crossfit

here are two web sites with a recipes for a bird birthday cake: http://www.birdsnways.com/birds/rcakes.htm http://www.parrotrecipes.com/recipes/cake.php And here is one with ideas on how to make a plain sheet cake into a decorated, shaped cake including a parrot http://www.jenny-cakes.com/shapedgallery.html

sorry Dave. Eight to ten inches isn't going to make me taller than my fids. That wouldn't get to me to six feet! But thanks for trying. What kind of feathers do you use on those wings? I hear Daedalus and Icarus might have some suggestions for you about materials.

I will vote for all three. Next week can I enter one that I saw on my trip to the Amazon even if I don't own one?

I love that older grey. There is a series of pics from about a month ago where he is teaching Hawkins to eat a cheerio. Tina, the breeder, made sure I realized this grey wasn't hurting my baby, but I have learned enough from you all and the pics I have seen and the greys I know, to know that his body language was one of helping and directing. I think knowing they are birds and learning bird behaviour from the older birds is really helpful and one of the reasons I chose this breeder. As for the toe, I will have my avian vet look at it when he arrives here and we go for his first week check up. I am game for helping him even with it being a hindrance but the vet will tell me whatever I might need to know in order to make sure it is fine. Tina's vet said it looks like a "pied" toe and that the color isn't black so that also makes it different. But she said that he holds on more like a monkey since he doesn't have the toe nail to grip with like the others do. I am getting impatient. I know its less then a month at this point but we are waiting on him and he will decide the right time by his flight skills and complete weaning. I keep reminding myself I am a grown up and can be patient. lol

Got some more pics. These are dates March 22nd. He is at the end on the left in this one with his siblings and an adult grey that loves to help play with the babies. <br><br>Post edited by: crossfit, at: 2010/03/25 01:42

I think they call that hang gliding. And actually I saw a falconry website of a guy hangliding with his falcons free flying. So I guess its possible.

I am new at this but I think what is most important is for you to get a baseline of his weight on a weekly basis rather than to worry about one particular weight to try to reach. The main reason we weigh them is to notice if they are consistently dropping weight over a few weeks as an early indicator for illness. I don't remember if you said he is flighted but if he is flying, he won't be overweight. And it is rare (I think) for them to be overweight at this point in his young life. So just get your baseline down and know that weight does change regularly through the week and even the day or hour so your looking for patterns, not absolute numbers.

very cool to know. And it doesn't change him one bit.â™

I also have a garden. I find that growing my own lettuces and greens and picking them for salad is my favorite. I never managed to get broccoli or cauliflower growing well enough to do it regularly. If you are gardener, check out the ideas of permaculture. anyone can grow a small pot of greens. Get a "cut and come again" mix. These are not lettuces that form a head so you just cut some leaves, wash them, and give them to your bird. You can even grow these types of lettuces in pots. Lettuces don't like heat so all you in the UK could do better with them than I do here in California with a long hot season each summer. Then again, I get awesome tomatoes in the hot summers!

I cried too. And was amazed and astounded by the things he learned. I was a little sad though at times that he had to live in the lab due to the restrictions of science and the bias of others outside of their lab that this wasn't real science. How much more would he have given to us had he been able to be a pet bird in the evenings sleeping near his flock.

I just wanted to let folks in the United States know that spring is a great time to find a CSA. Whats a CSA? It stands for "community supported agriculture. They are small organic farms across the United States that sell "shares" to the public. In return for your "share" you get a weekly basket of fresh organic produce in season usually picked that morning. Here is mine: http://www.liveearthfarm.net/ Here is a list of CSA's across the country: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml Whenever I have done this for the spring/summer/fall season, I end up with many, many yummy veggies. Enough for me, family, friends, and all my animals to share. And I had a herd of goats last time I did it so my one small fid should have plenty.

