PipJulLor

Dave, that is sweet. We have a bush in the back yard that the hummingbirds make a nest in each year. We have a feeder on the corner of our porch about 15 feet from the bush. I have never seen a parent do what you describe but I have seen the parents take turn taking the newly flighted babies out to the feeder. While the babies are in the nest the male hummingbird sits where he can see the feeder and anytime another hummer comes around he buzzes over and chases them away!!:woohoo: Right after Hurricane Rita, which we where on the edge off, It seemed that a majority of hummingbirds relocated to our area. We would have 15 to 20 hummingbirds swarming around the back yard waiting there turn to get to our feeder. We must of been the first people in the area to get the feeder back up after the storm. It was truly an amazing sight!! Richard

OMG. You guys have too much time on your hands. Can I come work for you? :silly: Loved the whole thing. Hilarious :laugh: - can totally relate - made my day!!! Karen

Well, as some of you know, I've had a deal of experience w/ broken blood feathers. I agree with everyone's responses; in many cases a broken blood feather is easily dealt with by simply pulling it out. There are cases where, if the break is at the base of the shaft where it grows out of the wing and bleeding, anesthesia may be necessary to remove it. This happened to my grey but applying pressure to the affected area, as suggested by the vet, stopped the bleeding. Thankfully anesthesia wasn't necessary. The handling of broken feathers seems to be a controversial issue. Some say don't pull, others say pull in every case. Undoubtedly, a broken blood feather is potentially deadly to a bird so, depending on your comfort level, take the appropriate steps to ensure your bird's safety. Hopefully, Charlie is well today. Karen

Good to hear that Otis has found his voice again. Feather, nail and beak trimming can be quite an experience, particularly the first time. If this was the first time Otis' additional preening was probably his way of checking out what happened to his feathers. Greys are very sensitive birds and are suspicious of anything new, although I've read that Timnehs are less so. My grey, Pippin - he's two, has been known to pout for hours or days if my husband or I give him a spray bath. He hate's it but it has to be done for his own good. They are all individual and have amazing personalities. I think Dan had the right of it with the miffed woman analogy, as much as I hate to admit it.

Pippin doesn't seem to want any interaction with me these days. In fact, he tries to get as far away from me as he can if I get close to where ever he is. He will go to my husband now without fuss or worry about further feather damage. Pip will now even go to my son (he's 23) if doing so gets him further from me. I've read that greys commonly choose a new favored human in adolescence which is probably contributing to Pip's defection. I think I mentioned in my first post that we adopted a 13-14 yr old Amazon whose owner had passed away a year ago which was when Pippin's troubles were beginning to ramp up. Since then, the Amazon adopted me as his favored human and will not tolerate anyone else in the house. So, I'm wondering if this could be contributing to Pippin's woes. ? Another question that my husband and I have pondered is would the addition of another grey help Pippin? The bird shop we frequent has a congo (don't know how old) and a three year old timneh for sale. I don't know what to do, but I do know we've tried many things and will continue to try just about anything to help Pip. I'm looking forward to hearing suggestions or similar experiences. Karen

Great Post, we did alot of research on this matter when we first got our feathered friends, and here you summarize it in a handy stick on your fridge for quick reference size. I think that if people realized how well baking soda and water works for cleaning the other cleaning products sales would drop dramatically. Not only is it cheaper but we have found that it does a better job then the "actual cleaning products":woohoo:

Here is a picture of Pippin's poor wings: U can see a couple of feathers on each wing that are loose. Those have naturally fallen out since this pic. He seems to be going through a molt so we will see how his new feathers come in. He doesn't too much like getting misted but he tolerates it and will be getting several mists a week to try and help him through.

Has anybody heard anything about Andrew and Tui? I got excited today when I searched and found the forum Tui is home. Wrong tui. I feel so much for Andrew, He has inspired so many.

