crossfit

My husband is a martial artist. He even has flown across the pond to train with our friend Mick Coup in Wales. I can see I will have to get him to develop a parrot self defense class with you all punching your parrots like that! (giggle)

He is growing so well. I adore him. I think getting a Grey was the smartest thing I ever did in my life. Right now he is sitting next to me and listen to my husband practice his bass. Hawkins sure loves music!

I have the opportunity to take Dr. Friedman's professional class for behavioral consultants this fall and I am very excited. So many people asked me not to stop posting. I really appreciate it. Disagreements happen and I think Dave just misunderstood my intent and I was surprised and it coincidentally happened on a day when my chronic back pain was acting up so I was oversensitive. Lets let it go now and not stress over it. Dave has extremely valuable knowledge and I have learned a lot from him and the others on this site. I look forward to sharing what I learn in Dr. Friedman's class with you all this fall.

Hi, These are from today. Some are in his cage and others are out in the room playing. And there is the one in the kitchen eating a banana as well. Click on them to see them larger.

Welcome to the forums. Hermes is a great name. This is a great place to learn. I joined a little under a year ago when planning to get my parrot. My baby is named Hawkins and is younger than yours. He has been with me almost two months and was born January 7th, 2010. It is awesome. Welcome to the grey family!

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing. The photos aren't bad at all and you can really see how lovely she is.

Wow. I am really embarrassed. I had no intention of trying to sound "holier than thou" or anything like that. I will refrain from sharing what knowledge I do have from now on as it is not "warrented." I apologize to anyone who might have been offended by my post. I sincerely thought I was answering the original posters question about whether her gray would make the noise more often before he stopped it completely. While I don't have a lot of parrot experience, I do have other experience and can only answer from my experience. From the perspective of learning theory, the answer is a simple "yes" and I wanted to communicate that. I also hoped to share my experience with simply being human and the struggles that come in relationship. I can understand her husbands point of view as I am very sound sensitive myself and I can also understand if she feels worried about him and the new parrot as my husband and I have had temporary issues with one of our many animals seriously annoying one of us but not the other. I won't post here again. I am sorry for the unwelcome sharing.

Okay, here is the best I can do as applied to parrots. http://www.parrotchronicles.com/departments/scream_behavior.htm You will see it is basically saying the same thing as the other two articles.

Here is a link to an article on behavior extinction. Hopefully it will help you. http://www.usu.edu/teachall/text/behavior/LRBIpdfs/Extinction.pdf Here is another one. It is a four page lecture so make sure to click through all the pages at the navigation button at the bottom. http://www.autismnetwork.org/modules/behavior/extinction/lecture01.html Both of these links are applying this to children. You will have to extrapolate to animals until I can find you a more direct link. Please notice that both sites say that one of the disadvantages to using the exctinction technique for removing a behavior is that the behavior increases for some time, which is not determinable, before it decreases. Both also mention that training (reinforcing) another behaviour that is incompatible with the annoying one really makes things go smoother and more quickly

Yes. I have my master's degree in psychology and have worked with special needs children as well as the seriously mentally ill of all ages. In all cases, before the behaviour disappears, it increases. They have learned that a sound or behaviour will get them something and when you start to ignore it (also called "putting it on extinction") they will try harder and more often to do that thing until they learn a new way to get whatever it was they were getting before. My suggestions: 1. Try and figure out what was happening when he used to be rewarded for this. I think one clue is that it is the sound of the cage opening. It meant he was going to get to come out of the cage. Then, as well as ignoring the squeek, teach him a new word or sound for getting out of the cage. In the beginning you will have to take him out all the time he says it however so be prepared to do this when your both mentally set. Of course, you can take him out only for a moment to reinforce the new sound so that will help. 2. Seriously find ways for husband to relax. I am also sound sensitive and some sounds drive me nuts and others don't even notice them. For instance there is a drawer I have that is driving me nuts and I have been known to cover my ears when son or husband open it. The ways I deal with this are to make sure I am as relaxed as possible prior to spending time in the room with the noise. For your husband, that might mean learning about some simple destressing exercises he can do prior to walking in the house and throughout the evening and weekends. 3. I am wondering if you also need to relax a bit. I am imagining that you love this parrot and are feeling very overwhelmed with all these strange behaviours and now this "argument" between your parrot and your husband. When I was deciding to get an african grey, I told my husband that it is sort of like deciding to get an autistic toddler that we get to keep for the rest of our lives. Parrots demand that much attention and though we get back a lot of love, we also get back quite a few annoyances. He knew what I meant as we have raised two (normal) children together. 4. One thing that you might try and remember: some things will always take time. All people and animals go through phases. Sometimes it simply takes some time for things to just go away. I didn't learn this is graduate school. I learned it from having kids.

awwww how sweet. My kids give me roses to plant in the garden every mothers day. Over the years this means I now have an extensive rose garden. So, when my husband feels like giving me roses he tend to go out in the yard and pick a pretty one and sneak up behind me and give it to me along with a kiss. I love romance.

Well, you could get it set up on a tripod and rig up a remote control that always keep in your pocket. Who knows, maybe Tobie would figure out how to use the remote control and make us some videos as well!

I have three dogs. A small one, a medium, and a large. Last night Hawkins started barking along with them. He chose to bark like the small one when she is in her fierce mode. It is very funny. :eek:

Jayd and the others, thank you so much for all this work. I am learning so much. Now I definitely know I don't want to raise babies! But I really appreciate the learning and what a great start these twins are getting with all of your help.

camping? The cage is definitely too small. After all, where will you put all of us?

I was just thinking this the other day. Their feet look so reptilian that I assume they will be colder than they are. But they are warm blooded critters so they are not. And yes, I notice that sometimes they are much hotter than others.

Oh sweet baby with the single tail feather. Hugs to spock

I just joined Ozzy's group. There are also other AG groups too.

RMullen - I would be very leery of any breeder willing to ship birds under the circumstance where they could be returned randomly. First of all, most reputable breeders in the United States will actually give a better guarantee, from 4 days to a week to have the new babies checked out by a vet. I don't know if that is true about the airline. I think it is possible to reject any package, including live animals but the ethics involved just make me really concerned.

I have to argue with this point. The IRA is still important. Its just that the parrot is now the beneficiary!

Oh they are lovely. Purple is my son's best friends favorite color too so definitely some boys like it!

She is very good and has a video cam and all sorts of things to ease your waiting. I did notice she doesn't have any grey's right now but I would say it is worth waiting. She doesn't let anyone in her aviary. That made me suspicious at first but its for all the right reasons as she keeps illness out that way. A number of years ago in California some avian illness were going around. I have had Hawkins about a month and a week or so and he just keeps getting better. One thing she does is use her older, pet Grey's help to socialize the babies so they understand healthy parrot behaviour.

I highly recommend my breeder. I have been totally happy with my baby. She is in California. I know she ships within the United States. http://fofaviary.net/

I think what is important is to not train them to hold it in. You can train them not to poop on you or the carpet or whatever as long as they always have an alternative location and never are required to hold it. It seems like splitting hairs but I learned about this before Hawkins came to live here and thus had a lot of time to research it. At this point, I am just saying, "good poop" when he poops so he knows what I mean at some point later on. Who knows if this will work though. But I also heard that they shouldn't ever be taught to hold it.

personally, I would not have a flighted bird out of the cage unsupervised. I probably wouldn't have a clipped one out unsupervised either. I suppose you could do so safely in a well parrot proof room like a bird room that some of the folks here have. But yes, when she starts getting comfortable, she will fly around, chew things up, and poop everywhere.