MarcusCAG

Birdhouse, I had to read that one sentence a couple of times but I do see what you mean. I've been trying to figure out what treats he likes but so far the options are limited, he's very picky although everything I offer him is a 'french fry' (grr!). This case is far from hopeless though so I'll just have to keep at it until we make some more strides forward... I do like your hand-feeding idea though, that's even something maybe that will make him more comfortable about my husband's hands, too... Thanks again for your insights, they're very appreciated. And thanks to everyone who's commented here with so much help and kindness for our Marcus.

I really don't have time this morning, I have so much to do, but I saw this thread and I just have to reply! Marcus... oh, where to start? I love him so much. I love our Beaker (Quaker parrot) too but Marcus is really my bird, I think. After my 13-year-old chinchilla died this past spring, I was so devastated, and it clicked that I didn't want to adopt another rodent-type animal... I wanted a parrot. After some research (and discovering Alex, whom I fell in love with immediately), I settled resolutely in my heart that I wanted a Grey. But finances, and availability... just wasn't working out. I got rather depressed. Seeing this, my dear husband came up with the idea of adopting a Quaker parrot instead, in effect allowing us to adopt the bird who became our Beaker on the premise that, if a Grey ever came around that we could afford, the Grey would be my bird and Beaker his bird. But at least I'd have a parrot to love in the meanwhile. As it turned out, we were so blessed to have our Marcus fall in our lap a short while ago, and the boys seemed to have decided this Beaker-Daddy, Marcus-Mommy thing out for themselves as well even though they both love us dearly, and we them. But to the point of the thread: "How has your Grey changed your life?" In many ways, but what popped into my head immediately when I read this is that, honestly, I think Marcus is helping our marriage a lot. Not that it's in bad shape, but it's a marriage, with its ups and downs. With Beaker, who is so readily transportable with his obedient Step-ups, we can take him anywhere in the house and be with the other animals, in rooms with the television and the Internet, anywhere... essentially, we can live our 'normal' lives with him involved with us in those rooms too. But with Marcus, since he has such "Step up!" issues, at this point he is essentially confined to the boys' bedroom where their cages are. (Because I do not at all trust him walking out of their room on the floor to other parts of the house with our cats and even our dog around, roaming at will.) So to spend time with Marcus and now Beaker--who, for all his fiesty lunges if Marcus gets too close, seems very unhappy now if he is out of sight of his new Grey flockmate--we have to stay in their bedroom. In the bedroom is a china closet, a futon, a guitar, their two cages, and an old record player with a broken CD player attachment. Basically, it's just us and them. No TV, no Internet, just the occasional record that we sing along with and they try to sing with, too. So when I say Marcus has been helping our marriage, I mean it in the sense that we are all spending quality, direct time together. And lots of it. Marcus chases my husband, literally giggling all the way in my voice, as my husband walks on his hands and knees in circles around the room. We try to use primitive versions of Model/Rival teaching methods for the boys as we think to. Beaker and Marcus are very attentive and very appreciative of all the petting and loving we give them. And my husband and I--especially me--feel very contented with the 'children' that we are blessed to care for and protect. Because we have no children yet, and I honestly think it will be a while before we do. So Beaker, but especially Marcus, is filling such a deep hole in my heart with his love, his tenderness, his surprise vocalizations that are so appropriate in context, his antics, and his intelligence. I love my Grey. What else can I say?

Uh-oh! Well, it's good to hear the other side of the story, too... Honestly, everywhere I read, people were saying how much their fids loved their Jolly Balls! Thanks for your input.

Hello again, I figured I'd post this here because the "Cages and Homes" subforum seemed mostly about, well, cages! So I didn't think this would quite apply... Anyway, the long and short of it is, my husband and I recently bought a Jolly Ball for our Quaker parrot, Beaker. We ordered a size that was suitable for Quakers and Greys alike (as in, big enough so that Marcus could conceivably play inside it if he wanted to). Good thing, because Beaker seemed quite terrified of the thing once I brought it close to his cage. It sat in the corner of the room for a day or so, and Beaker would yell at it even if I just moved it to the floor, and I started getting a little cranky. Because of the two of them, I figured Marcus would be the one to be initially afraid of the Jolly Ball! But he wasn't, and so on a whim I hung it up in his cage and put in a perch near it. (Beaker is okay with this since it's now haunting Marcus' cage, supposedly, and not his own.) Anyway, Marcus is rather indifferent to the Jolly Ball. He reached over and pulled on it once or twice while I peeked in their room, but so far he hasn't done much in terms of exploring it. Do any of you have Jolly Balls for your Greys and, if so, how did they take to them and/or how long did it take them to want to utilize it? I think Marcus and Beaker would love it if they really gave it a chance, I've read so many nice parront comments about how their fids love these things, but, well, maybe my boys will have to take a longer time warming up to it...

