birdhouse

While I was doing the mini-spa thing I ran out of tissues in the bathroom. Hair piled up w/a pound of conditioner, green clay mask (you know that really hot look!), I went dashing thru the house trying to find another box. When Phenix gets concerned or confused, he has a habit of saying, "How are you?!?" until he's convinced everything's ok. I must have really confused him because he looked at me & said, "What are you?!?" Fortunately, he only uses "What" for attitude, like "You talkin t'me!!". Otherwise, I'd have had to put this in the Cognition & Language Abilities thread! lol

lol another old vinegar & water fan, here. I think household cleaning products often sacrifice the environment & people's safety for convenience & pretty scents. However, I can't honestly say that I'd want to find myself at a doctor's office where I knew everything was cleaned w/vinegar only. I'm just not quite that convinced. So, when I'm after the really nasty germs, I will up the anti. There are some things that I use bleach water on, usually in the bathroom. When someone's sick, I will also go over things like my keyboard & phone w/plain old alcohol. And periodically, I steam clean anything that can handle it.

Thanks, Barbara. I guess part of this is just that this cage has always looked so small after his last one. I've always believed the bigger the better. Phenix seems to be an exception to that rule. But I guess I'd like a concrete way to judge since he's going to be here for a long time.

Hello kfs, Welcome to our flock & Congratulations on your soon-to-be new addition! When I'm trying to search for something, I usually Google "greyforums XXX" & have pretty good luck finding things. I thought maybe the article that you were looking at is the first of these links. But one of the others may be the stickies that Penny was referring to. If not, please don't worry about posting specific questions that may have already been covered. It gives topics new life & another chance for people to become aware of them & offer additional input. http://www.greyforums.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220&catid=5&Itemid=4 http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?72855-Bringing-home-your-Baby-Grey. http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?73094-Socializing-Your-Baby-Grey.

For a while now, I've been hoping to find Kura a big cage that would fit my space & budget. Looks like I might have finally found one (woo hoo!). Now, I have to figure out what about my cage options for Phenix. Phenix used maybe half of his giant macaw sized cage. Never could figure out why he'd only live on one side at a time. It was just really bizaar. I've read that TAGs can sometimes be less comfortable in bigger cages. So, when that one croaked, I tried down sizing to his current cage which is about 21” deep x 34” wide x 44”/63” high. He really does seem very happy & actively uses both sides of this cage, dome to grate. I'm just not sure if he's using 100% of it because he really likes it or because it's actually a little too small for him. That makes me uncomfortable when I think about him in it for the next 10 or 15 years. So I'm thinking about switching him to Kura's old cage which is about 24” deep x 36” wide x 46”/72” high. B U T Phenix has a very real melt down whenever he gets a new cage. I had this cage fully set up right next to his last one for two months before I moved him. He still sat on his food cup for 15 days after he was in. It was probably another 1-1/2 mo before he started to settle in enough to stop literally jumping at his own shadow. I really don't want to put him thru that again. I don't know that he'll be happy in the other cage. I don't know that he's not perfectly happy where he is. I'm really worried about him spending years & years in a cage that's too small, though. And I don't know how to tell for sure. I keep going back & forth & I don't know how to decide. So could anyone who has any thoughts about this please let me know? Thanks, a lot. http://www.greyforums.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=18598&d=1277875779 http://www.greyforums.net/forums/album.php?albumid=688&attachmentid=19352

Cotton frays & can be dangerous so I avoid it. I know a sun conure who lost part of his toe because a thread got wrapped in his knuckle (?) & got infected. I saw the bird while this was happening. There was nothing visible even after he started to worry at it. After that, I made sure my fids didn't get boings or toys that were made w/any type of cotton thread.

... and maybe that's really the only solid, steady thing he needs. I'm sorry things are still so frantic. But I'm really glad to know that you have Gilbert & the rest of your family to give you such joy to help you through.

What a handsome little beastie! #2 is definitely a money shot!!

Sounds like this unfortunately is the painful part of a learning curve. I think they would like to trust you but they're just not quite there, yet. I also don't know that they mean to be "biting" you, exactly. I think it may be a combination of nervous excitement, exploring you & learning your pain tolerance. I have a heavy, over sized shirt that I cover my clothes w/so my guys don't poop & pick at things. Something like that might help. They'd have something to grip & you could fist your fingers inside the sleeve for protection. For the time being, you can also use your protected hand to gently guide the birds away from your face whenever they head in that direction. I know being bitten gets old pretty quickly. But don't get discouraged. You're actually making pretty good progress & I don't think it's going to take too much longer to get this worked out.

