abbie21187

What irks me the most is when people use groupons, or other discounts or GIFT CARDS at my job and then only tip on the remaining balance. (I work in a restaurant).

I am currently reading "The Beak Book" by Sally Blanchard which I highly recommend to you. And I must tell you Dave is correct, you should never try to handle your grey while he's overly excited while playing with a toy, eating his favorite treat... etc. I also learned not to put the bird back in the cage after a bite, this is not understood as punishment. Just a short simple ouch and no, followed by a quick disapproving glare usually gets the point across. Lastly, if the bird bites you while your holding it and try to do something else, like talk to your wife, you might want to try to have some small foot toys on hand to keep him occupied while with you. My BB never once bit me until I had my nails painted black for Halloween. He would not let me handle him and gave me several bloody bites.... ouch! Eva, my TAG, has never bitten me or anyone but I've been reading as much as possible to make sure I understand my new parrot and deal with these types of situations correctly if they do arise.

I also have just purchased vinyl floor runners for under my play stand and cages. The were just about $1 per foot. Originally I was going to by the ones used for office chairs, but they are much more expensive. I clean the papers every day for both birds and scrub off my grates daily for my TAG and every two days for the BB he's less messy.

Wow! Cosmo is a smart bird!

Here's my TAG's tail:

It's PVC wrapped in vet tape. Super affordable and easy to work with!

Morana: I used this method for clicker training my BB when he began biting me when I tried to pick him up, it worked very well.

Beautiful Bird! Are you close by so you can visit often?

So today I added a food and water bowl to the play stand I've been working on so I think it is now complete! Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions! Here's Eva eating Cinnamon from the new bowl: And the whole stand depicted here:

Sure no problem!

Also check out Brotogeris, or Canary Winged BB's. They make great starter birds and are very friendly!

Thank You Popsicle and Morana! After reading about your experiences in this thread I've been inspired to buy a couple books on Grey's and educate myself a little more on training. Although I have learned so much here already! I ordered Alex and Me, as well as for the Love of Greys.

When I hand fed my TAG, and again I was supervised by professionals, I was told that yes the air pipe is on the right side, so I learned to feed her from the right side of her mouth with my right hand, and with the end of the syringe angled downwards towards the left side of the throat. Also the bobbing is really normal, when feeding my Grey and watching others be fed they bob their heads. Eva would start bobbing as soon as she saw the syringe and still does it sometimes to my fingers!

Love the name!

Eva and BB Chu seem to just generally ignore each other, but I was very nervous about how BB Chu would deal with me getting another bird emotionally. I try to give them both the same amount of attention so there's no jealousy. Well, today BB Chu had me cracking up. First, I've tried to give him pistachios on multiple occasions, and he's never liked them, so I use cashews now as a treat. Well today I had both birds on the play stand and since they weren't fighting and were both being good little fids I gave them each a treat. Eva a pistachio, which she loves, and BB Chu a cashew. BB Chu threw the cashew on the floor and starting begging for the pistachios! I've never seen him eat one but he sure did today watching Eva intently the whole time! Next, BB Chu never likes scratches, he's about 18 months and hasn't really let me give him scratches since he was a few months old. Well today, again while they're both on the play stand I'm giving Eva scratches. I then look at BB and he has his head all puffed up and is scratching it with his little foot watching us very closely. So I try to see if he lets me scratch his head and he does! So then I took turns each getting scratches for a couple minutes back and forth. I never laughed so hard BB Chu is looking at me now with his little foot on his head as I type this! Eva sure is a good influence!

Wow, I've never heard of a Timenh/Congo cross...The coloring is beautiful!

Sure, will do, I just plugged my camera in to charge!

Five is a very handsome young man, he looks very regal as well. Congrats!

I made it out of 3/4" PVC then wrapped it in vet tape. I got all the PVC needed for under $15. The most expensive part was the vet tape, 25 rolls for $35 dollars on EBAY. I didn't know how much I would need so got more instead of less, and only needed about 4 rolls. So I have about 20 rolls of vet tape left over, so definitely I will be doing some more projects soon. I had help from my boy friend cutting the PVC and drilling the holes for stainless steel hooks to add toys, but I designed it myself. I also found at Home Depot vinyl liner for the carpet for only $1 per foot so I used that underneath for easy cleaning. I had so much fun building it and it only took about 2 hours once we had everything we needed!

What a cutie!

You might want to try this: http://www.mybirdstore.com/product.cgi?group=232972&product=241687 I feed both my birds this, I have a new TAG who was weaned onto it as her base food, and my BB was also weaned onto these blends as well. I really like the AG blend because it includes cuttle bone for calcium and cinnamon sticks which Eva loves and I've heard many Greys enjoy as well. It's great for picky eaters (like my BB) because there is just so many different types of fruit, veggies, pellets, nuts etc. so your bird can pick out what he wants to eat from it. They've also told me that pellets are not a great base diet, and while they include them in there blends, they are not essential. I asked this this because my BB eats everything except the pellets. They also told me of the pellets with coloring aren't too good either, it's just more additives your giving the bird. I'm lucky to live close to this place, but they ship everywhere.

I just got a TAG as well and her tail has just a touch of maroon on the tip, the rest is pretty much black/ash colored.

She does seem to like the top of the play stand, she's still a baby though and I really have to watch her on the stand, she's clipped and often times if I walk away she jumps from it to come after me. She's not clipped too much so she does have a long graceful landing, but it makes me nervous still.

Eva had her first weigh in this morning... she lost just 9 grams since I bought her home, which I'm told is normal, considering she's in a much bigger cage now and gets more exercise. She had a great time in the car ride and enjoyed seeing all her old friends at the store. The staff was really happy to see her, everyone missed her! I'm bringing her back Wednesday or Thursday to get weighed once more to make sure she's not losing any more weight. She's been such a joy and seems truly happy in her new home. Here's a pic of BB Chu and her on the new play stand, they don't get along to well, but just ignore each other mostly:

Eva is not very cuddly but loves her scratches: