darth_mint

Well, Nicky knew exactly what I was doing and gave me two nasty nips. Here's an account of how he outsmarted me twice in a row! 1) I started by offering a sunflower seed over my hand as usual. This time, he wanted the seed, but he didn't want my hand! So what did that little brat do but put a nice dent in the offered hand, then grab for the sunflower seed the instant I jerked back...oh, and he got the seed. I was left nursing my finger. 2) All right, if you're going to be that way! After the bite stopped throbbing I held out my hand again, sans sunflower seed. Nicky gave me a very slimy look and backed off. I moved my other hand up behind him...and instead of stepping up, he snaked his head back under his wing and nailed me in the thumb. Then he lunged at the hand in front! At that point I decided I'd lost this round and removed myself, along with all the sunflower seeds. The brat has me beat...for now. :evil:

Make sure the grate is high enough that their little beaks can't reach the newspaper through it! Mine was set a bit low and Nicky had a ball dragging the (pooped-on) newspaper through the grate and tearing it to pieces which he then threw around...poop and all. I had to jury-rig wire fasteners to prop it up :laugh:

judygram wrote: I have to agree with this. It is really a question of finding the balance in how you, yourself, manage the different aspects of your life - aspects being your role as a parent, as the owner of a companion bird, as a spouse, as pretty much everything important you're doing with your life. If you cannot manage any one of these roles by itself (e.g. if you can't handle your children), you're going to have trouble managing them together. Still, I think that sending your parrot away permanently should be an absolute last resort, and only done when in the best interests of both the bird and the child as well as yourself. And I think you did a great thing there Stephanie, temporarily rehoming them was surely for the best all around. My own experience has made me a firm believer in the stance that pets and companion animals, of any kind whether they be fish or fowl or four-footed creature, do no harm and in fact enrich our lives by teaching us how to practise self-control, empathy, compassion, concern for others, everything that we express when we care for these creatures. Take a pet away from a child and you are taking that learning opportunity away. Will the child be worse off for it? Maybe not. But how much better off the child could be if the pet hadn't been removed. By the way, I am not advocating that every child have a pet plopped in its lap and be left to care for it. The entire child-pet interaction is our responsibility just as much as child and pet are separately. Many people have already said that you do NOT put a flighted macaw within reach of your baby. To my mind, there is no difference between that precaution, and taking a hamster out of the hands of a child who is squeezing it. You take basic precautions, you stay alert, you supervise your child and teach him/her how to handle the pet. You alter the lifestyle of yourself and your bird if you have to. Yes, he will hate being clipped or shut up in the cage more often, but he would hate being sent away even more. Clipping him and locking him up is temporary. Rehoming is all too often permanent. On a personal note, I am single with no children and am not planning to have any. But if the unexpected happens one day, which is still possible at my age, I believe my experience with Nicky will make me a better parent. As to those people who kick the parrot out the instant they get pregnant and with no other good reason, I have a pretty good word for them - GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. They obviously didn't bother to learn anything from their bird, and they most likely won't have much of value to pass on to their child.

Speaking of treats, try giving him one immediately after you've put him in the cage, and praise him as a really good boy. He might throw the treat away and glare and growl, but it'll help him to associate "back into the cage" with "getting good things"

Ack! I never knew that. Here I was thinking it would actually make a good calcium supplement :pinch:

Hmm...I just remembered that tofu is said to contain a lot of oestrogen compounds...wouldn't want Nicky to lay an egg after a few years of eating tofu :whistle:

He ate the whole thing right down to the core - gobbled up all the actual corn kernels first, then ate the cob up like it was a piece of apple. I was shocked! He didn't even drop a scrap. Going to have to look at his poop really closely in the morning :sick:

Tofu is a common food where I live and I've been offering Nicky small amounts of it, steamed with sliced meat to add flavour and extra nutrition (he doesn't get the meat though) He loves it and eats every bit! Now I'm thinking about making it a regular part of his diet. Nutritional facts: Tofu contains mainly protein, large amounts of calcium and iron, has low fat and calories, no preservatives (the company that makes most of the tofu available locally uses none, I'm not sure about others) For some reason, tofu's cheaper and easier to get here than raw soya beans

We gave Nicky corn on the cob for the first time today. Oh gosh, his reaction... 1) What's that strange thing in my food dish? PANIC!! (runs up side of cage into upper right corner, flattens himself against bars and stares wild-eyed at the corn over one shoulder) 2) Hmm, it's not moving. Not so scary after all. Looks like it might be good to play with? (starts plucking out the corn kernels at high speed and throwing them all over the place) 3) Oops, I bit into one. Hey, this tastes good! (eats up EVERY SINGLE SHRED of corn plus fibres plus cob! then goes around collecting all the kernels he threw away earlier and eating those too :blink: ) I have never heard of birds eating the fibres and the COB before! Is it even digestible? Should I be rushing him to a vet to get his crop pumped out?

I came across a number of real horror stories about how parrots are bred for the pet trade in "breeding mills" and the babies are sold off at less than six months old, before they are even weaned. It freaked me out, especially several accounts of how pet shops would sell unweaned baby parrots to ignorant customers who ended up accidentally killing them... Right about then I decided to find out where Nicky came from, and seems this is it... http://www.gwbirds.com.sg/bii.html While I guess no breeder is ever going to be perfect, these guys seem to be doing a really great job. I'm glad I looked up this particular shop, which according to the website is the ONLY agent licensed to sell their birds. I will definitely be going back there as often as I can manage it.

Doh! Dan beat me to it. I especially agree with not leaving parrots unsupervised. Nicky tried to climb into the goldfish tank the other day. Fill in the rest of the picture yourself...