OOOO can't wait for Friday. Fid sexing day on the forums! I am trying to imagine traveling to the vet with 6 fids. Never mind. Better to not imagine it. I will sleep better without those images. lol

Take a look at the date of your references. The most recent is fifteen years ago. There has a been a lot of research since then and most of the studies in the wild have been done since then. One of your references is a Barron publication. From The African Grey Parrot published by Barron in 2000 and revised in 2009 page 56 "Although we can begin with an assumption that height may be causing territorial agression, trial and error changes might demonstrate that the opposite is true. Agression might be difficult to distinguish from fear because of the Grey parrots well developed Fight or Flight response, especially the first part of the Fight of Flight response - fear biting. Either raising or lowering the height of the bird might bring a feeling of safety and eliminate the need to nip. Additionally, a shy bird may experience enhanced confidence by merely raising the height of the cage or the perches customarily used" Anyways, we can agree to disagree. Each bird owner is responsible to their birds and need to find what works for them.

There is no research backing up this dominance hypothesis. What seems to be more likely is that the need to be high up is do to being a prey animal that escapes by flight and by being out of reach. The birds at the tops of the trees seem to be sentries or look outs for watching while the Grey's on the ground are eating. There is very little out there about the natural behaviour in the wild for African Greys but none of what I have found seems to imply a dominant flock leader. This is even less true for New World parrots that live in multispecies flocks. Just how would they all decide which bird of which species gets to be leader? This is a common myth about parrots that springs from our own behaviour and our knowledge of dog behaviour. We are agressive animals. Reading into the parrots desire for height as being one of dominance is seeing ourselves in their behaviour, not truly observe how and why they go to the trees in their natural environment. http://www.rationalparrot.com/biting.html http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/pdffiles/dominance.pdf http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/html/behavior.htm http://www.naturalencounters.com/images/Publications&Presentations/Anatomy_of_Parrot_Behavior-Steve_Martin.pdf Scientists are now even rethinking dominance theory as applied to predator animals as well: http://ptfordogs.blogspot.com/2009/11/debunking-dominance-theory.html

There is no research backing up this dominance hypothesis. What seems to be more likely is that the need to be high up is do to being a prey animal that escapes by flight and by being out of reach. The birds at the tops of the trees seem to be sentries or look outs for watching while the Grey's on the ground are eating. There is very little out there about the natural behaviour in the wild for African Greys but none of what I have found seems to imply a dominant flock leader. This is even less true for New World parrots that live in multispecies flocks. Just how would they all decide which bird of which species gets to be leader? This is a common myth about parrots that springs from our own behaviour and our knowledge of dog behaviour. We are agressive animals. Reading into the parrots desire for height as being one of dominance is seeing ourselves in their behaviour, not truly observing how and why they go to the trees in their natural environment. In addition to the doctoral work mentioned about about parrots in the wild, you can learn more at these sites as well. http://www.rationalparrot.com/biting.html http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/pdffiles/dominance.pdf http://www.thegabrielfoundation.org/html/behavior.htm http://www.naturalencounters.com/images/Publications&Presentations/Anatomy_of_Parrot_Behavior-Steve_Martin.pdf Scientists are now even rethinking dominance theory as applied to predator animals as well: http://ptfordogs.blogspot.com/2009/11/debunking-dominance-theory.html<br><br>Post edited by: crossfit, at: 2010/03/23 05:25

Your getting it. one cup dry to one cup wet. And while Dave is right that wet and dry cups aren't the same, if you start out with the same measuring cup, don't stress over it. If the mash looks dry to you, add water. If it looks too wet, like soup, add some dry. And as for handing a baby a razor, on our first vacation after my son was born, hubby unpacked like he did before kids. Then proceeded to put our 15 month old in the tub. A few minutes later I hear, "spicy" in a strange tone so I rush in to find him playing with the razor but only one teeny tiny cut. Moral of the story? Even a baby with a razor can survive so you can certainly do that first recipe. If it helps your confidence, put the saucepan on the grill and do it up like your making a sauce for whatever your grilling. I had to do that when my kitchen was being remodeled. You would be amazed at how versatile a grill is. One note, while your learning, stir often and stay nearby. Cook on a medium heat so things don't cook too fast and you will be less likely to burn things.

