Trinkapuppy

Alright, so rather like fledging a baby, but with more care, b/c it'll take longer. We used a blanket held by a couple of ppl when we were fledging birds at the bird specialty store I worked at....oh, so long ago. LOL....I suppose I can probably use a lot of the same principles.

No kidding about the 'toos. After meeting my parent's birds (again, they really have no control, and are rather owned by their birds) scream and scream and scream and scream, hubby was against birds for a long time. Of course, that was back in high school, and I've had well over a decade to convince him otherwise. He's a bird whisperer in the making, I think. If anything, I tend to hamper his relationship with the birds by hovering, so I'm working hard on backing off and letting him interact and make mistakes that can be corrected.

Good to know, Ray. I suppose it's not always just the volume, but frequency, duration, and where they're doing it that drive one crazy.

Yeap, seems to have gone well enough last night. She woke at 6am and started chewing on the plastic of the carrier, so her metal sleep cage can't get here soon enough! She did step up right out of the carrier this morning, after putting her head down for some nice scritches, though. I put her out into her cage, and she was silent until we all got up an hour later. At which point she began talking up a storm! I swear she's already calling Kaiya (chihuahua) by name..... I did not find a pile of feathers pulled out due to stress all over the bottom of the carrier.

LOL....But I am a worrywart! Just is who I am.....I like to prepare for potential problems before I encounter them, and I think that by preparing myself for the things that can go wrong, I am more prepared to deal with them when the situation arises. And don't get me wrong, I don't let the worry bleed over to my interactions with the birds. I aim for "steady confidence" when dealing with them. I suppose I just need to talk out my worries once in awhile. In any event, I think my biggest immediate concern still remains--she has been unflighted for two years, and never was allowed to fledge. What kinds of problems should I anticipate having to deal with as her flights come back in, and what kinds of precautions should I be taking for when she does?

Ah, yes. The scream of the moluccan. The sound that is so loud, it almost hits a point where it ceases to hurt, and instead becomes something physical you feel you could effectively lean into. My parents have done parrot rescue for years, and have two moluccans, an umbrella, a citron, and a horrible, evil (ahem, that might be childhood trauma colouring that--he hated me with a single minded determination, and my parents thought it was funny when he ran me off and chased me into my bedroom) goffins. They also have quite a few indian ringnecks and lovebirds. Last count, I heard they were up to 32 parrots, not counting the lovies..... I would simply adopt something from them, but they live in Canada and....well, they don't ask for the same level of interaction and good manners that I work hard to get my birds to agree to. I suppose I should reword about Jynx's whistle....it's not that it shatters your eardrums in such a way as a cockatoo...it is more along the lines of nails on a chalkboard. Granted his whistle doesn't hit the decibels that his screams do (which aren't all that loud, but still annoying for anyone trying to watch TV when I leave the room), but they HURT in a way that his screeches just can't manage. That shudder up your spine, make your molars ache, and bounce around in your head until your brain kinda hurt. I think you could bottle the sound and use it in some form of torture. Also, I said Eshe's previous owner still has a lesser citron 'too, and meant lesser sulfur. I believe I was thinking about the citron my parents have when I wrote that. And yeap, I do know how loud they are! Volume level is a factor into why I picked a grey over a 'too, though not by any stretch of the imagination, the only factor. Eshe is now stepping up on command, and rarely says no! =0 ) I've also now bolted her brand new shiny stainless steel bucket full of foot toys into her cage, and she hasn't gotten upset about the munchkin dishwasher basket that is going to be used for foraging. Neither has gotten any more attention that sideways glances, but I believe she's working her way up to it! Edited to add: Also, I had NO idea that peacocks were so loud!! I guess I never really thought about it. Perhaps I will have to reconsider wanting some when I someday have property..... Although since the long term goal is to put a large outdoor aviary up and offer permanent homes for some parrots in need of one, perhaps it won't much matter. Of course, this is all dreams for decades from now....and who knows where life will really take me between now and then....

