thenabrd

i call it the banshee bird for the simple reason it's easier to spell banshee than try and remember how to spell pterodactyl, lol!!! kallie loves battling her bells too, as well as her toys and out of the blue, banshee bird shows up!! (she also does a fantastic "bat bird" imitation too while playing) it's funny as all get out and we lose it every time!! even athena has her conure version of this, hahahahaha!!!!

lol!!! kallie "discovers" her tail sometimes. she'll be playing or hanging then all of a sudden she'll grab her tail feathers and pull them, bite them, yell at them (it's her banshee bird imitation)! it cracks me up!!! i guess its a grey's equivalent of a dog "discovering" and chasing their tail!!!

we got kallie a few months ago. she's a rehome and will be 3 in november. she was owned by a woman who passed away. that woman's daughter wasn't able to have birds due to her husband's health issue. kallie just thinks my husband is the best thing ever! she likes me well enough, i get to rub her head through the bars, she makes her sounds and talks for me. i clean her cage, do her food, etc. but for all that, my husband is her choice. we've been working on getting her to stop flying to our heads and stepping up instead. it's been touch and go. we always have to bribe her back into her cage and my husband has to leave the room most times or she'll just keep flying to his head. we love her to pieces!! it's a process that's for sure! she became comfortable with us fairly quickly, but it's her "training" to do step ups and returning to her cage that have been taking the longest time. she'll get it someday, but so far, in these respects, she's one stubborn little stinker, lol!!!

they're very cute birds! i don't know if or how much i can help but i go through similar things with my peach front conure, just not to this extreme. athena is 8 years old and we're the only parents she's ever had. athena chose me as her favorite but she has her quirks! she likes my husband but ALWAYS wants to bite him and will whenever she can. but at the same time, she flirts outrageously with him when she's in her cage. she talks in a higher more gentle voice to him, makes a different kissy sound for him and he can give her scratches in places i'm "not allowed" to! but when she's out of her cage, if i'm around, she becomes little miss attack bird, no flirting, no scratches, just lunges and if she's lucky, bites. so he's learned that when she's out, he stays back, if i'm in the room. if i'm not in the room while she's out, she flirts with him, so i think it's my proximity/being in line of sight, that sets that off. she's bitten me when she couldn't bite him, lol!! (apparently she's never heard about not shooting the messenger i guess) i think she's "protecting" me from her "competition" whenever she's out of her cage. when she's in her cage, if my husband hugs me and athena sees it, she carries on like crazy. so i think there are times she's jealous as well. she goes through screaming stages too. i've tried to see if there's a pattern and season, but with her, not really, it seems to be just a phase. it does make us crazy though! athena also has shown a preference for which hand i can do what with her, then about the time i get it sorted out, she changes the rules. she'll perch on my right hand only, but prefers my left for playing and loving on. there have been times when she's been running around on me, that she'd attack her "unfavorite" hand if she saw both of them at the same time, so sometimes i have to hide the offending hand, hahaha! she's a contrary little thing, sometimes more so than others, but i love her anyway! maybe your 2 are just totally freaked out with all the changes they're going through right now. maybe they think they're "losing" you to the "enemy". they may never truly accept your fiance, but maybe they can develop a truce of a sorts. maybe he could concentrate on just one of your birds at a time, and if that one accepts him more and in a better way, the other will see he's not such a bad person and learn from that. i've left the room to give my husband time alone with athena during the rough times in the past. he had special treats for her that only came from him. over time, she's decided he's not so bad, but he'd better leave momma bird "alone" when she's out of her cage and riding around on the momma bird. they just sound jealous, and scared to me and i think if you two can address it one bird at a time, the other one will see it's not such a bad thing. like i said, i don't know if any of this helps you at all and i'm sorry you're going through it. i had to be innovative and think outside of the box when athena started doing some of these things. i hope this helps and hopefully some one else will have even better answers than i do! good luck!