Thank you for your thoughts, Mawnee. Yes, I have read that the regurgitation is part of parrot courtship, and I had been discouraging it until this issue of his "Step up!" fear developed (or manifested itself, rather). It seems not to matter if my hand is palm-up or -down or sideways, he will suddenly start the whole thing. If Marcus is in his cage, I will say "Thank you but I don't want to eat right now" and he'll only stop if I get up and leave and talk to Beaker or something. Out on the floor, I've been more lenient because I've been wanting to see him more comfortable around hands, and since he steps all over them trying to get at my knuckle, in a way it's been working. But truly, I don't want to compound the issue by letting him get too hormonal and everything. So we are making progress, but there's still a lot of ground to be covered. I'd like to minimize our mistakes though, that's for sure! So would it seem prudent to have my husband be the one to work with him out on the floor more often anymore? They definitely have a different relationship, and Marcus doesn't get hormonal with him. They 'play' more, like Marcus will run after my husband as he crawls on his hands and knees in circles on the floor. Really cute. But Marcus wants NOTHING to do with his hands past head-tickling and he absolutely will not step up onto his arm or hand in any way, shape, or form for him.

I'm so sorry Shanti isn't home yet. I hope you are reunited with her soon!

I wouldn't say that he is a 'much older bird', but my husband and I recently adopted an 8-year-old male CAG whom we've named Marcus. He is very healthy and was well-cared for in his former home in the sense that he was regularly fed and cleaned... but we were told he hadn't been out of his cage in over three years and obviously wasn't handled at all during that time. In other words, he was a neglected bird. (And his diet left much to be desired, considering everything from a strawberry to a piece of pasta is a "french fry"--we're trying to break that!) Marcus is very loving but he does have some 'baggage' from his former home, there were initially some issues with beak pressure (he hadn't been taught his limits) and we are still working through his fears related to past bad experiences with the "Step up!" command. Marcus is our first Grey, too, but the fact that we have a little Quaker parrot as well I think has been helping things a bit. He has obviously take to us all as his 'new flock' quite well, and at this point we can scratch his head confidently and he has allowed us to give him pellets although he still ignores most 'real food' we offer him except Birdie Bread... sigh... but hopefully that will change in the future, too. If this is any perspective, additionally: my parents owned a wild-caught Blue-fronted Amazon parrot who lived to be 27 and died a few years ago from a tumor. They adopted him at about two years old, I think, from an ad in the paper back in 1980 or so. My father worked with him a lot in the beginning, from what my mom tells me (I was just a wee tyke back then, haha), but then after that he kind of became neglected and my mom was afraid of him so Cato Bird just kind of ended up being in a situation like what our Marcus came from. That haunts me now, when I was a teenager it kind of hit me sometimes that there was this beautiful bird in this cage that nobody ever worked with, so I tried in my own way but had no idea what I was doing. And Cato could be very scary, he was very aggressive. But I do believe if my dad had kept up with him he would have really ended up a wonderful companion parrot. I just wish I knew then about parrots what I do now... it would have been so different. You can't change the past, though, but it makes me want to do more for our Marcus and our little Beaker. So I guess I'm just saying, if you think you can handle a wild-caught bird and really work with him, I'm sure in time he will come to trust and love you and be a great companion, even if always a little more 'wild'. Either way, it sounds like the CAG and the TAG both need a good home... so I hope it all works out for the best and you can help at least one of them find a happy home.

