2Skittles4u

Gaevren try not to blame yourself. He could have just as easily already had something going on inside of him when you got him. Stress can trigger certain illnesses and there's really nothing you can do about that... except what you're already doing! I think you've shown great responsibility and love for little Spike, and sometimes, that's all we can do. Good luck to little Spike for a full recovery! Linda

Hi hanadupre and welcome. Like others have said, it may be nothing, but if it's a lot of scratching I think I'd be worried too. Birds can get little "mites" on their body and if your bird has these then it would be best to get her to the vet. Treatment "can" be kind of expensive but if you already know what the problem is, then maybe you can get by a whole lot cheaper. Some of these mites are microscopic so the tests can get expensive unless you start with the "right" one. That's a pick um though... Try looking for black or red specks around the scratching area or maybe even red/pink hair like "trails" in the scratching areas. This "could" be a pretty good sign that it's mites. Oh, and not to scare you, but some of these nasty little critters "can" spread to humans if not treated! Good Luck to you. Linda

We had a gnat problem a few months ago. What we did was move the birds (with spotless cages) into a bedroom at night, put a grotty pear on the counter in the kitchen (gnats seem to love pears) and then sprayed them with Raid flying insect killer. By morning the Raid was gone and the birds didn't "miss" a thing, lol. We had to do this a few times (for about 2 weeks) to get all the gnats, but it should work for you too. Oh I should mention that we didn't feed the birds very much fruits during this time because we were trying to "condense" the gnats to one spot. Any fruit the birds got was hand fed and anything they threw or dropped was taken away to use as "gnat bait," lol. Bananas work well too because they get gross much much faster. Good Luck! Linda

I'm certainly no expert on helping a bird to fly, but what we're trying with Sugar (16 year old U2) is holding him on our arm and dropping our arm a little just to get him to "kind of" flap. We don't want to scare him and it would appear we are not scaring him because he can leave at any time if he's uncomfortable. He actually seems to enjoy it. He can make the choice to snuggle (which he absolutely loves) or climb on our arm for the "wing flap" time. Sugar never flaps on his "own time." He has never tried to fly to the floor but he has gotten startled and fallen to the floor. It's the saddest thing in the world to watch him fall. He genuinely puts his wings out like we (as humans) would put our arms/hands out to break our fall. Our hope is to build up his muscles in his wings and with time he'll decide he wants to fly with the other birds. He's only 16 years old and with any luck he'll live another 80 and in that time maybe he'll see the fun in flying! We also have to wait for his wing feathers to grow out before he can even get a slight lift off. Linda

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome! I think it's great some other members have Suns also. They really are a funny (silly) bird. I think Phoenix has adopted quite a few of Skittles' antics, and she does seem rather focused on Skittles a lot of the time, as if "learning." There's something about Phoenix's "look" and the way she watches things that really make the difference between (what I believe) to be intelligence and just spacing off. Phoenix just never stops amazing me. Cflanny: Thank you for watching the videos and compliments. Phoenix is such a camera hog, lol, as you could probably tell. I guess that would be my fault though since we have well over 200 videos of JUST HER. When she hears that camera turn on, she's flying into the "scene," I guess she thinks that her cue or something, lol. Thank you again, Linda

What a little sweetheart! I just watched your videos and Loki is such a dainty eater! Too cute. Linda

The eye looks more almond shaped than round (old wives tale?), plus Loki looks slender. I'll guess Pretty Girl. Linda

Yes, that's what my birds do... just a feather here and a feather there. Skittles came to us looking very much like a Jenday but now has her "Sun" colors. She also came to us with no tail. I guess she had a tail phobia or something, but she got over that after a few months. But because of her ripping her tail feathers out in the beginning, I still feel a little panic come up when one of those feathers come out. No worries though. Thank you for letting me know "why" my birds aren't going into a full molt. I guess I don't think about it much since it doesn't happen here. Linda

Anyone want to know what it tastes like? LOL Phoenix was hanging out with my husband and he was giving her kisses and for some reason (we still don't know why) my husbands mouth was open when Phoenix decided to "share" some "yum yums" with him, LMAO! He was gagging and spitting, but it didn't do much good since it's like a paste. We were rolling on the floor laughing at him. The main question people ask. What did it taste like? Answer: Tuna. Linda

I'm glad I ran across this post because I've always been told that AG don't molt! Since Phoenix has never molted, she's 2 and 1/2 years old, I figured it was probably correct. But now I'm questioning my own memory, maybe it was Cockatoos that don't molt? Shoot, I think it's old age, lol. At what age do they start molting? Do they do this every year? How long do the feathers take to come back in? Another question... Skittles (Sun Conure) is nearly 5 years old and she's never molted either. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Are my birds weird? Linda

