harmonicaman68

A quick update. Lily is now flying :-) She definitely has a different mental tether than Olive does. Olive free flights around the guests at the Baby Cage at Hartman Aviary at the Saturday Open Houses. Lily can free fly, but stays out and away from me MUCH longer as she explores. I may have to keep her on the Aviator Harness when we go to parks. Otherwise it is about 2hrs of exploring before Lily is ready to come back and sit in my lap to get preened :-)

You can always get one in any color directly from Steve Hartman, the inventor of the Aviator Harness. His website for direct purchase is http://www.theparrotuniversity.com

I agree ... taking the bird on vacation is good. A harness will help so you can take your fid outside with you. Last summer a lady and her husband had been trying to get their U2 (Lilly) to quit feather mutilation. It had actually chewed off 12 primaries and secondaries on each wing, effectively clipping itself. It was a reaction to having lost a Sun Conure buddy and then having the family go on vacation and leave the bird home with their college age kids who "had better things to do than play with the bird". The poor bird had nothing to keep it busy. They then could not keep the bird from mutilating. In desperation, the previous owner, after a year of using vet prescribed tranquilizers on Lilly to stop the mutilation, bought Lilly a buddy. A Green Cheek Conure (Olive). That helped some, but not completely. Then about 6 months later, they gave both Lilly and Olive to me with cage. They said it was because they were moving to a smaller place. That may be true, but I think it was also because they had lost heart (or interest) or both. The change in environment seems to have done the trick. Lilly gets MUCH more attention now. I keep her and Olive at work. They live at the warehouse just outside of my office door where all of my co-workers can come by an talk with them on the way to the break room. Olive has bonded with me so strongly that I free flight her outdoors with no harness. I'm working on the same with Lilly. In order to get Lilly to fly again, we sedated her and pulled the mutilated primaries to force a molt, similar to what is done with racing pigeons when they break a flight feather. Otherwise it would have been a year before she got new feathers. She is SO proud of her new feathers, and is getting so much attention that she has left them alone so they could grow in and is learning to fly again. I always touch her feathers and tell her how beautiful they are and she opens her wings and is SO proud of them now. Fortunately, she was fully flighted for about two years before she started mutilating, so the neural pathways in her brain were well established and flight is coming back. She just has to unlearn the failures and crash landings she had while her flight feathers were damaged. That is hard ... but it is coming along. She also has to rebuild her muscle strength and get her cardiovascular in shape through flying further and further distance. We're working on that too. It helps to train outside where she has to relearn flight with crosswinds and up/down drafts. Her furthest flight to date has been about 40 yards (meters), but inside, she is flying all around my office and it is causing her to come out of her shell as she gains confidence again. She was very gregarious when fully flighted before she began mutilating. With flight, her personality is re-emerging.

Ziva likes a toy that is made by Patsy ... one of the volunteers at Hartman Aviary. She gave Ziva one as a homecoming toy when we first brought Ziva home. It is a long white athletic tube sock that can be purchased in any athletic clothing shop (or that can be gotten very inexpensively at any used clothing store). Patsy hand sews some buttons on the outside. She then fills the socks with lego pieces, unshelled almonds, plastic buttons, ball point pen caps, plastic straws, sunflower seeds, flax seed, beans, paper that is cut into strips, and anything else that a Grey may want to forage for. She then sews the open end of the sock closed and also runs the sewing machine across the sock in a couple of other places so the sock is divided into three equal compartments. I hang the sock in Ziva's cage and she climbs it and hangs on it to pick the buttons off the outside. As she climbs on it, she hears the almonds and other things inside rattle against each other and she becomes curious. After awhile she chews her way into one of the compartments and pulls the goodies out that were hidden there. She will work on an almond or play with a button ... or pull out some paper. Eventually she empties all of the compartments and begins a slow process of shredding the sock. If she loses interest in the sock, I eventually replace it with a new one. The stuffed socks have been good toys.

Wallace sounds like he is doing well:-) By the way ... Ziva didn't eat grapes at first either ... now she holds the grape, scoops out the soft sweet center and throws away the skin. Go figure :-)

We understand the picky eater syndrome. Patience and persistence :-) I've found that birds seem to have a built in "food testing" program. They may only touch something with their tongue or eat a small amount or what seems like none. Eventually as they identify the taste and that it had no negative results, they sometimes "come around" and begin to eat what you have introduced them to in the past. I've wondered if God designed them that way so they would not inadvertently eat something that was poisonous to them by mistake. Even new seeds may be "mouthed" to check taste and then dropped. Later they become better accepted.