WOW! What great responses from everyone. Dan, I appreciate all your comments and see that I left out some history in my effort to reduce the length of my first post. Let me add Pippin's vet experiences. Our first vet visit was when Pippin was about 8 weeks or so, can't remember exactly but I do remember that he wasn't fully feathered yet. The vet didn't say so, but my husband and I got the feeling he didn't usually see birds that young for a wellness check. Anyway, he said Pippin appeared healthy and offered to do a gram stain and blood work if we wanted but his age didn't indicate it. We discussed concerns over the difficulty we were having hand feeding him, his weight (we kept a daily weight record), keeping him clean, top and bottom, if you know what I mean. All in all, not traumatic. The next visit was an emergency visit to a different vet when, after the feather hack job, he fell to the floor. He'd been doing this alot at this point and I didn't think too much about it til I saw him bleeding from his beak/mouth. When he flapped his wings I thought I heard rattling. I immediately thought he'd broken his keel and rushed him to an Avian vet open on the weekend. He did a physical exam and said he didn't think anything was broken but wanted to keep him overnight and do x-rays the next day. I didn't feel comfortable w/ this vet and less comfortable leaving Pip w/ him. I took Pip home and all seemed fine. A couple of months later he did the same thing but this time it was clear that he had broken his beak. This time I took him to a different vet who put a sealant on his beak and gave me pain meds for him. He noticed Pippin's damaged feathers and said Pippin was indulging in feather mutilation and needed a 'job' (foraging) and likely doesn't know he's a bird. The vet also said Pip was thin, but not necessarily underweight. We had a follow up visit a week later (a week of broken blood feathers), his beak was healing but the vet noticed more feathers that needed to be pulled and one that Pippin had broken at the base.:ohmy: About a month later we returned for a full blown yearly check up complete with gram stain and blood tests. The vet and I discussed diet, bathing, lighting, activity, housing, etc. Pippin has a large day house and a sleep house in our bedroom. We provide full spectrum lighting over his day house. Diet consists of fresh vegetables mixed w/ beak appetite in the AM, fresh fruit in the afternoon and Zupreem pellets mixed w/ small amount of various nuts and seeds available all day. This is when Pippin started to resist coming out of his cage. The vet never contacted us with results of Pippin's tests, so I have to assume nothing abnormal was found. These days I let Pippin decide when to come out of his house. I avoid contact that could cause him stress or to hurt himself. I hope this fills in some of the gaps. Thanks again for everyone's response. It's good to know there's support out there. Karen<br><br>Post edited by: PipJulLor, at: 2008/11/22 02:01

My husband and I are owned by Pippin a two year old grey who came to us @ five weeks old; a xmas present for me from my husband. He is our second bird; the first being a sweet little quaker (Jules) who is about nine months older than Pippin. We allowed Pippin to fledge and allowed him to develop his flying skills for about four weeks prior to having his wings clipped (modified). He was still able to fly but not gain height and quickly learned to compensate for the modified clip so I took him back to the groomer (same place, different groomer) who basically hacked his flight feathers. After that it's been one fall after another, one broken blood feather after another. Around this time we adopted a 13 year old Amazon (Lorie) who's owner passed away. I'm sure that all these events have combined to cause Pippin a great deal of stress. Over the last six months he has progressively become more difficult to get out of either his day house or his sleep house, each time flapping about and causing more damage to his feathers. He seems to have lost weight he couldn't afford to lose and generally seems miserable. I had been Pippin's favored human, but now it seems he associates me with all this feather trauma and any time I try to handle him he ends up hurting himself. It just breaks my heart. Is there hope?

Thanks Dave. Your image is awesome. Hopefully Pip will have all those flights again one day!

We started out with our lil grey Pippin 2 years ago. We got him as a little man, looking like a dinosaur:laugh:. He was lovingly hand fed and would cuddle with me and mom. Several months go by and Pippin is finding his new found freedom of fledging. He is finding out that these little nubs that are on his sides now contain feathers that he can actually fly with. It's a wonderful time..lil Pip getting bigger and bigger and testing his new found flight freedom out. Then it's time for his first wing clip. Mom brings Pip to the local bird professional and he gets a modified trim. Things are great! Pip can still fly but does not gain enough speed to hurt himself for those late turns into the blinds. Time goes on and Pip is still the loving cuddly grey and his flights are growing out again. Off mom and pip go to the local bird professional..oh oh! The person that usually is there is not and pip gets his wings trimmed by another. Oh no..Pip's wings are not clipped modified but snipped completely. This is where the problems begin. Pip comes home and discovers that when he jumps off of his house and flaps his wings he falls to the ground..OUCH! Me and Mom realize the error of the clip and try to coach Pip through this trying time. Pip will have nothing to do with coaching. He seems angry..I guess I would be too if the thing my arms were made for was suddenly not there anymore! He becomes increasingly reluctant to come out of his sleeping house in the morning and his day house in the evening. Where mom and I used to offer our hands and say step up to have Pip happily step up we now face a Pip who leans back and screams at us. Pip now has flight feathers constantly breaking from his flapping and seems to be overgrooming the flights that are trying to come in. We can not figure out how to help him grow his flights back. It has been a year and he still has not gotten any flight ability back. He always has little feathers coming out but he seems to break them before they come in fully. Can anybody help!!