Tigerlily

oh and start with the avaitor harness RIGHT away. i've given up with tigerlily and wish i'd started earlier as i'd love to see her flying around outside

in my opinion i'd say that cage is a little too small. Tigerlilies is w=3ft d=2ft h=ft and i wish i got a bigger one so she could have lots and lots and lots of toys instead of just lots like she does now;) i also prefer play top ones like that one as if she had an open top you can't hang toys from the middle top and all her poo would go over her perches in the cage. and as far as perches go just get a few different ones, tigerlily has 5 different perches in her cage (she used to have 7 but we downsized to give her a bit more room;) )

the more i think of it the more i want another one! i know this topic has been talked about many a time and i have read all the past posts i can find and i've thought about pros and cons but i was wondering if those of you who have 2 greys could share your personal experiences. what sex are they did they hatch together, if not what age gap and any problems youv'd had if you introduced one at a later stage.

if i don't want to share my food and eat in peace then Tigerlily HAS to be put in her cage, which i must say is rare. i have her stand close to me and will only give her food if she's on it. if she climbs off i hold the food by the perch so she has to climb back up to eat it. we're still in the trainning process with this one but mostly she knows if she stays put she'll get what she wants in the end

well i must be really lucky with Tigerlily as she asks to go poo when she's out her cage which is about every 20-30 mins. she's been trainned to go poo before comming out for quite a while and that took a lot of effort on my behalf but well worth it. i say a lot of effort as i had to put her on her perch in her cage every 20mins and say "go poo" for 2-3 days which meant i had to be totally commited and couldn't do anything else for those 2-3 days as i was watching her constantly for the obvious sign she was about to poo. and it didn't always work so i had to keep her in her cage until she next pooed and just say the words whilst she was going. but she eventually got the idea. what i find very amusing is that SHE had to train ME to put her on her perch if she was on my knee or shoulder to poo. it took me ages to realise she was saying "go poo" as it wasn't clear but once i'd caught on that she was saying it just before going a poo i NEVER get pooed on. she goes on her stands then back with me with lots of praise for asking to go. boy i luuuuuvvvvv my bird:kiss: :kiss: :kiss:

hi i have a cat and my grey is certainly the boss. she'll keep going for the cat until the cat moves. at first i was really worried about them being anywhere near eachother as i'd heard stories about cats killing greys but now i let them get on with it and sort out their differences between themselves (under a watchful eye) my grey really does bully the cat as the cat is really laid back and only sometimes flicks her paw at the bird if she gets too big for her boots which (and others wont agree) i think is good for Tigerlily to be put back in her place and like i said, i'm also on the sofa with them. i think it all depends on the nature of all animals involved but greys do tend to put other animals in the household in their place and like others Tigerlily does tell the cat off often;)

As I live alone and work full time I've always wondered and worried about what Tigerlily does whilst i'm away. in my humble opinion if she's talking then she's happy and i worry that she just sits on her perch eating and doing nothing. so this morning i had to go out for an hour and i set my dictaphone to record her. and to my delight it picked her up chatting away:cheer: the next step is to buy a camcorderB)

Tigerlily chats and chats almost all day but there's only a few things that i'm 100% sure she understands when she says them. like I taught her to go a poo before she comes out her cage. I tell her to go onto her poo perch and say "go poo" which she does. I then say "wanna come out" as i then let her out. if she's in her cage for some quiet time she'll go poo then screach "wanna come out" at me. When she's with me she'll say "go poo" so i then put her on her stand say "go poo" and she does. she also understands "all gone" i would say it when we were sharing food and it was finished so she wouldn't keep pestering me, and she doesn't. she knows that once i've said "all gone" that's it, no more food. if i get her out first thing in the morning when i change her food and water i offer the fresh water to her before putting it in the cage. she'll say "all gone" once she's had enough and if i don't take the hint and take it away she starts playing with it and gets me wet. one example how she's got me trainned;)

I always say "bye Bye" to Tigerlily and then usually add " see you later" One day a visiter left and just casually said "bye bye" as they went out the living room door and Tigerlily replied "see you later" I was so proud.:woohoo: Now she does it quite often as i'm leaving.

i have taken the grate out of Tigerlilies main cage and both of her travel cages and just linned with newspaper. she doesn't go down to the bottom of her cage that often and all the poo would just land ontop of the grate anyway so kinda defeats the object of having one in my opinion. also Tigerlily gets over excited hanging from on of her toys every no and then and falls off another reason why i take the grate out, smoother landing;)

i took out insurance from exotic direct straight away as i'm no good with money i don't want anything to jepodise Tigerlilies health, what would happen if something happened and i couldn't afford treatment isn't worth thinking about.

i've been wanting to do exactly the same thing. play dates:) there's no active users on this forum but i came up with another good idea to find grey owners in my area. there's an african grey group on facebook. i joined and scrolled through all the members (around 1,700 of them:unsure: ) to find people in my area then sent them a message. that was two days ago and allready i've had 2 people message me back. try it out

Well he did it, clever daddy ( i.e Tigerlilies granddaddy) made this tabletop stand which Tigerlily was brave enough to go on after about 1/2 hour! Just need some ideas for a bigger stand

thanks i had allready found that thread and one or two others, was hoping for some new ideas;)

I know there's allready a few post about this but...... I nearly spent £300 on two shop brought play stands today then saw sence;) And my dad has said he'd help me make one:laugh: thing is dad wants some kind of design and i'm not artistic lol can you all post pics of any home made stands/gyms made of any material so i can get some ideas. thanks

I'm very keen to get Tigerlily out and about and seeing as she REALLY isn't taking to her harness I was thinking of getting the adventure pack when it comes back out later this month. (apparently it can be worn round the front aswell) Does anyone have any personal experiance of using it? Does anyone have a better product? Any other thoughts?

Am i right in saying that apart from annoying her and looking silly, this broken feather is doing Tigerlily no harm and she'll eventually manage to chew it off like she has done before?

Anyone know why Tigerlilies vibrating her chest feathers? I've been told its cause she's content AND that she's scared!

Well Tigerlily is now enjoying an almost daily feed of baby food which of course she was a bit dubious of at first and to my suprise baby food doesn't taste that bad eitherB) when she takes a big bite from her new spoon (plastic) her eyes quickly pinpoint for a split second which i'm asuming is a good sign? anyway, I love these new meal times together and its even better knowing that Tigerlily is getting many new healthy ingrediants this way as i'm not known for my cooking skillsB) So a big thankyou again to this forum from me and Tigerlily {Feel-good-000200BB}

When Tigerlily has her rare moments of not wanting to step up I dont give her the choice. I put my hand touching her belly and gentley move it back/up so she has to either step up or be pushed off her perch. The other option is to pick her up by her feet. I HATE doing this as does Tigerlily and she has to really annoy me before I use that method. Again, both methods depend on weather your grey is going to thank you for it by give you a nice big biteB)

well, after reading the last few posts i'm a bit more weary about using newspaper as I don't want to use a grate, maybe another trip to the pet shop is in order!

thanks all i'm heavilly investing in forraging toys at the moment, most of which tigerlilies using and she's not falling off her pearch anymore so we'll see how the newspaper goes;)

I spent about £25 on a flashy phone for her from toys r us which she never touched. i guess she figgured i'd give into her and let her have mine:P

Hi and welcome to the family I too have not been a member for long and have found this site to be a valuable resorce of information. I look forward to hearing about your many adventures with dow as i'm sure you'l have many tales to tell before longB)

I can't leave my phone lying around as Tigerlily thinks it's her toy and gets upset when I take it off her after a sneaky find:evil: So she was delighted when I gave it to her for this pictureB)