Hi and welcome :-) Wallace looks healthy in the photo of him. You could try making the Circus Diet for Wallace. A recipe for it is at http://theparrotuniversity.com/circusdiet.php My wife makes it and freezes it into ice cube trays. Then we store it in the freezer. Each day we take about 2 ice cubes of it and mix it with Ziva's pellet food. You could do the same with Wallace's food. Eventually, they get used to the mixture being "on" all of their other food and it even becomes easier to change to different brands of pellets or other food, because the Circus Diet touches and somewhat flavors all of the other food. Just a thought :-) Again ... welcome !!!

Sunny is looking great !!! Good choice of color for your Aviator as well. For those of us who are Ohio State University fans, scarlet is always a good choice with Grey :-)

It is always a blessing when our Greys fly. Thanks for posting this encouraging note :-)

I noticed that my daughter's green cheek conure had an awful smell when she brought some cooked veggies for it to eat over a couple of days and didn't keep the food refrigerated properly. Naema ate the food fine, but we all noticed her smell and changed her diet while my daughter was visiting. As soon as we got Naema on fresher food, the smell went away.

Hi All, No pictures this time, but I'll definitely take a camera along next time :-)

It was a great time. The best part was that Ziva seemed to enjoy herself. Fluffed up, preening, being handled by about half the guys including the 8 year old without complaint. She even sat on the boy's arm long enough that she eventually climbed up the sleeve of his shirt and sat on his shoulder, fluffed up again and sat like a queen. She had never met even one of the others who were with us, but she has been being introduced to strangers on a regular basis. The pattern of "normal introductions" seems to be paying off :-)

I don't know if anyone posts here who likes to go camping. I have camped out over the years and had thought of going camping with Ziva since she first decided to adopt me. I picked out a nice autumn weekend here in Ohio, US and took a few basic pieces of equipment to make life easier with a Grey. First, I didn't try to make our first outing overly long. There were nine of us (guys) going on this campout. We had decided to do one night at a nearby campground that has some fishing and hiking available. We arrived at the campgrounds about 5pm after work on a Friday and only stayed until 3pm on Saturday. This allowed Ziva to experience an overnight, hanging out with strangers, but a limited number, and one stranger was an 8 year old grandson of one of the other participants. So Ziva had adults and children as a part of this experience. I took my usual camp gear including a small (4 person) tent which is really only large enough for 2 people if they keep their gear inside. That gave me a place to zipper the mosquito netting closed and either let Ziva out to stretch her wings a bit without an Aviator harness on. It also gave a place for me to zipper closed to place her Aviator harness on safely. At night, I placed her in a small travel cage that she is "at home" in and she slept in it inside the zippered tent with me. I put her in her travel cage at dark and later, after sitting around the campfire for a few hours, when I entered the tent, I said a few words so Ziva would know it was me. Not even a worried growl did she make. Just a couple of familiar sounds to say "I know it is you" and she was back to sleep. I mentioned that I took a couple of items along to make life easy for me. They also made life easy for Ziva. I took the Aviator Yard Perch to have something for Ziva to sit on at our campsite and be comfortably near me,but off to the side, since we were cooking and doing other activities that she didn't need to be in the middle of. I also took the Aviator Harness so I could keep her safe, yet a part of activities. That was connected to my wrist, or safely anchored to the Aviator Yard Perch at all times. I also took the Aviator Flight Line to allow Ziva to fly and it worked beautifully. The 8 year old grandson of one of the guys helped me give Ziva some exercise on the Flight Line. Since this was our first campout together, I also took an extra Aviator Harness in the same color as the one Ziva is used to. (just in case she got nervous and chewed through one). No worries, she did fine, but there was peace of mind in knowing I had an extra along. I enjoy hiking and the Yard Perch had an unexpected benefit. It worked as a walking stick for me and as we stopped to rest from time to time, I could push it into the ground so Ziva had a perch. I could also take the tether extender from the Flight Line and attach it to the Aviator Harness and it worked well to extend Ziva's range when attached to the Aviator Yard Perch. This extended range was MUCH appreciated by Ziva. :-) Ziva did well. She is usually gregarious, but for this trip there were enough new experiences that she stayed close to me. I'm hoping that as campouts become more frequent in Ziva's life that she becomes more adventurous when she is on them. There were lots of new taste treats, long walks, new friends, cool weather at night, listening to campfire music, listening to talking and laughter after dark, new foraging experiences (on our walks) and just life being TOTALLY different than the normal state of affairs around our home. She and I were both tired out when we returned. Lots of fresh air and beautiful sunshine with cool breezes. Maybe even a bit of a suntan for me and the right color and intensity of lighting for Ziva's health. All in all and good trip. I hope some of you have the opportunity to experience the same with your fids :-)