Hello everyone, A little while ago I posted here about our Marcus, how he was throwing strange hissy fits that seemed to be re-enactments of aggressive behavior he must have witnessed in his former home pertaining to the "Step up!" command. To make a long story short, although I would like to say that we have perfected our own version of a step-up and he is the model Grey now in that regard, I can't--but we actually have made a bit of progress nevertheless. I try to remember to call his foot 'toes' now (because 'foot' is one of the words he would yell in his imitating-angry-man mode) and the equivalent of "Step up!" is generally "Do you want to get up on Mommy's hand?" or some such. Twice he has allowed me to carry him from the floor to his door-perch and just last night Marcus let me hold him in a static position on my hand for about twenty seconds while I talked nonchalantly with my husband. Then he flapped down to the floor. Nevertheless, despite these happy 'baby steps' of his, I do have some questions pertaining to Marcus. He really, really is quite determined to feed my hand--and that is the only time I am able to get him to step up onto my arm or anything, when he is in 'feeding mode'. He'll be walking around on the floor or shredding paper or whatever and then, wow! Mommy's hand! And he'll run over and start doing the little bobbing thing and start trying to climb on my hand and he makes these weird hyperventilating kind of mousy squeak-sounds. I've been referring to them as his "hormonal fits" because I can only imagine some birdy hormone is making him want to feed my knuckles that badly that he sounds like he's going to blow up any second... Anyway, he has no interest in going near my hand (to stand on it, I mean--he loves getting head tickles!) unless he gets into his Feeding Mommy mode. Is this normal? Someone told me they think that Marcus is in a 'panic' like that and I got the impression they were disappointed in my parronting skills or whatever. I don't believe Marcus is upset when he gets like that, just very hormonal and revved-up. If I distract him with a toy or something he's almost immediately back to his water-drop-noise-making self (his happy sound, I've realized). Thoughts? Marcus does not do this at all for my husband, though, the hand-feeding thing. My husband told me recently how Marcus was on his door-perch and lifted his foot for him, and he thought maybe in his own way he was saying he wanted to be moved, to step up. So my husband offered him his hand/finger or whatever, and Marcus lunged at him (no contact). I've noticed Marcus does this occasionally too--he's very expressive with his feet--and so later I thought I'd try it. Marcus just momentarily enwrapped his toes around my finger and then pulled his foot back to stand on both feet. So he didn't want to step up, but he wasn't aggressive with me like he was with my hubby, either. The funny thing is, occasionally Marcus will still display his imitating-big-angry-human-male fit where he slaps his foot around and says his "Step up!" gibberish. Last night, I had a 'conversation' with him where this went back and forth a number of times, with me asking between his explosions what was the matter, did I do something, are you okay?... In the end, I think he was disappointed to have been asked to go back in his cage as early as I coerced him to, and so I let him out again for a bit. (Beaker our Quaker parrot wanted to go to bed, so I thought I should start up the nighttime routine a little early...) It's not the issue it was though, the whole "Step up!" thing. Thankfully. But we still have quite a bit of work to do before he'll be stepping-up for us like Beaker does. One of the good things is that his vocabulary seems to be increasing. I wish I had been there to see this, but my hubby told me that when Marcus was on the floor with him the other night, he took the pen away that Marcus had been playing with and put it above him on the futon, where he couldn't see or reach it. I guess Marcus didn't notice this happening, because my hubby said he kind of looked around suddenly and asked "Where'd it go?" My husband acted like this was perfectly normal for him to say such a thing, so he reached up and got the pen and put it on the floor in front of him, said, "Here it is!" I was just particularly tickled because I know recently I had misplaced something in the boys' room (the parrots' room) and was tearing everything apart, "Where did it go? Where did it go?" So he must have picked it up from that incident. Mommy's proud!!!! Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know how things have been going around here with Marcus lately. Thanks for letting me go on a bit, and also thank you in advance for any replies...

Oh, thank you so much--we do think he's just a darling, and he seems to be growing more comfortable with us day by day. Today I discovered that he likes to dance! I put on a record (yes, a record!) for Beaker and Marcus and, on a sudden whim, started dancing in front of them and said, "Mommy's dancing!" Marcus fluffed up and bobbed his head and said "Whoooo!" and started running across his long top perch and giggling in my voice and flapping his wings a bit. He was just too cute! We do adore him. He's become such a part of our family already... thank you, everyone, for all of your input and sweet thoughts and kindness. We really appreciate it! And with another attempt tonight at regurgitation-for-my-knuckles and lots of stepping all over my hand and arm--hopefully soon enough that dark issue with his former owner and "Stepping up" will not exist for Marcus as it has until now.