Good catch recognizing the dreaded sunflower addiction. Many people don't realize their bird's filling up on as many of them as possible & not eating other things unless they're still hungry once they're gone. I agree that it's better to wait until you feel he's fully recovered from the move & the detergent episode before breaking his habit. He'll be ok as he is for a while & you are getting him to eat other things too. In the meantime, you might want to start feeding the other things first thing in the AM. If he's eating whatever you feed him, then just wait until later in the day before giving him seed. You can reduce his seed portions gradually. You can also pick at least some of the sunflower seeds out of the mix & save them for bribery, if you want. If he's reluctant to accept other foods earlier in the day, you can try sprinkling his dish w/just a little seed. Maybe see if he'll go for sesame, fresh or dried pepper seeds. Then you could use those rather than his mix. But I should probably warn you that he may start tossing things while he's looking for every last sunflower seed. So you might want to start experimenting w/smaller portions at first. Less clean up, less waste. Just make really sure he's getting enough to eat while you're working this out. Eventually, you can wean him over to a safflower mix, like Janet suggested. You can buy a new mix, now & start to introduce it by adding a little to his current mix. Then you can very gradually add more safflower mix & less of the old mix until he just doesn't have anymore sunflower seeds in the bowl. :confused:

super cute kids & fids! looks like they're all getting along just fine! and I'm sitting here w/a big ole smile! I certainly don't see anything to be sorry about!!

I love to watch my guys eat raw peas! They love them & literally tear right into them. Quinoa is a good food, too. I found out it was one of the ingredients in the TOP pellets that I use. So I did some investigating & now I use it in my mash or sprinkle it on my fids' food. I haven't actually gotten around to trying it, myself yet. Although it's supposed to be good people food as well.

^^^ Clever Dan! Have to admit I never thought to go DIY this problem. I've had sets of cups like this forever. If the cage design doesn't have a no flip bar, I just take their cup ring off whenever possible & use these, instead. http://www.mysafebirdstore.com/cart.cgi?group=4816&child=5200 Sometimes I like them better, anyway. I can chose where they go so they get the least pooped on.

Phenix started out a bad mess having been wild caught & abused. It took a lot to get him rehab'ed to where he was any kind of comfortable w/normal things. He's still tough about new things & new people & far from adaptable w/new situations. But that's understandable. All that said, he's actually gotten very, very much more mellow over the years. He's 20 yrs older & not as charged up about everything. But he's older & wiser, too. He's gone from neurotic to scared of ev-ry-thing, to easily freaked out to a slightly more than healthy distrust of the world. He's extremely smart & astonishingly courageous & has come so much farther than I'd ever hoped. He's by no means done & I think he's still a long way from where he'll eventually get. He's just taken a long time to get there because he started out from such a huge deficit. Including having me as his owner, I'm sorry to admit. I think if he'd had someone w/good parrot experience, instead of good intentions & instincts, he may have come along more quickly. Not to beat myself up about this, just to say that there are a lot of resources available now to help parronts work thru issues w/their fids. So, you don't have to be an expert, just know what websites they're on :cool:

Rubbish!!!!!! That would be a very good example of "You can't believe everything you hear." Maybe she was just looking to buy/sell another bird. For starters, the threads from katana600 & MarcusCAG might help show you how wrong that breeder can be. Judy's very right. The forum is filled w/happy rehome stories. I promise, you will make many mistakes along the way. We all do. But nurturing instincts work on anything that needs you. It sounds like this grey needs you & your instincts will do you just fine to help build your relationship w/Shadow. So, you done good ...and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

You will miss each other & it will take some time to work things out & adjust. But I'm sure you'll figure it out. Congratulations on your the new job!

The glucose is a quick way to get nutrition into the blood stream w/o making a weak body try to do all the work to digest & process more complicated food. At the most basic level most foods are broken down to sugar in the body because it's a simple molecule that releases a lot of energy quickly when "burned". A form of blood sugar, blood glucose is how the blood feeds our cells. Here's a more technical description, if you want http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar It may have been that the teil wasn't eating & had weakened to that point before she showed symptoms. Gotta love the way birds do that ! The glucose gave her a jump start towards getting water & nutrient levels back up so you could piece together an emergency regiment to save her. Sounds like you & your team did a great job here. I'm really glad to hear she's so much better!! Hope she's well, again, soon !

