ramsabi

GorgASS, with your care and the thoughts of the this flock, Willis will get better soon. Keep us updated.

Yes Jill, the little one hatched last. I have been wondering if it is getting enough food. I check its crop regularly and it is full. I have decided to start hand-feeding it from Thursday. Ranaz, we are yet to name them. We were considering an Arabice name, an Indian name and a Western name. Judy, Sabi does not want to give them away but in the long run I am concerned about in breeding. Thanks luvparrots. Not only do they look different, they are already developing different personalities.

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The photos were taken using my mobile so the clarity is poor. They have grown rapidly haven't they? To us they are a daily affirmation of the glory of life and I count myself fortunate that wee have had this opportunity. Almost every moment I find myself being astounded by some behaviour or other of these chicks and their parents. I have had absolutely no inclination to hand-feed them since th parents are taking more than adequate care. I have started handling the chicks on a regular basis. Initially the parents were ravenously eating only soft foods. Over the past week, they have slowly cut down on the soft foods and are now eating what I can only term as copious quantities of seed. I realised that the parents are themselves taking care of the weaning !! Will keep updating. Incidentally the oldest and biggest is taking after Pakshi, the li'l runt looks like it will take after Khushi, but surprise of surprise it looks like the one in the right in the bottom photo is almost surely a lutino. I read that lutinos are 90% of the time females.

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I do pay the price very frequently for permitting Rishi to sit on my shoulder. He is normally on my left shoulder and my left ear will probably start resembling a cabbage leaf in the very near future and that is going to only increase Rishi's onslaughts because he does like cabbage !!

ranaz wrote: Hi Rana, whatever makes u assume that "they" care about human or any other consumption? ;) <br><br>Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/16 20:42

Hi Jayd, I recollect you spoke about intending to retire a few posts ago ?? Are these posts the result of having implemented your intention? ;)

I have had no time to post. Sabi has gone to India for a much deserved 10 day break and I have been handling Rishi, Pakshi, Khushi and the 3 Muscateers. I never imagined the demands that could be made by two tiels who are raising chicks. They are voracious and need fresh food every 2 hours at least. The chicks are very healthy and coming along fine. Sabi has taken our camera and I am not able to take pictures. So, I am not able to post the progress photos I have completely changed Rishi's diet. I now give him a mash on the lines of Mike's Manna. The added ingredients in the mash are baked sweet potatoes and casava. The mash also has crumbled boiled eggs with the shell. Just before I give it to Rishi I mix in finely chopped vegetables. He seems to love it and his appetite has improved considerably. He gets his seeds and pellets only in the night. I can see that he misses Sabi very much. He would not let her leave the room even for a minute and this is the first time that she has been away since Rishi decided to cone with us to share our life. To make up for her absence, I have now contrived to arrange a sleeping perch for him that is attached to our cot. He now sleeps close to me during the night and seems to be pleased with the arrangement. With the change in the diet and also more exposure to the light(we now take him out to a park near our house everyday), we are hoping and praying to see an improvement in his condition. It is now 5 months since he fell sick. The vet at that time had said that he suspects PBFD. We have not seen any alarming deterioration in his condition and are cautiously optimistic that it may not be PBFD. I will update after the current efforts with Ranaz's assistance to get a vet to Muscat have some results. Again our deepest gratitudes to this wonderful flock. From The Shis, The 3 Muscateers, Ram & Sabi<br><br>Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/16 18:26

Dave007 wrote: Dave can olive oil be used on the body also for dryness instead of aloe gel? I have been using aloe gel for Rishi but it doesn't seem to be helping.

Kathryn, I have no doubt that your love, care and dedication are the cornerstones of Vree's recovery. All good thoughts and prayers continue to flow your way.

Thanks Ranaz, speechless for the assist. The Buraimi route is technically illegal !! Visas ARE required for an Omani resident to enter UAE regardless of where the entry point is !! Omani nationals do not require a visa. But anyway that is not the problem. I am prepared to travel anywhere for Rishi. I will be very grateful if you can speak to Dr. Jonathan and ask him if he is willing to make it to THIS side of the border. I can then take Rishi close to the border and he can have a look at him. Alternatively if he wants to fly down to Muscat, I am willing to pay his air fare apart from his professional fees. I can also request the local vet here to extend the use of his facility if required.

Hi Jayd, thanks for the links. I read the material in the sites. The first one is a newspaper article. But some statements have been attributed to the Director of the World Parrot Trust. I am a member of the WPT and coincidentally I have posted the "clay question" to the experts forum resource available there. The second one is a tour promotion site for Peru. The article is By Charles A. Munn, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board, Tropical Nature (a nonprofit nature conservation group---www.tropicalnature.org) and he says: The key word is "appears" !! The fourth one appears to be a commercial site and therefore with suspect credentials. Similar theories have been used for bitter almonds, Vitamin B17 and laetrile as possible cancer cures. The fifth one is also a commercial site and the product description does not claim anti-toxic effects. It says I have googled '"Geophagy" in African Greys' and it returned ONLY 475 hits and most of the info is again speculation or promotion. The following link has some good info: http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/stanford-fellowship.pdf

Thanks Greywings I will certainly follow up on this. But I am very sceptical about the knowledge and skills of the few local vets vis a vis birds and specially Greys. When u say spin it down, I assume that requires some equipment? The vet clinics here are largely 2 room affairs and I have not seen any kind of sophisticated equipment.