What wonderful information, thank you for posting that...

Hello all, I've been skimming this thread and just want to add my two cents, if that's all right. We use Borax (the boric acid laundry booster) annually to get rid of any fleas that may be living in our carpet. We have a dog and three cats besides the parrots, so you know this is necessary! Anyway, this is what you do: You take the Borax and sprinkle it somewhat heavily all around on your carpet. Then, take a DRY scrub brush and brush the Borax deep into the carpet. Leave it on your rugs for a minimum of three days so that it has the time to kill the fleas/eggs and fall down to the bottom of the carpet (obviously you will have to walk on the dry Borax during this time, but it is not harmful to pets like dogs and cats--don't know about parrots though, now that I think about it, I haven't had to do it since we adopted the parrots). After at least three days, vacuum up the Borax from the rug. Enough will have settled down deep into the rug by that time that what remains will last about a year to kill any fleas that may wander in during that time period. We personally have found this method very successful, but admittedly you will have to put up with walking on Borax for a few days for it to work properly. I've found that when my hubby goes on his summer camping trips and such is a good time for me to do it--I can tolerate the grit beneath my feet and then it's gone by the time he comes home! Anyway, I just thought the suggestion might be of help to someone. Flea infestations are NO FUN but they can be eradicated with time and effort and less money than most people realize. P.S.--I just glanced up to the post above me and, to the original poster, I'm glad your flea problem seems to be quite diminished, even if your dog has been helping herself too much to the 'yummy sodium' in the rug!

Oh, my goodness: thank you for that find!!! I am glad I didn't let him go in the boys' room then, I've been thinking about talking it over with my hubby not to have an exterminator come out at all anymore--and now I have one more pillar for my argument! Thank you so much...

Well, I just wanted to let everyone know that when I let Marcus out of his cage last night, after a while of walking around on the floor and exploring (and being warned by Beaker with panicked cries not to walk under the futon--funny thing, that, the poor Quaker seems to think an evil something lives under there!) he apparently wanted to try and feed my hand. Usually I try to discourage his regurgitation displays of affection by distracting him, but since Marcus kept stepping up onto my wrist to try and feed my one knuckle... I let him stumble all over me for a few minutes until I finally called my husband into the room as an interruption. Marcus immediately fluffed up and ran across the room toward him, which delighted my hubby to no end, and then we played with him together for a while before Beaker decided it was time for bed. Anyway, I think that's some progress...

All of you, thank you so much for your insightfulness and empathy toward our little man... I think what you said makes perfect sense, I know already it will take some time to work a lot of things out with Marcus. The noise really isn't an issue, when he and Beaker get at it (being loud) in the middle of the day I've taken to wearing earplugs. But I am hoping to teach Marcus, as Beaker already has an idea of this, that there are times to be loud and yet there are times to be quieter. But if that concept has to take a backseat to this much larger issue then, of course, it will. I have been spending a lot of time with Marcus just talking with him, petting him, loving him. He is very gentle and affectionate and he can make me cry sometimes, he is so sweet and tender. I had hoped he would step-up quickly like Beaker did after we adopted him, but apparently as this is not the case, I just want to make sure he feels secure and loved here. So we will go at his pace. I shared with my hubby all of your thoughts and he said they make perfect sense too, so I'm hoping we can approach this together and make Marcus feel even safer, sooner. I will keep you posted about all this. And, truly, thank you so much for your input... we sincerely appreciate it.

