Lyric

Hi Linda, welcome here. SilverStarr is a beautiful name for your girl. Have you had her long? A vet check is usually the first step in plucking issues, once a vet has ruled out physical causes then you can move on to other issues. Do you bathe/spray your grey regularly? Many of us use aloe vera juice to spray our birds, it helps with dry skin and itchiness. You must also think if anything has changed in your environment to cause the plucking, any new pets, new furniture, change in your schedule? Try not to react at all to the plucking, she will take this as attention and may continue just to get your love. I hope you are able to get this under control before it gets worse. Best of luck to you!

What great news! I'm very happy to hear things have improved with Shadow. It's a great update- now aren't you glad you hung in there and worked things out instead of giving up on your little friend? If only more people with bird problems came to this forum for help..... there would be far less birds in shelters and looking for new homes.

Wonderful job you are doing with your grey, keep it up and keep making small steps forward, your grey will tell you if you move too fast.

Welcome to our little flock! We're glad you could join us.

Congratulations! He is very handsome and sounds like a real ham, typical grey!

Hello Eckylover- you may also try a little trick I used with my TAG when having trouble weaning him. I would make a bowl of brown rice with mixed veggies, whatever kind you like, for example carrots, zucchini, peppers, kale... Sit down with your bird and eat it with him. Let him watch you eating and enjoying the foods. The curiosity will get the better of him and he may just have a moment where he realizes "Oh, that's good, I'm supposed to eat it!" Parrots in the wild learn from watching the adult birds around them and I think sometimes we have to set an example as their parents would. It really helped me with my TAG so maybe it will help you.

Check out the "Newsroom" for a link I posted earlier about an interview with Dr. Pepperberg... I have heard a rumor that I'm getting this book for Christmas as well, and I really can't wait!

Oh, that's great! He really is picking up things fast isn't he?

That's really wonderful news Pat. Maybe she just realized giving you the cold shoulder wasn't getting her much in return and having love and scritches is much much better!

I'm up for it but give me enough notice so Lyric can get fitted for his tux. He is a lady charmer already but wanted to dress for the occasion. B)

I love it, that's a good one and I'll tell it to my family if I can remember the punch line!

It's Monday and back to work for me. Fortunately it will be a short work week as we have Thanksgiving holiday Thursday and I'm also off work Friday- hurray! I'm looking forward to spending a little quality time at home hanging out with my little ones and also hopefully getting some much needed cleaning done. Until then, just trying to get through the work days by hanging out here on the grey forum and appearing to be WORKING really hard!

Here it has been very cold all day and they are saying tomorrow should be warmer and I'm hoping they are right! I am going to a Thanksgiving dinner-type affair at my Uncle's appt tomorrow and eating a little turkey and cranberries a bit early. I won't mind one bit, I like all the traditional thanksgiving foods. Then on Sunday I am going to a cousin's housewarming party in the afternoon. Will try to work in some much needed housecleaning, bird feeding and bird and dog entertaining. It should prove to be a busy weekend for me. Hope someone out there can have a relaxing weekend and enjoy it for me too...

Those are great ideas, thanks for sharing with us all.

Thanks for the link Carolyn, I'm definitely going to check it out and hopefully it will get me inspired.

Very nice, Schroeder looks like he has a very cool roost! I also love the big double macaw cage Patsy- it looks like it would take up most of my family room unfortunately!

I'm so excited for you! Congratulations to Zzero for beginning to talk. I hope you have many interesting conversations between you.

Thank you so much for all your nice comments!

That's a great picture Trust, and you are right, Amazons really are quite remarkable. Thanks for sharing!

Those photos are fabulous, you are quite the photographer. The birds all look very healthy and happy too. Thanks for sharing with us all.

Welcome here, we're glad you've joined our little flock!

Hi AlphaWolf, we're glad you could join us. It's great you have had Rebel so long- I bet you do have some stories to share about your experiences with him.

Those are really wonderful pictures. I hope you are having fun with your new baby grey.

Yes, freezing is the way to go. It will keep the food fresh longer, keep it from harboring any insects or attracting any rodents. What a nice cousin, do you have room in your family for one more?

I don't think going cageless is really an option unless you have a room of your house to devote to your bird. You would need to make it birdproof by removing anything that the bird shouldn't chew on or anything that could be dangerous to your bird. It is great to allow a bird a lot of supervised time out of it's cage but whenever someone is not around to supervise a bird should really be in a cage. Think of letting a 2 year old child stay loose in your home unattended. There are too many things that can harm them or ways for them to get injured or even killed. Of course this is just my opinion and I'm sure there are some people that do go this route but I think it isn't always in the best interest of the animal.