reggieroo

Murphy has flew off from the house, I've been round the whole village for about two hours calling him, It was around 11am this morning. I was cleaning him out & just about to change his food & water so he will be hungry. I'm not sure what to do now as I'm in a bit of a panic. Been out calling & whistling him but nothing. I would have expected to have heard him call back, I fear the worst that he has flown miles away & is lost. I'm gutted.

I love my little mate Murphy & this is his home for life. He was hard work when we first got him as a baby, screaming all the time if I went out of sight for around 7 months this went on. I didn't give up & the words I got from 99% of people were "get rid of him", the other 1% who gave me good advise & encouragement were the people of grey forums & the only people who understood why I put up with it. There were times when it did my head in & times I felt like I couldn't take it anymore but personally I don't give up & it all came good in the end. I did re-home my Amazon but only to my ex girlfriend after 10 years together, only one other person I would have let him go to & that was my Mum. The only reason I re-homed my Amazon is because we didn't get on very well after my ex left & it was her or my mum that he loved, they were the only two people who he would interact with & be happy around. When I bumped into my ex after a few years she told me she missed him terribly & I told her he was the same so I let them live happily ever after. I get the odd update & he is having the time of his life with her, so that makes me happy. It did leave an empty void so I got Murphy my grey & he loves us all thankfully.

Not sure I can give you any other suggestion that what you have already tried, maybe net curtains for the time being? They do get used to the windows etc & get to know where they are but I can imagine your worried for now just in case. I know when I first got Murphy he had a few crash landing into the windows hard & I thought, he's going to break his neck soon but then he got used to them & it stopped. Maybe this sounds silly but what about making them dirty or smearing that white stuff (think it's windowlene, left on to dry) on that people use when renovating, just until he gets used to his surroundings?

The cups are the big ones, not sure what ounce they are but I always thought they seemed a little big. When I first started using them, I filled em right up & just got a load of waste. He would sieve through, eat the nice bits & chuck the rest back in, leaving a bowl full of the bits he didn't want. They do make it easy to perch on too, think that may be part of the problem. I'm going to give those cup covers a try that Birdhouse recommended & see how we get on from there. One other thing that has been suggested to me is to fit a chinchilla shelf at the right height above the cups, high enough for him to get his head in but low enough so he can't perch on the cups. If I got one wide enough, even if he perches on the shelf the poops should miss the cups. Anyway that's the second option, I'll be sure to keep this post updated.

I've been quite lucky so far as Murphy has only chewed the edge of the leather sofa, the dragon (Dracaena) plant & my toes. He does love to chew though & most of his wooden toys have been reduced to pile on the cage floor. Also his natural perch I made him last year has been heavily chewed with some of the branches being completely chewed off. Fortunately he has become a creature of habit & only flies to his stand or cage top where he can do no damage to our stuff. He occasionally flies down to me on the sofa once or twice a night & has a go at my toes but only a sweet little nibble to say "hi dad, I love you!"

Thanks Dave, I'll look into those as I don't seem to be having much luck getting hold of the cup covers.

Ok well I've tried with another bowl on the other side of the cage, it seem to make it even worse for some reason. He is now constantly going on to each side of the cage & standing on each dish in turn. I'm sure this is a wind up for his amusement, just told him to stay off the dishes & he stood there bobbing his head.........lol Birdhouse, if you do find those cup covers then let me know. I'll pay you for them + postage to the UK. I have contacted that website you gave me to see if they will ship but no answer yet. My only hope I think are those cup covers.

If that's you in your avatar, you don't look old enough to have a 20 year old daughter. :eek: I too would have a yearly pass, I don't like crowds much myself but that's all forgotten about once I walk through the gates of the Magic kingdom. I turn into a 10 year old!

I love Disneyworld, my favorite place in the world, only been to the one in Florida though.......3 times now.

Those cup covers in the first link look like just the ticket. Here's me thinking I have the only parrot who poops in his dishes, I guess not if somebody has designed cup covers to stop bird poops going in the dishes. I just need to see if I can get some in the UK, that might be the tricky part.

Ah ok, some forums I use log me in automaticly whenever I got go them, thought this did the same but no worries. Thanks.

He sleeps in his normal cage which is located in our large hallway, throughout the day it is the hub of the house right in the middle of all the action. Then at night when we put him to bed the hallway light goes off, cover on & we go into the living room to watch TV & the door is closed to keep the noise to a minimum. What some people do if their main cage is in the living room, is to buy a small cage, place it in a quite room for sleep time only. It all depends on the layout of your house, activity levels, where the action is, cage placement etc. Everybody's situation is different & you have to do what suits your situation best for you, your grey & your household.

Murphy goes to bed around 8pm, sometimes a little later now summer is here like 9pm & sometimes on an odd occasion I'm really naughty & keep him up later. I also cover him up every night which normally shuts him up ready for bed in an instant. What is funny is sometimes he goes down to the floor of the cage to try & peek out & I hear his little feet on the newspaper, then see his little head peeking. :rolleyes: Another thing I ask everybody in the household to do, is not to talk or respond to him when the cover is on so he knows it's time for quiet & sleep time. Then the same in the morning until the sheet is pulled off. All of the above seems to work well for Murphy & our household. If you don't cover at night then that is the first thing I would do, then advocate the no talk rules when covered to give the message it's sleepy time.

It's a decent size cage Dan http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?143481-Show-Us-Your-Cage!/page8 post 78. There are no other bowl holders apart from the two on the swing away feeders. I have even tried using different hook on bowls in other parts of the cage & he takes them off within minutes & chucks them down along with the contents. I've just moved the perches away from the bowls a little more to stop him stepping over so easily, I'll see how that goes.