are the artificial sweeteners safe for the birds? i've been very careful with them because i'm not sure if one is more safe than another. our girls love freezer pops too! we let them have the tube once its empty so they can enjoy the drops left over inside. they like to "play" with them and it's fun watching them figure out how to get to the treasure. we make sure they aren't eating the tube though.

mama cj, i leave one side of the birds cages uncovered so they can see out if need be during the night. their lights are on a timer as well. athena usually stays pretty quiet until she's uncovered and kallie is learning, lol!! she was up at or just before sun rise but now she makes it maybe an hour or so as it gets lighter outside before she just can't take it anymore and starts "praising" the new day, hahahaha!! i don't know if that is because athena stays so quiet or not or maybe kallie's learned to "whisper" for that first hour or so!!!

i use stainless and cast iron. properly "seasoned" cast iron can be the next best thing to non-stick.

hahahaha!!! sorry but its cute. kallie is a bit over 2 1/2 years old and is our rehomed grey. she was just learning words when we got her, until then she did sounds, not many, mostly umbrella cockatoo, which were the 2 other birds she lived with. we've had her several months now. she's learned more words, but she also speaks dead on athena, who's our peach front conure. its hilarious in its own way. when i'm in another room, i have to determine who's talking kallie or athena. athena was very surprised the first time she heard kallie speaking like her. up until we got kallie, athena was an only bird and she loves to talk to the birdies outside. she'd call and call, then wait for a response, but never got one because no one but her (at that point) spoke athena!!! i'm sure simon will also learn human. oh, and i did work in a pet store for a while where the grey there laughed and said hi or hello in all the employees voices.

athena was 2 when we finally decided to have her dna checked. i had thought she was a girl, but turns out she's a he, lol!! by then she was saying her name and all of the "big girl", "pretty girl", etc stuff, so we decided, that she'd stay a she! it's really only confusing at the vet's sometimes!

i make birdie bread and "hide" stuff in it so that they're getting it and don't know they are! with each batch i add more stuff and use less batter. i also keep giving them "dinner" everyday with a variety of things, green beans, sweet potato, carrots, cheese, fruit, etc, just depends on what i've got on had and in the freezer. kallie is great about trying new stuff, athena not so much! but i keep offering and hope someday athena will finally decide she likes something in her dinner, hahahaha!

it could have been something like if you normally wear glasses, then didn't or the other way around, or wearing something she didn't recognize, a strange noise, etc. something sure spooked her. sorry she took it out on you. my conure has had similar episodes in the past, happily crawling all over me, then charging up my chest and attacking my face! one time it was simply because she had seen me rub my nose with the "non favorite" hand. she's very picky about which one of my hands does what, lol! plus if she sees both my hands at the same time, she'll attack the "enemy" hand. she's getting better about that as she's getting older, but when she was younger, wow, it was crazy!!

good for roy! my peach front conure has her "alarm" mode too. she decides who/what she's going to go into alarm mode over though. sometimes its for people she's never seen before going by the house, sometimes, its for the same person, even though she's seen them walk by the house for her 8 years. one lady she's seen for 8 years, has never been close to or had any interaction with her, just sees her from the window and alarms everytime, lol!!! i love our living alarms!!!!

so far kallie doesn't like any kind of nut, in or out of the shell. athena loves nuts but if they're in the shell, we have to start it for her.

you're not alone in these thoughts and feelings. last week our gas prices jumped 40 cents a gallon over night, bananas went up 9 cents in under 7 days and it just continues to happen! i could direct you to sites where you can vent about this and learn a lot if you're interested. we're a bunch of people from around the country, concerned with what's happening. let me know and i'll pm you the info. i'm currently on short term medical from my job and i see the dr. this week. i need him to write up any permanent restrictions for me to see if my employer will work with me on them. if they can't or won't, i'll probably be joining the ranks of the unemployed in a few days! hang in there as best as you can! i know i'll have to modify what food i get our birds and even ourselves, but that's just the reality of life right now. please believe me, you really are not alone!!!