Ooh, the perennial favourite! (and if you read my post about the first time Nicky came out, you'll know what I mean) Off the top of my head I can suggest these: 1) Don't let him out when it's close to bedtime. That will cut down on the urgency of getting him back in. 2) Don't feed him when he's outside the cage, make the only available food source inside the cage so that he will go back in when he gets hungry. This really works! 3) When he goes back in, do you immediately close the door? If so he may have decided it's not worth going back in because he just gets locked up straight away. Let him have freedom of movement between the inside and outside, and he'll be less reluctant to go back in. 4) Personally I let Nicky out the whole day when I'm at home to keep an eye on him. Same principle as above but applied to time limits. He's quite good about staying on top of his cage, although he occasionally climbs down to chew up the wooden stand 5) Chewing on the furniture: does he have toys to occupy him on the top of the cage? Do you fuss over him when he stays on the cage top, or when he comes down to the floor? (number 2 is a no-no because he'll do it to get attention) 6) Last one, train him to step up (I know most people would say this first, but I myself can't get Nicky to step up so I put it at the end :whistle: )

A great link Kaedyn! It inspired me to look for a similar resource for my area. Grey owners in Singapore: http://www.sva.org.sg/en/clinic.php Lists members of the local veterinary association but not their specialties. I haven't brought Nicky to a vet yet but when I do (as soon as he agrees to get in the carrier!) I will be using this list! Grey owners in Malaysia: http://www.msava.org/vets.php Members of the Malaysia Small Animal Veterinary Association. Like the Singapore site, doesn't state their specialties however most of them have contacts included. Also see the Malaysia Veterinary Forum at http://vet.com.my/viewtopic.php?t=76 Edit: Practically none of the Singapore vets ever seem to answer their email. Calling them or dropping by their office in person should work better!<br><br>Post edited by: darth_mint, at: 2008/09/01 08:32

Thanks for the advice! So far I haven't needed to get him in the cage urgently (but the day will probably come) I would really like him to step up voluntarily though, because there's no other way I can bring him around the house except by moving his whole cage (!) and he's missing out on interaction like this. Should I just keep offering my hand every now and then, and see if he changes his mind?

Now, I've been trying to teach Nicky to step up for weeks! And he knows EXACTLY what I mean when I hold out my hand and say step up while offering a sunflower seed with my other hand. How do I know he knows? Because the instant he sees me in that position, he moves away, starts ostentatiously cleaning his feet and completely ignores both the hand and the seed. I KNOW it's an act, because one time he did this, he had a bit of apple stuck to his foot. Five minutes of cleaning later, the apple was still on his foot! The little brat just doesn't want to step up! I don't want to force him, whether with my hand or with a stick, but how on earth do I get him to step up like this? He's not comfortable with me touching him anywhere except his beak or feet, so I can't pet him instead of offering treats. Perverse little monkey

hahaha I must put a photo of myself up soon so people can tell us apart! Speaking of Dan by the way, I think this thread could use his input *hint hint*

Ack! I didn't know I'd turned into Dan! :evil:

Hi Imarinukjr and welcome to the forum. It's great that you are taking in a rescue, although I hope you mean "break" as in "train" or "settle in"... I would say please let the grey settle in at his own pace for a few days, weeks, months, however long it takes. Your vet is correct in that it will take time for this grey to trust you, especially at his age and if he's had no human interaction before. Even if the Bird Paradise place is able to socialize him and teach him basic commands within 12 hours, he will still need time to become accustomed to YOU. Maybe you could give us more details about him? Many forum members have experience with rescued birds and they can offer lots of very helpful advice.<br><br>Post edited by: darth_mint, at: 2008/08/28 08:39

My Nicky must be the only parrot on the forum who doesn't like ice cream :pinch: I offered him some on a spoon, he picked it up in his beak, got a funny look on his face and next thing I know it's on MY face and he was splashing his beak around in the water dish. Too cold for him?

Nicky's a closet talker and only speaks when no one's watching him, the little bugger. He'll repeat "Hello", "Good boy", "NO!!" and "What?!", but if anyone comes into the room he'll stop talking and launch into a string of random noises. Some of his favourites are what we call Deformed Crow (he picked up a crow noise the first day he was home, then decided to improvise horribly on it :blink: ) an awful squeaking noise like unoiled machinery and Deformed Neighbours' Dog, which is basically an improvisation on the neighbours' dog! I can hardly wait for the day he decides to improvise on words...

I was wondering that too, it looks very thick in the picture on the link. It could get a bit hot and stuffy...if you do use it, you might want to design some air vents?

NIcky and I live with my parents, my sister, a terrapin (who is so short-sighted she hasn't even realized Nicky exists yet despite his cage being right beside the tank...I'm still waiting for him to fall in!) and a tank of goldfish. He is fascinated by the goldfish and licks the glass repeatedly. I keep expecting him to climb in and swim with them.

Nicky refuses to settle down to sleep unless I sing to him for fifteen minutes after turning the light out in his room little monkey just wants to stay up and play.

The only time a bird will smell is when it's wet, even tiny little budgies can absolutely reek when damp. Other than that, the only odours I've ever had from birds were faint poop and discarded food smells which went away when the cage paper was changed, and some rather weird-smelling pellet mixes (there is this one that comes in a pink bag and STINKS because of the dried fruit in it, it's put Nicky off dried foods for life) (edit: something in the original sounded as if Nicky smelled of the dried fruit, which he doesn't!)<br><br>Post edited by: darth_mint, at: 2008/08/27 03:42

Hmmm I remember reading in the papers some time ago, about a girl who became very ill from chewing her hair...doctors opened her up and found a huge mass of hair clogging her stomach. Hair is indigestible as are nails, so better not let him swallow any. Then again, they probably swallow their own feathers a lot of the time.