abbie21187

JDS: I named Eva after the girl robot in Wall-E! I love that one too, but I haven't watched it with her yet.

You can let a bird on your shoulder if it steps on and off at your command, and is behaved there. Don't let your bird just run up your arm to your shoulder. And don't let your bird on your shoulder around strangers or things that can be frightening, sometimes they will bite you to warn you of impending danger! Personally, I don't have an amazon, but I have a grey who is not allowed on my shoulder. I tried it a couple times and she went right for my earrings, so it's off limits now.

I dunno either, my Tag female is bonded to me and generally prefers females. Also after reading Alex & Me, I found it interesting that Alex preferred tall men with long hair! At one point she had a tall male student working in her lab and they couldn't get anything done because Alex was so infatuated with him. Every bird is different, so just try to socialize your Grey to as many people as possible when young.

I'm going! I have been compiling some pics for the photo competition. I will be at bird paradise today for some toe nail grooming for my fids, so I'm going to find out exactly when Dr. Pepperberg will be speaking. I'm guessing Saturday. I was there 2 weeks ago and not many grey's right now, they have about 4 Cags on consignment, and one little TAG girl left. All the babies that were there when I got Eva are all home now.

I use Lysol or Clorox WIPES to clean and disinfect everything they work great. However, for anything bird related I do use vinegar and water as well as a Shark steamer.

Nice I'm gonna make those on Monday! Thanks so much Dave!

I think I have the only Grey in the world who doesn't much care for nuts. I've tried every type, it makes giving treat rewards difficult. So I use nutri-berry popcorn treats for now.

I should try that, I like that you do not have to cook it.

You could buy a "wordy birdy". It records your voice and plays it at intervals you determine. I won one in a raffle at the bird store near me. It's ok, but you can only use one recording at a time. http://www.wordybirdy.com/products.html

I wish I had as much time and patience as everyone here to prepare my own mash's and bread's from scratch. I always just buy birdie bread mix ( I'm baking some right now), or bags of cookable blends cook it up and freeze it in batches. I just mix it with frozen and fresh veggies, whatever's in the fridge daily.

The Quinoa blend I feed my grey is higgins worldly cusines Inca Bean Salad.

I like to find toys that my Fids can interact with while in there cage. I work full time in the evenings and all day Saturday, so these types of toys really keep the birds occupied while I'm gone. They both have a few toys in there cage that play music on command or talk to them like the phone.

I mix fresh snap peas,carrots, peppers almost every day for my grey she loves them! I mix them with the quinoa based cookable blend and a couple spoons of canned pumpkin. I also don't take the strings off, I just break them into thirds.

Shyloh looks greyt! It sounds like it was meant to be and I'm sure you'll do fine!

I have one bird ( a canary winged bee bee) that is a closet noise maker/ talker. When I'm in the other room he makes noises, laughs, says Uh Oh, his name, etc. He clams up as soon as he sees me. My Grey does not talk yet but practices constantly while I'm around her or not. I think there's very little you can do to change it, it just depends on the bird.

I have to agree that while I've never owned a Too, they are VERY loud! Our neighbor across the street has a Moluccan cockatoo and they put it outside in a cage during the day when it's nice out. I can hear it from inside our house screaming. We know neighbor's a block down that also hear the screaming from in there house and are bothered as well! I also think they are the most beautiful birds, so I get my fix watching them dance on you tube and visiting them at the bird store while I'm there. They are like VELCRO! Many times I have picked up a baby at the store and gave it a couple scritches and it has not let me put it down grabbing anything it can clothes, my watch, bracelet.

Well here's a couple toy ideas I thought I would share. The first is for my Canary Winged Bee Bee, BB Chu. He has become a master at taking the battery covers off of remotes, he takes it off then runs away with it across the couch with it inside his beak. Well I found an old remote and took the batteries out and replaced them with treats. Now he takes the cover runs away with it drops the cover off then comes back to eat treats. LOL The next is one that i bought about a year ago for BB Chu but he had no interest in it so I gave it to my TAG Eva. It's a Sesame street baby phone that talks. I have it attached to her play stand and she is in love with it. She rubs all over it and acts like she's trying to preen it lol! I guess because it's Grey! She also presses the buttons all day so it talks to her. I swear when she talks she gonna say "Get Lost!" in Oscar the Grouch's voice because that is her favorite button right now.

Those are precious little babies! I love the Sun's bright colors.

I've read that scratching in the corner is normal for Greys and it's also pretty unique to them. Mine did it when she was at the store because she was in a cage with bedding on the bottom, no grate. She has a grate at home so she doesn't. This is from the November 2011 issue of bird talk: "Unique behaviors for the grey parrot include scratching the ground like a chicken. African greys of all ages and both sexes do this strange little maneuver. When African greys are babies, people often see them in a corner and believe they may be trying to scratch their way out of their cage or enclosure. Adult greys in the wild scratch the ground as they forage for food near the swamp areas. When adult greys are ready to mate, they scratch to clear out holes in trees and make nests. This also comes in handy when cleaning out soiled nests."

Her eyes are starting to lighten it just doesn't really show in pictures. Thanks everyone for the compliments!

I just took these this morning... Eva was so happy being a model today, she was doing her happy dance and smiling in all the pics

What a handsome Grey!

Eva is about 7 months now and while she mumbles unintelligibly all the time and clicks, but she doesn't talk yet. However, she loves to whistle! She does a couple as contact calls, one is a two note whistle a room mate does when he comes home to call everyone. She learned that in about two days. Then we taught her the pretty girl whistle as a contact call she picked that up as well. I don't think whistling stops them from talking, she coos and mumbles all day in my tone of voice it just doesn't make sense yet. One thing that kills me though is we had a mouse in the house and put glue traps under the cages we woke up one morning to hear a mouse screeching under the cage stuck in the trap. Well long story short, my birds compete to see who can do this squeal louder back and forth all day! It's literally the sound of nails on a chalk board! I hope they forget it soon.

Maybe sand them Doug. Or just wrap them with more vet tape that's what I've done with mine. The funny thing with play stands is as many toys as I put on it, it always seems like the Eva's favorite one toy is "peeling the vet tape off" lol. I see Elegua examining those knots already, I bet soon she will be trying to untie them! One thing I'm learning about grey's quickly is that their one of their favorite past times is to dismantle/untie/pull apart/ rip to shreds(!) anything and everything.

They mostly ignore each other. They are out all day long but Eva stays on her play stand I built her, and I am BB Chu's play stand since he is so small lol. Eva is very mellow and doesn't ever instigate, but BB Chu will run to her and get right in her face squawking! He's a fearless little guy and so fast. So I can't put them together, but they whistle to each other all day.