whiffle balls, bendy straws, folded/rolled newspaper,plastic baby keys, coffee filters (hide treats in them), check for safe wood species and if you have some of those around, cut some branches, if you can afford it-bells, plastic practice golf balls. check on line, there's lots of great ideas out there! good luck!

dave, i'm in the process of trying to find a quality ecig product, any recommendations? i'm glad to hear it's not harmful around the birds! thanks in advance!

hahaha, you're right, watching the dunking process and the thought going into it was funny. she'd dunk pellets, nuts, seeds, birdie bread, you name it, she'd dunk it then watch the water drip off or the water change color, etc. when she first started she used her beak, but then found out it was fun to use her foot to dunk her food, it was easier to watch that way, lol! now she cracks us up "taking a bath" in her water once in a while, she dunks her head, then flips around and dunks her tail all the while flapping her wings like crazy! does spencer "play" with his food bowls? kallie likes the shininess of them and talks to them, and she likes to try and do back bends over them. she just hasn't figured out how to do a back bend across the top of the bowl and still get to her food at the same time, its hilarious!

kallie does this with her food as well. she grabs a foot full then ever so slowly lets the pieces drop, while she's watching them fall! i don't react to this at all because then she'd really love doing it. she used to dunk her food in her water too. i moved her water to the other side of the cage from the food and that has helped alot, now i don't have to change the water 10 times a day, lol! i haven't figured out how to stop the food thing though. we have thought of putting plexiglass around just the bottom of her cage below the floor grate, so there isn't as much to bounce out on to the floor. there is an almost 6" distance between the floor grate of her cage and the bottom "drawer" of her cage, so some of her pellets and stuff can get a good bounce going!

what a shame! sorry it was a scam but glad you didn't get caught in it! have you considered talking to local avian vets about any greys they hear of that need a new home? that's how we got kallie and it's been great. it took a while before one came up, but its been well worth the wait and knowing we're able to provide a loving forever home for a bird is an awesome feeling! or if you don't have avian vets close by, maybe there are bird rescues you could check into!

i started with a peach front conure as my 1st bird. they're a bit smaller than a tiel, but they think they're the "biggest" bird ever created! athena can be a bit noisy at times, but that's a bird thing! we've only had kallie about 2 months now. kallie now does spot on athena-isms! they watch each other and sometimes i think they're starting to interact with each other from their cages. i haven't had them both out at the same time yet, but that will come someday. conures are fun, high energy birds, i like them!

so are you going to call them freckles or beauty marks, lol!!

i use a light sheet for kallie and an old lace table cloth for athena. i leave the front of their cages uncovered so in case they get startled during the night they'll have a bit of light to be able to see better. their cages are in our living room, so this gives them a sense of privacy and they know its night night time.

our doggie door has a panel the slides in to "close" it. we can take it in and out as needed. ours is on our back porch door, so when i have the birds out there we slide in the panel. we have a husky and even though he's almost 13 we don't have the birds out when he's inside. he can still move pretty fast when he wants to! some day when he's gone and if we get a puppy, i'll work on having the birds out with a dog.

my conure athena has the "rogue" yellow/orange feathers that come out in places other than the top of her head! on her wing i call it a freckle and the few around her eyes i call beauty marks, lol!!! she's now getting that color at the bottom of her feather line at her "ankles" so now she's sporting the most awesome color shorts or socks, i haven't decided yet, hahaha!

welcome! nice flock/pack! kallie was terrified of our dog hermes at first. we put up trays to keep some distance between the cage and hermes in the beginning, so she could make her opinion about hermes from a little distance. we let her see us pet him, fuss over him, etc. now she makes a point of interacting with him when he goes near her cage. she goes down to his level, says "hi you" then turns her head around for a rub! she just doesn't understand that hermes can't do that, lol!! it might take some time, but as jack sees his "flock" interacting with the dogs, he'll learn they're ok to be around. however, we don't let our birds out when our dog is inside. i trust hermes, but, he is still a dog and his natural self could come out at any time! i know others can have their birds and dogs/cats all out together, but i just feel better not doing that!