So what words has your ring neck been saying? .... are they truthful? Telling lies can cause tail growth :-) .... or was that beak growth ... hmmmmmmmm ... Then again ... maybe it is just that the ringneck no linger has an impish cockatiel to help nip the tail feathers :-)

Ziva is a TAG and is 292 grams at 1year 6 months old. If weight directly corresponded to curiosity ... She has the curiosity of a bird the size of a jumbo jet

Actually, flocks in the wild (and birds that fly as individuals such as birds of prey) all fly in large elliptical patterns. If they didn't, they would end up in someone else's territory and disputes would result. Birds who are young and just learning to fly learn about windows within 72 hours of first exposure to them. Birds that are clipped don't learn about windows and don't learn about elliptical flying pattern and instead fly straight and need us to have some forethought as we train them with their new flight feathers. They haven't learned to think on the wing yet and their maneuvering is a bit clumsy. Larger birds may never have the flight capabilities they would have had if they had been left flighted from birth. They need to be taught the circular flight patterns that wild birds learn from the flock. The result can be a lost bird if they get out of the home without a harness. Birds that are unclipped and allowed to learn about their home territory and circular/elliptical patterns of flight on a harness (and flight line) learn where home is and that elliptical flight patterns give time to evaluate and return to the flock's home. They learn where the end of their territory is. That doesn't mean that all unclipped birds are safe to free flight. A bird that learns their safe territory, recall training and who their flock is (you and your family) can eventually be trained to "think on the wing", evaluate their situation quickly if they become spooked, circle and return. I was working with Ziva yesterday on recall training. Her initial flights on the Flight Line and Aviator Harness had been straight line, because she is new to the Flight Line. Within about 10 minutes she was coming at the recall command. Within 30 minutes she was negotiating some strong breezes and delaying her takeoffs until the intermittent breezes had subsided so she had better accuracy returning to me. At the end of 45 minutes, she was allowing the breeze to push her down wind a bit and flying back into the breeze for well controlled landings on my outstretched hand. She knew where the "flock" was. I agree that there is something VERY satisfying about the sound of your fid's wings as they fly about freely and choose to come to you. Just thoughts...

I agree with danmcq ... your Grey knows that something VERY important has been removed from him. He is supposed to be learning to fly and thereby learning all of the important mental. social and physical skills that are associated with flight. Please read the article here on Greyforums at http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?190818-Imping-Feathers-Clipped-wings-restored-through and consider if imping your fid's flight feathers is needed. If you decide to restore flight, please do it as soon as possible. The neural and physical development of your companion requires quick restoration. There is also an article about "thinking on the wing" at http://www.theparrotuniversity.com/ that is very revealing since you are interested in behavioral development. You can contact Steve Hartman at that site and he will be happy to help you understand behavioral development of parrots. He is very straight forward in the way he speaks on this topic, so please don't be put of by his frank speech ... just process what he has to say and you and your fid will benefit greatly. I know that my wife and I have as we have been bringing up Ziva. Just looked it up ... the article about thinking on the wing is at http://theparrotuniversity.com/flight.php Hope this helps.

For those who have been following this thread and wondered where to find the article by Steve Hartman that Dan and others were talking about. It was moved to http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?190818-Imping-Feathers-Clipped-wings-restored-through to be its own topic and can be viewed in its entirety at that location on this Greyforums site.