Eshe is new to the home. Only arrived yesterday. Tonight, I noticed she was trying to fall asleep in her cage, which is in the family room. I am a HUGE believer in sleep cages. I think they mimic their wild patterns of having one area to roost, and exploring elsewhere throughout the day, and I think they allow them a MUCH healthier sleep, if you don't have a parrot room. Since our birds stay with us in the main area (poor Jynx had to move into the dining room for a few weeks while Eshe quarantines!--but he can still see us from there. Not a perfect quarantine, but we're as careful as we can be. Normally I do iso in another room, but I didn't want to adjust Eshe twice, as greys are somewhat more sensitive) Anyway! Blah blah blah. Tonight, I noticed that she was trying to fall asleep, and we had a TV on, and it kept waking her. I opened her door, and she promptly climbed out. She stepped up promptly--a first. And when I took her into my bedroom where I keep the carriers (fire? Grab carriers on the way out of the bedroom and grab birds and shove them in on the way out! paranoid? maybe!) and showed her. She stepped in, and seemed to go straight to sleep..... I closed the door and....well, then I left her. I'm sincerely just hoping that this isn't going to freak her out, but I've snuck in quietly twice since, and she still seems to be sleeping..... This isn't going to destroy a trust bond, I hope. I normally don't introduce them to sleeping cages so very suddenly. I guess we'll see her reaction in the morning, but so far....*fingers crossed* So far I feel like I haven't ruined anything. This was just a small plastic dog crate with a towel on the bottom. Last night, I heard her fall off her perch once, so I'm thinking maybe this will help? Anyway, I have a more appropriate sleeping cage/carrier coming in from bird.com in the next day or ten. Should I keep putting her to bed in the plastic carrier in the meantime?....

I'm new to these forums, but wanted to caution you on use of any hardware cloth or zinc coated type metals. My black headed caique came from someone who had him in a hardware cloth cage, and when he arrived to me, one of his myriad problems was that he was underweight and his poop was VERY runny. The vet did several tests and we determined that he was experiencing zinc toxicity. He had to have his GI tract flushed (minor surgery) b/c a few pieces of metal showed up in the xray, and after that, I brought home a number of syringes to do intramuscular injections of calcium. (Thankfully, I'm able to do my own, but if you don't know how, this can get very expensive!!!!) After several treatments, the calcium has chelated the heavy metals from his system, and he is gaining weight, and his droppings are back to normal (more or less, considering that caiques do have a fairly high fruit diet). Please consider the potential costs of treating for heavy metal toxicity when you're deciding on material to build a cage. Powder coated wire (with smaller gaps) might be a lot more pricey, but it's well worth it when you consider the cost of treatment for toxicity issues. Jynx was free, but his issues have cost me nearly twice the price a newborn caique would go for. The zinc problems alone have cost me nearly half of that.

I brought home a two year old grey yesterday (see my post in the welcome section for....well...too much info). Very little info came with her. I am her fourth home in two years. Her final home, too, if I have anything to say about it! ANYWAY. Her owner previous to me had her for six months. She knew NOTHING about her life before she got her--apparently bought her at a flee market. =0 ( Anyway, today she emailed me, and sent a scan of the hatch certificate she thought she had lost. Soooo....I just go off the phone with the breeder. I have no info between 12 weeks of age and six months ago, BUT. What I have learned....scares me. Why oh why do I ALWAYS take rescues with needs!? Anyway. My concerns. She incubator hatches. =0 ( (this was devastating for me, as personally I think this is the same as taking a puppy away from mom at birth and bottle feeding, with no contact of any other dog. I'm a firm believer in "no dog to be separated from mom before 12 weeks and no bird to be incubator hatched, ever" Maybe with the exception of, say, the Spix) Her babies are weaned by 12 weeks of age. She thought abundance weaning meant "offering more than sunflower seeds when they wean" She sends them to a couple of different hand feeders who hand feed for several breeders, and return them to her when they wean. She does NOT have a closed aviary, it is not MAP certified, and she does a four week quarantine w/ an avian panel (no CBC, no tests for PBFD, PDD, chlamydia, etc.) before putting her breeders in with the others. (Thankfully, I have most of those tests done or in the works for her....$300 for her and a decent cage, $300 at the vet. Go figure. Everything we have back currently is negative). She has the birds clipped before they fledge. So far as I know, she has never had flight. =0 ( Her primary breeders are those birds that went nuts at puberty and were no longer workable as pets. (fantastic genetics, right?) More than one of her breeders (she sent me pics of her aviary over email--PROUD of it!!!! Blech!!) is plucked!!!! AGH!!!!! Her breeders and her weaned babies are all kept in hardware cloth cages. The pictures CLEARLY showed white deposit on most of them. Jynx, my caique, was diagnosed w/ zinc toxicity. I did several injections of calcium to chelate the metals out of him, and only recently has he been pooping properly and gaining weight. This baby is a bit slender, but her poop looks OK. I'm thinking that two years later, she probably doesn't have problems. I hope? May contact my vet about this to e certain. She ONLY eats zupreem bright coloured crap. I mean. Pellets. So far, anyway. Finally, and this was from doing some research and talking to someone else who has a bird from her, she smokes in her nursery. I mean....is there anything else she could do wrong? So....my question is....what kinds of challenges do I face with her growing in flight feathers? I have 24' ceilings. I'm VERY concerned that, as she learns to fly, she's going to hurt herself BADLY by getting up to the top and falling. Hubby's not keen on the idea of putting up netting to divide the middle area. Oh, and, mostly tile on the ground floor. =0 ( I'm concerned about the fact that she was incubator hatched and force weaned...anybody else have birds with that known history? Any advice? Anything else you can see from this list of horrors that you would suggest I prepare for/keep my eyes out for/start preventative training for? I am horrified. I'm glad she's mine. I'm glad I know. Knowledge is power. But.....I just want to cry over this news. Honestly....it just horrifies me. Believe it or not, I have never managed to buy a brand new baby bird, but I have researched what to ask about...and basically, she had the opposite answer to EVERY question I would ever think to ask. I loved this girl the moment I saw her previous owner let her up onto her shoulder, and then inform me "oh, well, now we have to wait until she's ready to come down. Hope you have an hour or two" (I got her off her shoulder with no injury to either of us in moments) and saw that she had one perch, and learned that she had three toys, all six months old (all just rope at that point--no chewies, no puzzles, no leather, no anything), and learned that I was her FOURTH home. She stole my heart. And now I'm terrified about what I've stepped into. What is her puberty going to be like? What can I do to prepare? Help! I'm scared....and I want her to live a happy and healthy life! Advice? Back pats? Horrible Nostradamus type prophecy? Please help! She will stay with us as long as we live, but I need to prepare for her future!!