Hi Greywings, if I do that how would I earn my karmas from all of you? :) Just kidding. I have been thinking about that actually. The problem again is that even to collect the samples (especially blood?) I would not trust the regular vets here.

So as usual there seems to be no scientific consensus

I am starting this thread as a spin-off from the "What do you feel is Safe/ Unsafe to feed Parrots" thread. 2 reasons why I am starting this thread: 1. That thread has as its topic safe and unsafe foods with excellent contributions and I do not want it to digress. 2. This question has always bothered me. I am assuming that most if not all of the food that we give our greys are not their "natural foods" in the sense that they do not have access to these in the wild - e.g. avocado. If avocado had been present in their wild habitat, would they have learnt to avoid it? Also danmcq had an interesting contribution in that thread: This sounded very interesting and I googled it: Wikipedia had the following passage in an article on Macaws and clay licks: So is the "eating clay to neutralise toxins" a myth without scientific basis or is the above article erroneous? Let me hasten to add that my first assessment of almost any info on the net including Wikipedia is made on a sceptical basis unless I find corroboratory evidence. But that question is not the main purpose of this post. I would be very interested to know if birds and in fact all animals "learn" to avoid toxic foods in the wild or whether they do eat them and suffer the consequences. Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/10 06:32 Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/10 06:34<br><br>Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/10 06:36

More so here Jill, especially given Rishi's condition. I have a zero risk policy for now. There are enough safe and healthy foods around and I have no inclination to experiment. Rishi is given ONLY foods that have been recommended here in these forums. So even in the future- whether backed by feeling, fact or assumption, if i hear that a food is unsafe, it will not be offered to Rishi. I am participating in this thread out of sheer academic interest and to learn if there is evidence (formal or even anecdotal), research or first-hand experience for classifying a food item as detrimental/toxic/harmful.

Hi Jayd my friend, that was intended as a joke. Please do not take umbrage. Yes Dan, the point is the pasteurisation requirement has nothing to do with cyanide poisoning. Only sweet alomonds are grown in the USA and sweet almonds do not contain amygladin. Sweet alomonds therefore do not need pasteurisation or treatment to remove cyanide and can be safely fed raw to birds/animals/humans. Bitter almonds are the ones that have cyanide.

Thanks Dan. I am not asking for the number of seeds. As I asked are there recorded cases of birds/animals known to have had apple seeds or any other seed known to contain Amygdalin in their diets dying and an autopsy has revealed cyanide poisoning?<br><br>Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/09 16:22

(Prunus amygdalus dulcis) Sweet Almond Prunus amygdalus var. amara Bitter Almond The fundamental difference between bitter and sweet almond is the presence of amygdalin. Sweet almond does not contain amygdalin and can be eaten safely. Amygdalin also exists in the seeds of apricots, cherries, and plums. There is a law passed in 2007 in the USA that requires almonds to be pasteurised. Interestingly the law has nothing to do with cyanide but to the fact that there were two instances of salmonella poisoning in 2001 and 2004 that were traced to almonds. This law applies to sweet almonds. Although the toxicity of prussic acid in bitter almonds is destroyed when the nuts are heated, the sale of bitter almonds in prohibited in the United States. Sweet almonds are, by centuries of cultivation and breeding, very low in amygdalin and, thus, harmless; however, even sweet almond trees sometimes yield single bitter almonds (up to 1% of total crop), and some sweet almond cultivars still contain traces of bitter almond aroma. This does not apply to Californian almonds, which can be regarded totally destitute of amygdalin.

Thanks Dan, My question is does it happen in the wild too? Do wild birds eat food that is toxic to them even if it tsetes great? I have not referred to apple seeds alone. I was talking in general about foods that we "feel" are toxic. I did not think that there is any other meaning to the word "facts" other than "facts". I too hope no scientific lab kills greys or any other living creature but the sad fact is that it is regular practice. Could not there be at least anecdotal evidence that - "yes, my bird ate apple seed and died and the autopsy revealed cyanide poisoning". That would be a "fact". I was not referring to any specific post. I was commenting on the general trend of the post. There was no intention to criticise or to question. Only an interest to learn more "facts".

3 Jooles. The dog bowl is very convenient to keep them in temporarily while i clean out the nest box.

I went through this thread with great interest and I have a few questions: 1. One basic question is - will birds actually eat food that is fatal or deadly to them? Does this happen in the wild? Is it learned memory in the wild - the lessons of foods to avoid being passed down through generations? That might mean that birds bred in captivity do not have the flock's memory and knowledge bank and WILL eat food known to be toxic if offered. 2. This post started off as "Fact Finding". But no concrete facts have still emerged? Apple Seed, Garlic, Onion...... - yes we have learnt that most people do not give them, but is their research and evidence to demonstrate that these are fatal/toxic/detrimental? If so in what quantities? Could a small amount of say garlic in the diet in fact be beneficial? I will be following this thread with great interest. I just read the Subject of the post and it says 'What you feel..... An unintended slip Jayd ? :) Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/09 14:30<br><br>Post edited by: ramsabi, at: 2010/02/09 14:31

Babies Day Out. First time I am handling them. http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay101.jpg[/img] http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay102.jpg[/img] http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay103.jpg[/img] http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay104.jpg[/img] http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay105.jpg[/img] http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay106.jpg[/img] http://i830.photobucket.com/albums/zz228/ramsabi/The%20Chicks/ChicksDay10.jpg[/img]