Hi Dan, I'll pass your thanks along to Steve. It impressed me that when I told him of our conversation here on Greyforums, he immediately gave me permission to post this article that he had been preparing for his own site. His comment was, "Please go ahead and post it quickly. I want folks to have this information freely since it is so important to their parrot's health." Dan, this is the only place this article has been published to date and it tells me that what you are doing here on the Greyforums site is MUCH appreciated. I know that Steve could have chosen to first publish this in one of the many periodicals and magazines on companion parrots, but he allowed us to share the information first, because it is SO beneficial to us to know that there is even a way for a Parront to change their mind if they reconsider clipping and want to restore flight and the strength, physical health and mental health that flight brings to each of our companion birds. I consider it a privilege to have had the opportunity to connect Greyforums with Steve. The time I spent preparing photos and connecting them into the text was pure joy. (Sorry it took me so long to get it done. It has been awhile since I did something like this, but your advanced features here on the newly upgraded site worked well )

OK ... I got Steve Hartman's permission to post the article here (including photos). Eventually, when he gets it posted on his site in a few weeks, the photos will be able to be enlarged by the person viewing the article, but you can at least get the idea from the article I'll post. Dan, I need some advice on how to post this article. It has small versions of the photos imbedded, but the article is still 1.87MB in size as a Word file. Can you talk me through the process of posting it on this Greyforums site? If a different location on this site is better, let me know, because the article is a few pages in length. In pdf format it is 4.3MB in size, but pdf is probably better than as a Word file.

In answer to Kimkim's question .. the imped feathers stay in place until the next molt. The imped feathers are then dropped naturally and the new undamaged flight feathers take there place. The bird benefits greatly by keeping muscle mass and good cardiovascular capabilities instead of losing health through non-flight.

There is an article being written on the imping process with the B&G by Steve Hartman including photos. I've helped to edit that article, but it hasn't been published yet to my knowledge. The day we did the imping of the B&G we also took extensive video of the process. The bird had already bonded so closely with the young man who was her parront that there was no sedation or discomfort for the bird. She was calmed continuously by her parront's voice, cuddles and head scratches. Steve just stretched the B&G's wings out for measurement/fitting of each feather and the required preparation of the flight feathers (both on the bird and the donor) for the super gluing process that Dan has described. Steve used bamboo (that he grows on his own property) for the splicing of the feathers. The bamboo is fitted into the core of the shaft of the feather on the bird and the core of the donor feather (which had been gathered from the previous molts of many other birds at Hartman Aviary). We needed to compare many donor feathers, because shaft diameter of the donor feather needed to match the B&G. Also as Dan described, the bamboo fits inside the shaft to complete the splice so the bird doesn't "worry" at or pick the spot where the joining of donor to live feather is made. Since the B&G's feather is like a finger nail, the bird feels no discomfort as it's own feather base is prepared to receive the donor feather. Imping has been done for centuries with birds of prey used for hunting. Also it has been done to restore flight to wild birds which are on endangered species lists when they damage major flight feathers through hitting power lines or other accidents. The flight can be restored nearly immediately, before the bird loses muscle mass or cardiovascular capabilities from weeks or months of convalescence waiting to molt and get their new flight feathers naturally. Steve Hartman is the first person I have met who has restored flight to companion birds. For years, he has been preaching the truth that birds are meant to fly and that they can't truly finish forming the neural pathways allowing full intelligence unless we allow them to fly. Being full flighted has certainly allowed our Ziva to be gentle and calm around strangers and even our 2-1/2 year old grand daughters. She doesn't bite ... she just flutters a few feet into the air, thinks over the situation and settles back down to rejoin the fun. Steve's commitment to having each of our companions remain flighted has led to him offering opportunities for flight restoration to those who bring their fids to him.

I appreciate that you are holding firm in not clipping. In fact, there are owners of various type of parrots who have felt so strongly about having their birds flighted (as they were designed to be) that they have had their flight feathers restored through imping. About 6 weeks ago, I had the pleasure of assisting Steve Hartman of Hartman Aviary restore 8 flight feathers on each wing of a Blue & Gold Macaw. She was young and had just started flying when her new owner came to pick her up from the breeder ... to find that in being "helpful" the breeder had given the "traditional clip".The B&G's new parront was mortified, but knew that imping was available. In the case of a young bird it is imperative that the flight feathers be restored early so the forming brain can establish all of the neural pathways to allow it to "think on the wing" naturally. Birds that are flighted from birth are much more agile. It took us 3 hours to imp the feathers on both wings, but when we finished, the bird flew to her owner freely. It was awesome to see the bond that had already formed between them and to see her choose to be with her parront and be able to act on that desire. A VERY happy B&G.

I remember a wonderful video of Emma saying goodnight that my wife and I enjoyed viewing some time back. It is nice to be back on the greyforums site and know that Emma's parront has enjoyed one of my posts :-)

Hi Dan, It is good to be back. I have learned SO much on this site. It feels good to be able to give back a little now and then.