Hello all... First off, I hope I'm posting this in the right section--sorry if I'm not. Yet how to begin? During the past couple of days, I've noticed some rather, ah, disturbing behavior coming out of our Marcus. My husband is never around when this happens, he only does this around me. I will admit that although Marcus obviously favors me and is more comfortable with me, he doesn't act at all aggressive toward my husband. But I do see Marcus do/say a lot more diversified things than my husband does. Anyway. This is the issue: We've had Marcus for only a short while. He's eight years old and came from a somewhat neglected circumstance in his former home. Marcus, nevertheless, is extremely loving and affectionate and obviously starved for attention. He vocalizes quite a bit and has fallen into a lovely pattern with all of us here. My only complaint is that he will not step up for us. I recognize that he knows what I want him to do: he sees our little Quaker parrot, Beaker, step up for us all the time; and just the other day--and now just a half-hour or so ago--he has done this... The first time this happened was when I was prompting him for a step-up, and after the incident I was floored as to the whole 'weirdness' of it all. As it happened again just now, I have a better idea of what actually transpired, so I will describe the second instance of this behavior: Tonight I was reading a book a few feet away from Marcus, who was inside his cage. Beaker was sleeping (or trying to) and Marcus was making very loud noises and so I told him, "Marcus, it's quiet time. We need to be quiet right now." And I kind of used a soft voice. I don't think Marcus was too happy hearing that, but he did grow quieter and there were a few moments of relative silence in the room. Then, suddenly, Marcus repeated the tantrum he threw for me a day or so ago. His vocalizations were gibberish aside from "step up!" and, later, "right here" and "foot"--that's what it sounded like. But his voice was loud and kind of angry, at first when he said "step up!" he lifted his right foot like he was being a good boy and stepping-up for someone, but then he started barking out these angry syllables and he literally stamped his little foot repeatedly on his perch as I thought I heard "right here" and "foot"... Essentially, what I took away from this, and his 'tantrum' from the other day, was that he looked like he was imitating some very angry, male human who wanted him to step-up and was throwing a fit about him not doing so. It was actually... a little scary to watch. It might sound silly to say this, but it looked like my beautiful Grey had been possessed by a very short-fused adult man or something and was having a hissy fit inside his cage. I told my husband about it later and said I thought maybe Marcus had seen one of his former owners act out like this and he had taken away from the concept of "stepping up" a bad experience; maybe that is why he doesn't want to step up for even me. But my husband had this thought, which I find intriguing, but I don't know what to think of it: he said that maybe Marcus witnessed little rages against him before about 'stepping up' and he associates bad things with it, but now that he's falling in love with me and learning to trust us, he wants to please us and make us happy... but he's afraid to in this respect (stepping up). So he has a little battle going on inside of himself about the whole step-up issue, and so he's re-living this past incident--or series of incidents--as he's working it all out inside himself. I don't know what to think. I just know seeing Marcus do this twice now has left me feeling very weird inside, and I feel bad for him, for whatever he's dealing with inside himself. Any thoughts? Thank you...

Thank you, especially for those last sweet comments... I will wear my scars with pride! Actually I still have a scar on my index finger from when my parents' Blue-front Amazon bit me when I was four or five. So any that Marcus (and even fiery little Beaker, our Quaker) might give me in the future should blend in nicely.

Hello everyone... Well, to my chagrin, we have an exterminator come every few months or so. I've been a bit leery of the thought of chemicals and things seeping into my garden and the like (other than what already does from the neighbors' lawns being sprayed!)--and now with the parrots, I am even more disturbed. So I was wondering, does anyone know if what the exterminators use might be particularly harmful for parrots, such as Teflon is or plug-in air fresheners and the like? I remember our exterminator once saying he uses something called Phantom. I asked him when he came today just to do the outside doorway of our boys' bedroom (the parrots, naturally), and he said that was fine. Now I have the fans on high and all the windows open. The stuff he sprays is a liquid and it doesn't mist into the air, it's like a stream when he hits the corners and the floorboards with it. Any thoughts??? Thank you...