Probably more than you ever wanted to know about copyright and intellectual property: http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/ And another: http://www.intelproplaw.com/ Yes. You own that picture even after posting it. It is considered fair, for example, if I were to take that photo and use it on my web site saying, "friends of mine from various african grey sites this one is Emma" or some such but even then you could be grumpy and ask me to remove it. The question is, do you want to do something about this guy using your photo? Do we have any lawyers on the site or amongst our friends who can send him a registered letter asking him to remove the photo? That would be the next step. Document everything. Keep copies in hard copy of all the emails if you choose to follow up on this. It doesn't matter if you were rude or not, he legally can't use that photo. (my dad was a lawyer and some of my good friends work in the field of internet intellectual properties issues so this is a somewhat educated answer, not just my opinion). By the way, we all should bone up on intellectual property if we hang out on the internet. For example, because we are on a forum, our words here are not owned by us but are owned by the owner of the site. That isn't true for email. Check the sites you upload pictures and videos to as well to make sure they are not taking your rights by you posting to them. Read the fine print. Websites are cheap and easy to build these days. I post all my pictures to my own web site and not photobucket or any of the popular sites for this reason. I am not saying they currently try to take ownership, just that I am paranoid about my photos. We can also state in the text field of any photo, "all rights reserved" and include our name making it more explicit.

yay. I was really lonely without our site. Note, another forum I am on has a google email list just to notify people when the site is up or down. I wonder if our list should have something like that for when we migrate? I was worried that the site had migrated and my name somehow did not get transferred when I couldn't find us for so long.

Thanks Sunny. I wondered about that. I don't know if I could live without my garlic.

It was really good. Both hubby and son liked it too.

I can't answer for the particular surgery but wanted to mention that the last few surgeries I have had (all on my back) the IV was very manageable once it was put in. I am also needle phobic. Tell them ahead of time and they will do all they can to make it easy. You can also let your anesthesiologist know and they sometimes will give you something as soon as its in for you to relax. That made my 45 minutes wait for the surgery to start much more bearable.

Karma to you but pass it on to him please. Back surgery is a drag but from my experiences, its getting better and better. Good luck to him.

I hadn't heard this either. I didn't care what I got. It was more important to have the right breeder so my baby was properly raised before coming to me. I did think a boy might be nice at one point for the small chance that he would be more comfortable with the social situations we are likely to find ourselves in. Then again, many girls are comfortable with that too.

I live in a small town called Boulder Creek, California (population 4,081). The closest cities are Santa Cruz (lots of hippies) to the south and San Jose (lots of techies) to the north with San Francisco a little further on. Our claim to fame is the natural environment with the Coastal Redwoods - the tallest trees on earth. These aren't the ones in Yosemite that are the most massive and you can find pictures of cars driving through. These are taller. Here is a web site some one did for our town: http://www.boulder-creek.com/ And a picture from google that shows the whole town. Seriously, you can see all the main buildings in this panorama with the trees in the background: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10557670<br><br>Post edited by: crossfit, at: 2010/03/17 01:38

So, I am totally obsessed and as you know, my lil Hawkins is still living at the breeders. So my life has become parrot focused. So today, I planned dinner based on a recipe from the Congo. I found this online cookbook when I was trying to research what they eat in the wild, which led me to what foods actually originated there vs being brought in centuries and centuries ago (like chicken was there about the time that Egypt was ruling the world in the 2000 bc period and cinnamon around 1000 bc). So, here is a dinner I could share with my fids and comes from the congo: http://www.congocookbook.com/soup_and_stew_recipes/groundnut_stew.html Tonight I am making it with tofu instead of chicken so you vegetarians can eat this too. I am just frying the tofu slices (use either very firm tofu or drain the tofu on paper towels and press slightly with a plate to remove extra moisture) To adjust for eating with the birds I would leave out the salt, onion, garlic, and I might try and use red palm oil for the oil since that is most likely what is used in the Congo and also excellent for them. I might also make it spicier for my birds than for me. I like it mild.<br><br>Post edited by: crossfit, at: 2010/03/17 01:21