shannon

Okay, I posted some photos- three of Omar and three of Ozzie. They are under the photo album, I hope I did this right. If I need to do it differently, let me know. Thanks for the welcomes. And yes, they are a load of fun. Oh and to answer another question, I got Omar when he was three months old and Ozzie when he was closer to 4 months old.

I hope I am doing this right. Shame on me, we build websites for a living and yet I can't figure out to post on a Joomla forum! Anyway, my name is Shannon, I live in Louisiana. We've got two Greys and the are the greatest. Omar is 7, and we got him from a breeder. Omar is super-duper smart, he speaks over 100 words easily and lots and lots of complete phrases/sentences. We have never intentionally taught him to speak, he has just picked up what he wants to pick up. He is so funny and I adore him with all of my being. He is unfortunately way overly sensitive and kind of psychotic sometimes in that he gets all wigged out if I leave a tennis shoe out or if I leave my closet door slightly ajar, or if a fly is in the house (that has happened twice and my husband and I nearly killed ourselves trying to catch the fly because Omar was flipping out over it). Ozzie is 5. He is a sweetie, and what he lacks to Omar's high intellect he makes up in lovableness. I don't know his deal but he wants to mate with anything, he is always trying to regurgitate for me and when I take pictures of him he tries to regurgitate for my camera which he loves as well. He is a real goofball. He also is a hilarious dancer and dances often. Omar dances to, but his dancing as with everything he does is precise and calculated whereas Ozzie gets on down with it. Unfortunately, the two birds hate each other. They must stay separate with no chance of getting around each other because they will seriously try to kill each other. They have crossed paths twice and scared me to death. Well, that's about it. Glad to be here.

My African Gray as well is losing tail feathers, and it bothers me. It looks bad but that is the least of my worries. I am mainly concerned as to why. He has always been a fairly fragile birds-- little things stress him like when I forget to close my closet door all the way or when I leave a tennis shoe or anything on the floor. This is pretty baffling in that for the last 2-3 weeks he has been losing his red tail feathers pretty radidly. He is down to only one long one and some small ones. I looked real close and it did look like he is growing some baby ones, but what bothers me even more is that I am even finding the baby ones on the floor. I have never heard of this being an area that a bird picks on to pluck. Could this be the case? I don't notice him pulling them and I try to pay attention. Or does it happen that every once in a while they can lose all their tail feather just by clumsiness or something else. I have two cockatiels as well and one of them about every year loses all of his tail feathers, they just go away one by one until there are none and then he/she grows them all back long and beautiful. Same with a friend of mine that has a Quaker, only the Quaker's feathers rarely ever all come back before they are gone again. I just haven't had this issue. Mine is a 7-year-old Gray that gets lots of love and attention. Any ideas?