Wow, greyt job. Hate how this started, but I love how the story ends "...and they lived happily ever after." That one just never gets old!

I guess that depends on how agitated she gets. Kind of like how long to let the baby stay in the crib when she cries. Because that's one of the possible reasons she's doing it. She's still a baby & she may not be comfortable being physically separated yet. There are various degrees of responding w/o actually taking her out though. Also like a human baby, she may be reassured just by your talking to her. Parrots need to keep in touch w/contact calls. She may also settle some if you just go to the cage for a minute & maybe scritch her thru the bars. Or she may be working out how to communicate w/you & possibly testing your reaction. Whether or not she learns to use that knowledge for good or evil is partly about how you respond >;> Lots of greys do it, but you've said she's doing it for long enough to suggest she's pretty determined. She might just be miffed that she doesn't get to be out having fun anymore, too. So your mission...as you have chosen to accept it...is to figure out why, then work w/it.

They just look so adorable together in that video

...that one I'd have to question. I had a tiel who used to do that & my ekkie also did it when she was younger. Both did it to get my attention when they wanted out. koukikoukis, you might want to try to be sensitive to the difference between discouraging certain behavior & frustrating Ria. She knows you're aware of what she's doing & unless you can tune it out completely, she'll likely see it as a contest of wills... that you're not likely to win btw. If she can't get some response, preferably the one she's looking for, then she's likely to escalate the behavior or change it to something that will get a response. Never underestimate the stubborn streak in a Grey! You'll be a much happier parront for it!! That was why I originally suggested trying to avoid the issue w/a distraction, or "talk her thru" getting settled in.

Hi Max! Glad you introduced yourself & look forward to hearing more about Fatso. You can click on "Settings" in the upper right of this webpage then go to the middle left edge of the next page to edit profile & avatar, etc.

Hi koukikoukis & welcome! Hope you like us enough to keep coming round & share some stories about Ria & maybe some pics. It's probably just that Ria's frustrated at being confined. The digging is somewhat effective at getting a parront's attention, too. Many birds do it. You can talk across the house/room to her while she settles down. Let her know that you're still in contact even when she's not physically near. You can also try putting a distraction into her cage before you put her in. We're pretty big on bribery here, so food treats are often used. Foraging food treats are good because they'll hold her interest for longer, w/o all those added calories Other than that, try to keep enough interesting toys in her cage to make her feel like it's a fun place to be, rather than that she's being "locked up".

Let's see, MJ's going to be 3 in Dec, right(?) & had a kind of feisty attitude pretty much the whole way. Now, another Grey shows up in her house w/o any warning & is glued to you. Yeah, she's probably pretty unhappy about that. One of the side effects of quarantining a new bird is that it allows the resident fid(s) time to get used to the new guy being in the house w/o actually interacting with or seeing their parronts interact w/it. They ease into a relationship w/the new guy over a longish period of time, then take baby steps toward socializing it into the flock. MJ's not the right age or temperament to just jump right into having a new flock mate. So, you're probably going to have to make very, very extra nice to get back into her good graces. Even still it may take some weeks & a whole lot of attitude before it begins to happen. It's important that you don't give her any less individual attention than normal or less than the new bird. She should really get as much extra attention as everyone can possibly give her. Beyond that, I'm afraid it's about being very sensitive to what is or isn't making her happy in the moment & working with it.

It can be very frustrating, but they do things like that. You may never know what happened to set them off but keep trying. To their mind, there was something real. One of my favorite(?) toy problems w/Phenix turned out to be a fear of clear, fluorescent parts. It took me forever to find that out!! My first suggestion is to keep trying to find out what it is that he's afraid of. My second is, don't get frustrated. And third, don't push. For now, just stop trying to make him accept large toys & stick to whatever size he's comfortable with. Just let the dust settle for a couple of months or so. Then you can try experimenting w/bigger toys. again. Just remember not to push or make it seem like any kind of big deal. Put the new toy somewhere that's not w/in his personal comfy zone & see how he reacts.