This story is from the first week we had our Marcus. He was somewhat neglected in his former home, not having been taken out of his cage for the past three years or so, and I don't know much of his history before that except that he was on someone's back porch for a while. But I have a feeling he was originally from a breeder, his temperament is so gentle and he just seems to want to love and be loved by people. Nevertheless, I don't believe anyone ever taught Marcus his limits or made him realize, whoa, you have a pretty powerful beak there! So that first week we had him, essentially all we could do was scratch his head through the bars. He would make this noise--*SNAP!*--and bend his head down so we could get at the back of his neck. Then sometimes he would give back "licks" and gently try to kiss our fingers. Except that sometimes he would maneuver things so that he actually got a grip on our fingers... usually he let go without issue, but this one particular time he seemed to want to test the waters. I don't think he was being mean or anything--just curious. And perhaps at the time it was a good thing I didn't realize he had broken the skin or how much I was bleeding. But it did hurt, and I did everything my starting-to-panic brain could remember to do that I had read online regarding such situations, things that were not over-reactive or violent: I told him to let go, I glared, I finally even tapped his beak with my other fingertip because it really, really hurt and I didn't want to freak out on him and make the situation worse. Well, Marcus did eventually let go (what seemed an eternity!) and I just said something about how Marcus shouldn't bite and I just left the room, I was so stunned really. It was just so unexpected. Well, in the bathroom I realized the extent of the damage, and I just started crying. I was so frustrated because I felt like I wasn't communicating well with him... and then it ran through my head that I should let Marcus see me cry. So I walked back into the bedroom where he was quarantined and I just slid down to the floor at the foot of our bed and started weeping. They were real tears, I was really upset. And he just watched and watched... And ever since then, unless he is upset with me for some reason (like trying to get him to step up--which he still does not want to do) and nips a little, he has been so very gentle with me and has not used unnecessary pressure. I really feel like it clicked in his little birdie brain, Oh, that was too much for my new Mommy. Marcus is such a dear heart... I just love him to bits.

What a cutie!

I have something to share that happened the other day. We've had our Marcus a little while now, but he still is surprising us with phrases he learned in his other home. Well, I was going to leave the bedroom where he and Beaker (our Quaker parrot) live, and so I turned to them and said, "Mommy will be back in a minute." "Ten seconds!" Marcus piped up. That gave me a bit of a start--if it was a coincidence, the timing was quite amazing. I called my mom later and told her about it and she suggested perhaps, in his former home, Marcus had become accustomed to the phrase "ten seconds" whenever someone would leave for a little bit. But when I told my husband he said it could be coincidence--but with Greys you can never really tell. (Yes, we are fans of Alex and company and I've also read Tweti's book where Kisi and Morgan both get a few pages in the spotlight!) Anyway, I then said to Marcus, "Okay, ten seconds!" And I popped out into the hall and counted to ten out loud for his benefit since I'm trying to get him used to the concepts of numbers... and when I went back in the bedroom he and Beaker were naturally very happy to see me again. In any event, I thought that little interchange with Marcus was rather interesting...

Thank you all for the warm welcome! Yes, that is Marcus in the avatar... I might be biased, but I think he's gorgeous. We look forward to learning a lot from all of you here in the future.

What a lovely and happy ending for Mabel! I'm glad you were able to give her the home she wanted and needed.

Hello, My husband and I are tried and true "animal people" and we have one dog, three cats, one Quaker parrot, and an African grey. Marcus, the grey, is the most recent addition adopted into our family. He is a wonderful boy, 8 years old, very intelligent and gentle of temperament and with a vocabulary that surprises us sometimes! As I do with Beaker, our little Quaker, I explain everything I do in front of Marcus and I can tell he is paying attention. Whether or not this will ever effect his vocalizations with us, well... only time will tell. But I hope it might broaden his relative understanding of this new "world" with which we have surrounded him. The only issue we have with Marcus is that he is very unwilling to step up. Beaker is a pro at stepping-up and we know that Marcus knows what we want him to do, because he is very attentive when Beaker steps up from his cage for us, but Marcus just doesn't want to do it himself. Nevertheless I do not see this as being a 'forever problem' as he actually, inadvertently, stepped-up for me yesterday when he grabbed my pen in his beak off the floor... well, it wasn't really a step-up so much as an "I ended up walking onto Mommy's arm because I was so distracted trying to keep her pen away from her!" But he was a good boy and let me praise him and carry him the two or three feet back to the door-perch in his cage. And then I took back my pen after letting him play with it for a few moments. Marcus was somewhat neglected in his other home and wasn't let out of his cage for three years or so, but he was pretty well cared-for there otherwise (fed, kept clean, always around people even if not interacting with them) and he is healthy and full-feathered and really well-adjusted. We are very pleased to have been able to welcome him into our family. If my time in the Quaker parrot forums is any indication, we might post here about Marcus and his progress and adventures sporadically, but I still wanted to introduce us all and say hello. So I hope you and your greys all have a good evening... Do take care until next time...