug, "You can't get me", look on his face"? That's why I created the High Altitude Avian Extractor, which you can see in subsequent photos. It sure beats keeping a ladder in the living room! Anyone have something similar they use?

You may recall that 5 week old grey that I was contemplating adding to the flock? Well, that happened and then some. Here are a few photos of Dakota at 16 weeks and his brother who also happens to be staying in the family.

Hi All, I thought I'd share a video update on my little friend from a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

My parents left Amos in the care of some friends when they went on a vacation and his caretakers underestimated the abilities of a grey to escape his cage. Amos set himself free and it wasn't a happy time for any of us. That was over 24 years ago. I can only hope he was rescued. I feel I need to add a disclaimer concerning a baby this young. The room these photos were taken in is a specially designed room for newly hatched chicks. Even the climate is highly controlled. Something as simple as feeding a bird this young, if not done exactly right, can kill them. I'm under the supervision of a friend who has experience breeding thousands of birds of all species. Your best bet is to bring home your baby once they're eating solid food, which varies but is somewhere around 16 weeks. If you want to interact with them at a younger age, find a breeder who will let you visit with your new baby until it's time to come home. Ranaz: My comments aren't necessarily aimed at you, for all I know you're already fully aware of the issues. I just felt it needed to be said. I don't want to give people the wrong idea or set a bad example.

He/she COULD be mine if I so desire. Which of course, I do; I want them all. For now, I'm just getting my little friend used to being handled (all over) and socialized with people. I'm working toward flight (unclipped), bathing and harness training once he/she's old enough. If I don't keep this one for myself, at least he/she might be well adjusted. I just don't take permanent additions to my flock lightly. This would be my first Timneh. We'll see..... When I was young, my parents had a Timneh named Amos that was a wild caught import. They got him a long time ago and didn't know any better.

I've attached a few preemptive mugshots of a tiny 5 week old friend of mine. I say preemptive because we all know it won't be long before he/she gets into a lot of trouble. Enjoy!

Thanks Judy! It's nice to catch up with the Grey Forums community.

I found the source of this behavior in my grays and solved it. As each pellet of Harrison's bird food dropped to the bottom of the cage, all I could picture was pennies and nickels hitting the cage floor. I imagined the ways I could impress upon my fids the monetary loss I was suffering due to their behavior, but alas they just couldn't grasp the concept. That stuff is expensive! What i eventually learned is that it was a foraging issue. They weren't being challenged enough. They didn't have to work for their food and therefore couldn't appreciate that I actually do work for their food. So I decided that I was going to put them to work. I stopped putting anything in their food bowls. I hid food in puzzle toys and treat dispensers. Amazingly it only took a few days before I started to see a change in their habits. It's been a year and a half since I placed anything in their cage bowls other than special treats. I've gone from about 50 percent of a half pound bag wasted to less than 5 percent waste. Sierra has even gone from being a bit on the low side of her weight to a more healthy size. I've also seen other unwanted behaviors disappear, such as a tendency to sometimes be too rough on their own feathers when preening. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I am convinced that foraging is critical to our grey's well being and the behaviors that have been bought up in this thread are heavily tied to it. Your grey's will be happier, you'll hopefully save on food costs and probably vet costs too, so in the end you'll all be happier! They don't appear to make this treat dispenser anymore--at least in the medium size, which seems the best fit for a grey. Luckily it's very durable and I doubt i'll ever have to buy another. It's made by Jungle Talk and called Find-A-Treat. It's the one that looks like a hanging cup with a lid. In my case, it was the miracle cure and has become their primary feeder. I still hide treats in puzzles and mazes, but I try to stay attuned to the fact that we don't always have time to construct an elaborate foraging quest while running out the door each morning. So much like I used to dump a scoop of pellets in the bowls which came with their cages, I now dump it into their Find-A-Treat. And speaking of those bowls that come with bird cages, they were not designed with the needs of a parrot in mind. I'd go so far as to say that they set a bad precedent and lead us astray from our duty to encourage healthy behaviors in our fids through foraging. That's just my opinion anyway. If you are interested in seeing what the Find-A-Treat looks like, check out the link below. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the yellow and orange hanging cup. They appear to have more than one item with this same name, but it's the cup that I'm specifically referring to. For me it was worth it's weight in gold, or at least in 2 and a half pounds of Harrison's and two happy greys. I'm sure you can find something similar or even build something if you're the creative type. I encourage you to put your grey's to work. Make them earn their food! It's in their nature. http://jungletalk.com/prod_treatdispensers.html

Hi all, I thought I'd post a quick picture and video of Sierra. The photo isn't of the highest quality, but that's the best I could get without waking her up. We were watching TV and obviously she didn't find the show as entertaining as I did. The video shows her foraging for an almond in her Zig Zag puzzle toy. She's become quite proficient at it and I think I'm going to have to find something a bit more complicated. See the video:

I have several fids and use natural gas for everything, including a gas log fireplace. I have never had a problem, other than a false alarm from a malfunctioning CO detector. When that happened, I evacuated everyone from the house, birds and all. I called the fire department who showed up with their own highly sensitive carbon monoxide detector, which they used to check every area of the house and all of my gas equipment. I replaced the detector with a new one and that was it.

I have 3 of them that I take out of town all the time. What I've found is that they don't necessarily need food and water when they are out being social. I find that this is a good time for friends and family to feed them treats, such as nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Most of the fruits and veggies contain a significant amount of water anyway. When it's time to eat pellets, I take them back to their portable cages which have food and water and are in a quiet room where they can relax or take a nap. It's also where they go when the cooking starts. If Yoshi is flighted, you probably don't want her out while hot pots and pans are on the stove. Also, if they cook with non-stick cookware, I prefer to have my birds in another room of the house with ventilation. Actually, my preference is that they don't use non-stick products, but you can't always dictate such things when you're a guest in someone else's home.

If you have a dowel made of a bird-safe wood, you can stand it upright next to one of the two vertical legs of the playstand and fasten them together using some leather strips or other bird-safe rope. You could even attach one to each leg and then run a string up high between the two dowels to hang toys from. Of course, you might want to test this setup before you hit the road to see if it makes Yoshi nervous. The stress of being away from home and around strangers, combined with a new contraption like this might be too much for some fids.