I would strangle Murphy, stick him on a skewer & BBQ him if he woke me at 5-6am every morning..........lol As you can probably tell, I don't like being woke up too early, bit of a night owl me fortunately Murphy understands this. I wake around 9am & there isn't normally a sound until he hears one of us. Sometimes he even likes a lie in, like this morning for example. We all woke up to the cats fighting in the hallway, I got up, then my 19 month old daughter Ella-Rose woke up followed by Mummy after being jumped on.........but where is Murphy? He stayed asleep for a further 20 mins, must have been up partying when we went to bed.

Ever since buying Murphy a new cage which has swing away feeders using stainless steel bowls, he insists on doing what I call the dish walk, walking back & forth across his dishes. I often catch him sat on one bowl while eating or drinking from the other which then results in him doing a poop in one of them. He also likes to perch on them too, again pooping in his dishes. Now all I keep thinking is why? Why does such an intelligent creature such as a grey poop in his food & water? I have read various posts about some greys that won't even poop in their own cage but yet Murphy will do it in his food, sometimes 5 minutes after just changing his food & water. :mad: He has lots of other places to perch inc various different thickness branches & perches all over the cage & the two by his bowls that he does use. I've even tried moving them slightly higher than the dishes thinking parrots prefer the higher perch, I've tweaked them over the months with no effect. I've tried chasing him off with an "off there" command which he understands fully, he even gets off the dishes if he sees me looking or I walk up to the cage & rarely does it if I'm sat by him. If I'm out of sight I can hear his toes on the stainless bowls walking back & forth but by the time I get to him, he's off back on his perch looking all innocent. :rolleyes: The problem is, the amount of wasted food I'm getting, it has to be thrown away & I can't afford to keep doing it. I really need to try & find a solution to this problem & it's just not good is it, pooping in your food?............................."yes Murphy I'm talking to you!"

Every time I log on I have to fill in my username & password, even though I have the remember me box ticked.

Well I always put where abouts I'm from except the exact Village I live. I'm from the UK in the countryside of Worcestershire, in among 100 Villages dotted about. I'm on a lot of other forums, mainly car forums & I don't advertise my exact location just in case somebody decides, nice car I'll have that! It is unfortunately the world we live in & people fear the criminals that lurk all over the Internet inc all manner of forums looking for an easy target of whatever you might have worth some money.

Well Murphy has pretty much been trying to talk human speech since we got him at 12 weeks old but wasn't until last week that I actually understood it. He is 18 months old tomorrow & his first proper word was "alright?" at 17months old.

Well then, if you truly believe in your heart of hearts that this is the right thing to do for you & your partner then go for it. I wish you all the best of luck & stay on this forum, it is a great place & has helped me through some tough times with Murphy. Go read some of my old topics to get an idea of what you might have to deal with along the way. It isn't all plain sailing for some but well worth it in the end.

Well done Issac, Murphy still has one grey tipped tail feather, was wondering when it was going to come out. He is always just behind Issac in almost everything being a few months younger. How old is Issac now, Murphy will be 18 months on the 21st of June.

Well I think it's safe to say Murphy said his first word yesterday "Alright" He's been trying to say it for ages but couldn't quite understand it but yesterday I was sure that is what he said & today he has said it a number of times. We had some guests over today & he said it a few times & they didn't quite hear it but then they heard it once he said it a bit louder. When your grey starts talking it hard to say when the first word was, because they practise for ages & you pretty much know before they say it clearly what they are trying to say, so I thought it was a fair assumption that when you understand it that is the first time. How do other people judge their Grey's first or new word?

Murphy said his first word yesterday "Alright"

Well we did it the other way round, had our little girl then a few months later we got Murphy our baby grey. Do I have any regrets.....................none what so ever! They both live happily side by side since the very first days with no issues at all, we also have two cats & a large German Shepard dog. As grey wings has said the little children grow up with a respect for the animals in the household just as they do for humans. Murphy & Ella-Rose our Daughter live together in harmony, they don't bother too much with each other & have grown up together like siblings. Murphy sometimes dances for her to make her laugh & in turn she wants to give him a tickle. All in all I'm very happy with the way things have turned out in our household. The big questions you have to ask is to yourself. Can you deal with a baby grey & a baby boy or girl? Most people will know the answer straight away, for some people it may be too much for others like us we made the decision & stuck with it, with no regrets. What I will say was Murphy was harder work in the first year than Ella-Rose would you believe, baby greys can be hard work in my experience. Now Murphy is 18 months old he is a lot more independent & can enjoy his own company for longer periods of time. So if you plan on getting a baby grey then some children a year or two later it should work out just fine, the grey will have grown up a little & become more independent leaving you with more time to shower on your newborn. So in my opinion, yes you can have a grey & a newborn baby but like I said it all depends on the type of person you are. Good luck with your decision, any more questions, just shoot!

Murphy really only poops in two places, his cage & his stand as he spends most of his time there. I find if you teach them where they can perch & where they can't they will learn & then you can make sure you have paper in the places you allow them to perch. If I pick him up to have a cuddle or tickle I wait until he has done a poop then pick him up, I then put him back after about 20-30mins as that is about the time between poops. Within a minute or so he does one & can them come back down, this strategy has worked 99.9% & I've only had around 5 poops on me in a little over a year. I made the mistake once of getting him out first thing in the morning before his huge morning poop & you guessed it...........................I got one huge poop down my back!