Sallas

Greys often can "bond" to one person and get aggressive with other people that threaten their time with their bonded friend. Greys can also switch who their bonded person is. It may also have something to do with him hitting sexual maturity, How long ago did the first bite start? Could it be that their mating season is coming soon and he is protecting his "mate"?

I have a DNA sexed Male and Female TAG. The female is going through her first molt now (I cannot wait until it is over, she looks so ragity). But I have heard this about head shape before and with looking at my two I can say that the feamle has a rounder head, but the male always fluffs out his neck feathers in a way to make his head look more flat, where the female does not fluff out her neck feathers and her head looks rounder. I will see if I have a good picture of both of them. My avatar pic may be good.

1" bar spacing is ok. I have a 40" x 30" for my TAG.

I have to agree at least the Zupreem are fruity.

WOW, those people really need some mental help, there has to be some mental issues with all three of them.

Every so often birds go into a stage called molt or moult. It is where they basically lose their old feathers and new ones come in. There is mini-molts and large molts. There is not truly a full molt because if they lost all of their flight feathers, they would probably starve or get taken by a predator. Greys hit their first "large" molt at about 10 months to 1 year in age. You can tell because they will be "shabby" looking and you will see little "pin" feathers. (Feathers that are still bundled up in the coating, when the coating comes off the feather opens up like you are used to seeing.

I have been thinking about making a website about "puppy mills" and unsanitary breeders. Something that as people find breeders that qualify as "puppy mill" or the animals are in very unsanitary conditions, they could go to the website with the breeder/sellers information and record it for others to look at when they are looking for a nice place to buy their next beloved family pet, they could see some places not to go. My main worry is the legality of it. More so on how not to get a lawsuit for slander brought against the website. Maybe, if we made it mandatory to have a picture of the accused situation. The other thing I worry would happen is the big hearted people out there would see the pictures of those places/animals and go and buy them to "rescue" them. And that would be a bad side-effect for the site. I would not want to give those places business for having animals in those conditions. My main point would be either to force the places to fix the issues or force them out of business. Then I would also want a section of the website devoted to a place where people could post about the breeders/sellers out there that are doing things right and have the best interest of the animal in mind.

Yes, I would not feel confident in getting all of the Dawn residue out of her feathers and when your bird preens it may ingest the dishsoap and if he/she ingests enough it could kill it.

As Saphira is now getting much better with her talking and Thorn is working on his mimicing, I have started a new training session with Saphira, where I will ask her "what does a duck say?", and in two 10 - 15 minute training sessions, about 75% she will now answer me with "Quack Quack". Now that she is getting that one down, I will teach her, "What does the dog say?", then cat, pig, and a few others. I am still debating if I want to teach her the sound a rooster makes.

7 months is a fairly old baby, I feel that the more attention they get while they are young, the better adjusted to humans they are. A few of those very impressionable months that could have been spent with you (if you were to get a baby at say 4 - 5 months), have been spent with the breeder. Now with that being said, she still may be the perfect bird, the only advice I could give is to meet the bird with an open mind, and if she picks you, then think about it.

This would be rather hard as i believe the pros and cons are in the eye of the beholder. Some items such as the mess may be a huge deal to one person and not a big deal at all to the next.

When we got Saphira from the breeder she said "uh oh" when she pooped, she still does this, but then at about 5 months old she started saying "Pretty Bird" and wolf whistling, now at 10-11 months she has a vocabulary of about 30 words, and is constantly working on them to get them down perfect. Her wolf whistle is so good now that she could put a construction worker to shame... She know my name, my step-sons name, both cats' names (and moews like the boy cats, "i'm hungry" meow, she has the noise that we use when we call the cats down perfect (the cats are so confused). Our male TAG started with noised a little later than our female did, but he has noticed that when the microwave goes off, people go to the microwave. So now when you start to walk away from him, he does the loudest microwave beep you ever heard (he is not usually a loud bird either, I think he just really loves that noise and wants us to come back to him).

I got the birds these huge (about an inch and a half wide) colored plastic buttons to chew on/play with and one of Saphiras favorite games to play is "throw the buttons on the floor and see how many times Daddy will go get them"....Kinda feels like "fetch" but in reverse, as I am going to get them.

I am so sorry for your loss, I cannot imagine going through that. I could tell by reading your posts as to how worried you were.

I love to listen to audio books as I drive (to and from work and trips), its makes the drive just fly by and if the rush hour is bad, my anger levels are not effected as I am happy to be listening to the book. I loved the Inheritance Cycle books for this (that is where I got my birds names from), and have been wanting to get "Alex & Me" for my next book. I just found it at a resonable price on Audio CD.

I do not know if him stopping by will help her transition more smoothly, in fact it may hinder the transition and her bonding to you.

I do not see mine drink very often either (except when she is demanding some of my juice. I use a water bottle for them and I can visually see the difference in the amount in the bottle. The bottle does not leak, so the only way the level would go down is if they are letting water out of the bottle. (Which my male sun conure will do for fun. He waits until the female is doing something under the water bottle, then stick either his beak or toe in the ball the seals the bottle to let water spray out and give the female a nice bath. Then you can here her squawk at him and him laugh!!!)<br><br>Post edited by: Sallas, at: 2009/02/18 22:17

I do not think greys hit maturity until say 4 - 6 years of age (at least sexual maturity)

I would be interested also. I am always looking for new treats to give them.

Maybe I should just start with a heated perch because I do not think our house is that cold, but this would keep their tootsies warm.

Well, it is pretty constant at about 70 degrees. Yesterday we looked at them and it looked like they were shivering, so we turned up the heat a little bit. And their feet always feel cold to me.

It does help to know that my impression of the perch was correct (perch is slippery). Maybe I could coat it with gravel somehow that would be non-toxic.

Hello all, I have been debating getting a cage heater. I live in Wisconsin and depending on the weather outside our house can get cool (Even though since we got the birds we keep the temp at 72 degrees). So I thought about getting a couple items to help my little loved ones. First of all I am looking at a heat panel. I found what looks like a good unit made by AviTech, but I want to see if any of you have them or know someone who does. I would like to know how well they work, reliability, etc... Here is a link http://www.avitec.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=IHP I hope someone out there has one of these to give me a review on them. The other item I want to get for them is a heated perch. I am hoping that you all can point me in the direction of a good heated perch. The couple I have found online look like the perch part is plastic which I would think would be slippery. I was hoping for a heated perch that is also the rough (concrete, sand paper, gravel, etc..) style that will help keep their nails trimmed up. Anyone know of a decent model heated perch like I am looking for?

Are A and C not the same answer for the most part?

Aww, come on...make them practice safe sex...