Okay, I'm trying the picture again. <br><br>Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:50

Thank you for the welcome and I've noticed that people do put plenty of pictures of their birds up here so I thought I'd give it a try. Please stay with me here, I'm usually terrible at learning new things on the computer. I'll attempt to put up a pic of Phoenix when we first brought her home. She was underweight and sick so her formula and medicine were fed to her like this. She also had to be completely removed from her horrible ALL sunflower seed diet and taught what real food was all about. Now we can't stop her, lol. It's not letting me attempt another edit for the picture so I'll just try a new post. Maybe I'll get it next time. Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:31 Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:38<br><br>Post edited by: 2Skittles4u, at: 2008/09/11 03:45

Hi, my name is Linda and I am very happy to have come across this site. I've read a few posts and this seems like a nice friendly place to learn more about birds. I have four parrots, 2 Sun Conures (Skittles and Starburst), 1 Umbrella Cockatoo (Sugar), and a Congo African Grey (Phoenix). Starburst and Sugar (rescue) came to us as older birds and we don't have much of a history on either bird. Both have tons of baggage and I think we bit off more than we can chew with Sugar. He's 16 years old (or so we were told), hates men, plucks and likes to bite very very hard. We've had him since June of this year. He came to us with clipped wings so he doesn't fly yet. What's sad is that he doesn't even try to fly. On the good side he loves my daughter to death and loves to cuddle with her all the time, unfortunately she doesn't have "all the time" to cuddle with him as much as he'd like. Starburst is also a biter and a plucker. We don't have any clue to his age but we've had him for about 3 years and he's managed to pull too many of Skittles' feathers out of her. When he can't get to Skittles, he pulls his own feathers out. After having every test known to our vet run on him, the vet decided Starburst was psychotic after witnessing a "fit" that he threw in the vet's office. He's a strange little bird but we love him to death. We've learned to "read" his signs and it's been at least 6 months since anyone's been bitten by him. I think we're gaining ground in that department. I also moved his cage next to my desk and try to take him around the house with me everywhere to help him with his trust issues. It seems to be working, but he still plucks. Phoenix and Skittles are my little sweethearts. We got them as babies and they seem to be well balanced. Skittles is nearly 5 years old and likes to sleep in my shirt and is basically just another part of my body. She used to free fly outdoors but we had two mishaps that scared the tar out of me so now she just flies around the house. She loves to give kisses... tons and tons of kisses and she plays dead. She can be a clown, but mostly she's just very loving. Phoenix is about 2 1/2 years old and the real clown in the family. She's not real big on kisses but sure is up in my face when Skittles is giving the kisses... it's like she's trying to learn how to do it right, lol. She'll hang upside down from my hair and thinks that's a lot of fun. She hangs upside down from my hand too, shoot... she just hangs upside down all over the house, lol... maybe she thinks she's a bat? She'll hang upside down from a doorway and when someone walks by she'll say "I see you!" She also gets in these moods to wrestle and roll over on her back and start kicking madly. She gets a little "beaky" during these bouts of friskiness but is normally very gentle and rarely ever bites "too hard." Just recently she's learned how to open the cupboard doors in the kitchen and has found an entirely new world of "stuff" to rip apart (or shatter) to our horror! So we've arranged things so she has "stuff" to pull out without doing so much damage. It keeps her busy (and happy) while not costing us a small fortune. It doesn't help with the mess, that's still out of control, but we own a broom, lol. Our birds are rarely caged and all have free run of the house. The Conures are put in their own separate cages at night because of Starburst plucking Skittles and the fact that Skittles will fly into bed with me if she's flying around. Skittles used to sleep in bed with me when my husband worked graveyard shift, but now that he's swing shift I'm afraid he'll roll on her through the night. Starburst can't fly because of his collar and I don't want him walking around with the dogs loose in the morning... I feel I should monitor all the animals even though I don't believe the dogs would ever hurt them, they're still "animals" and I don't completely trust them. Phoenix and Sugar are allowed to sleep wherever they want at night. Sugar ALWAYS chooses the top of "his" cage (even though it's not officially his cage) and only comes down when my daughter is home. Phoenix usually sleeps on top of our TV but sometimes chooses the top of the aquarium or the top of the frig. When everyone in the house is gone (rarely), the dogs are put out and only Sugar is allowed to stay out of the cage. We do this for their safety, and since Sugar doesn't appear to move when we're gone, we don't see a problem with allowing him to stay out. Besides, we locked him up once and when we got home he had opened his cage and was just sitting there, lol. I hope this wasn't too long, I just thought I'd let you know who we all are. I'm looking forward to reading more, and learning everything I can to help my beautiful birds to have better and fuller lives! Linda