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Hi Heather Cant wait to hear more about you and your bird. You will find that this site is wonderful full of people to help you with your baby..

Mine certainly is not potty trained yet but we are working on it. What I do is similiar to how you would potty train a dog. When he comes out of his cage he goes dirrectly to a perch that I put paper under and he knows he has to go there before he can get off. I put him there and I tell him to go poop or whatever you want to call it. Then it is a timing thing you need to put him back where you want him to go frequenly and catch him when he needs to go by telling him again go poop. And just be consistant about it. I would say we are over half the way there when he has accidents it is only because I didn't watch him I can tell when he is going to go he does a little dance I just need to catch him before he does the dance. Also make a big deal about it when he does go where you want him to. He does not go on me anymore but we are a work in progress.

You got it!!!! Have fun and enjoy every minute..

I think you will be fine, my 15 yr old is not a fan of birds and I think echo knows that and therefore it is a mutual feeling between them and like I said my daughter plays rough with him and so I feel like she is asking for the bite and she knows it will happen and continues. My 9 year old sounds like what you describe your son as. He is a sweet quiet boy and loves animals now echo has attached himself to Tanner's fingers not what I would call a bite more of a warning, Tanner handles it very well shaking it off and not saying a word to me, but he knows that means leave me alone and does so. I was quite surprised the first time I saw it that it didn't scare him but he loves Echo and he is the only one other than me that Echo will cuddle with. You will be just fine,if the one your getting is a baby like mine was I would suggest that you expose them from the beginning together, I think that may have been my misteak I kind of guarded my older kids from him wanting to see his personality before I trusted him and he bonded too much with me he will bite at anyone that gets close to me if he is in my lap even the 9 year old. Mostly have fun I am excited for you I LOVE MY BIRD TO PIECES, my older kids say more than them.. Not true but they tease me. Anyway have a blast...

I absolutely would be able to fill an entire page of pro's about our grey, and the Cons are very few and far between and actually change every day. Somedays I wish echo was not such a mama's boy (but not very many) only when I have somthing I have to do. The only other con I have is Echo does chew anything he can get his beak on up. He loves the remote buttons, but that is up to us to remove them from his site. I would not trade him for the world. I would like to add for the previous poster to be very careful with the bird and the 3 year old, I have 4 kids 15,13,9 and 4 and my bird hates my 15 year old, my 13 year old pesters him so bad and he did bite her and drew blood, I did tell her she had it comming. Echo loves my 9 year old second to me. And the 4 year old leaves him alone so Echo leaves my 4 year old alone, Just watch that the 3 year old is not left alone to get bit.

Thank you for your reply and I am wondering if we need to do anything different with them during this time, do the pin feathers hurt? Also I am seeing about 10 to 20 little, kind of fuzzy feathers around his cage not anything frequent and he looks beautiful so I have not been concerned is that just normal feather shedding? He is 6 months.

Hi guys, I have used the search formum to try and find the answer to my question but there are so many pages and what I read is not exactly what I am looking for. So here goes. What do you mean by full molt?, what is it, how do you know when they are molting? And at what age do you expect them to molt. I know this may sound like somthing I should already know but I do not so I would appriciate your help.

My bird is actually doing somthing very similar, he is 6 months as well, When he has somthing in his beak he does not want me to take he runs back and forth on the back of the couch just out of my reach, I can tell you for me I don't give up I always end up getting it back no matter how long I have to chase him, he has acted with a little aggression as if he may bite me, I scold him and tell him very sternly NO BITE, the only thing I have going for me now is that even if he is across the room if I say NO,NO he looks at me and tries a few more times, I respond with the same NO,NO and sometimes he will get the hint and stop, and sometime I see the look of I'm gonna do it cuz I want to and then the chase is on. I think like with kids you just cannot let them win. I don't think clipping his wings is the answer especially since I can tell you really don't want to, he is just testing the boundries and you just have to as my breeder told me take the hit if it comes, show no reaction and continue being firm. He will soon learn you are the boss.

Echo has 2 times a day that he talks or I should say at this time mumbles, but he doesn't scream or make loud noised, my Cockateil is extremely noisy he is in the other room and I can't hear the TV, I am a little afraid that Echo may pick up his screams, so I do keep them in seperate areas of the house.

I think he would let you know if he wasn't happy, my bird seems to bite my family on days that he isn't out as much. He never bites me, but if he has had to be in his cage most of the day he tends to bite if someone tries to come to close to me. On the days that he is out all day he seems to want to play with them. Now as I say that on a normal day he is out of his cage for 8 hours throughout the day, not all at one time. If he seems happy to you then I wouldn't worry.

I think they are beautiful and everyone I know that has been around them say they are super funny and silly they sound really fun I just think they are very noisy.

I'm not sure about attention but when I went to the breeder of Echo's house he took me to 2 buildings one was full of greys and one full of cockatoos I could not wait to get out of the building with the too's they are beautiful birds but oh my lord do they scream. A friend of mines sister has one I have never seen it but my friend said that it screams so loud you can hear it all the way down the street, so I assume if you wouldn't spend enought time with it it could drive you crazy. I have never heard my Grey (Echo) be very loud he makes some silly squeeks and yes he can get loud but I wouldn't call them screams. Just what I have seen and heard.

I was told that if you want the bird to flock more to you (the human) then you should start out with only one. I know with my 2 small brussels Griffon dogs when I got the 2nd one my first one (which was my baby) seemed to need less cuddling with me. Sometimes that is a blessing but I am quite an animal person so at times it hurts my feelings because I may want to cuddle and he has playing with his brother on his mind. I was concerned the same thing would happen with 2 birds. I would think if you don't have enough time to play with your bird it may be a blessing. Just my thoughts on this.

My breeder actually handled my bird a lot so she told me to hold him right away as long as he was comfortable, but just not to over due it since he was a baby he needed lots of rest she actually thought if I just left him there for a few day and he wanted to be held he could be more scared because he wasn't used to being in a cage all day. I'm not sure what the others would say but for me I handled him from day one and he has never been scared of us or comming out of his cage he is a kisser and a cuddler and I personally think he would go crazy if he was left in his cage to long. Anyway this may be somthing to ask the breeder. (How much handling he/she is used to).

I know this is off of your topic as well but I love your pekeginese, I had one for 19 years he was the love of my life. They say they are not good with kids but mine was around my kids and a whole daycare those kids when I wasn't looking would drag the poor thing around by his tail (when caught they got in lots of trouble) but that dogs was put through the mill and was a saint. His name was Peke, I miss him sooooooo much.. Anyway I know that was off the subject but I don't see these dogs very much.