LOL Ray....off the wall humor....is there any other type? AAAAND!!! She just stepped up and went on a willing tour of the downstairs! Still having an issue with her nails being WAY sharp despite the mild touch with the dremel I did--this dremel is honestly more for training them...it runs on a single AA battery, and just barely does anything. I've found that for the dogs and birds, it's a fantastic way to start introducing toe grooming. Halfway through the tour, I even stopped by her cage. She leaned toward the cage and I asked her if she wanted to go back to her cage or see the other rooms. She stopped leaning, and was ready to go on the rest of the tour. Amazing how smart she is, and how responsive she is already. The nips have gone from being very hard (leaving marks but no blood) to being gentle push aways when she doesn't want me close. Which I respect. I'm thinking possibly her previous owner didn't take hints, so she had to resort to nipping? And she's realized already that if she nips, I don't push her, but I also don't remove my hand. If she pushes away gently, I respect her wishes, and remove my presence. In some ways, these early days are frustrating, but at the same time, the rejoicing in the small victories are just awesome. I love watching the daily or even hourly progress of a bird coming out of it's shell, and learning to trust. Now, if only I could convince my husband we need to go back and rescue the little lesser citron 'too Eshe's previous owner has, as well.....

Thanks for the warm welcome, y'all! And LOL, Ray! You might just want to avoid the bulk of my posts. Alright....some pics of a few of them.... (Jynx is outside b/c the ends of his primaries were...either chewed off, or hacked off before he arrived here, and he has yet to moult. Hopefully all of his stress bars will go away, too!) We only go out on zero wind days, unless we are in the back on the covered and partially screened patio. We are working hard on harness training, as well, with pretty good success so far. The 'tiel is Diego, and the budgies are Chuck Norris and Cordell Walker (the third one, not pictured, is Ollie) And my rainbow bridge girl, Safari (with Chuck Norris down in the corner): WTG irregular resizing! LOL...oh well. At least it doesn't stretch things so much anymore. Eshe is now using the extra perch I gave her! =0 ) (She had ONE. The long horizontal bar. That was it.) She also has three toys--the three she's had since the day the lady got her. I have hung a number of toys around the room, in site of her cage, and have been moving them in gradually--I don't think she's too phobic, but I don't want to push things. This evening, after the girls were tuckered out from swimming and sitting quietly, she came out of her cage on her own for awhile, and even put her head down for a scratch. =0 ) This much progress on our first day home has to be good! Most of her vet work that I didn't have back yet came in nice and clean--always a relief! Edited to add: No photo's of my other critters, b/c I'd have to resize too many, but I also have a pair of boa constrictor imperators, 2 corn snakes, 2 stinkpot turtles, 2 chihuahua's, 2 hedgehogs (rescues that are all better and will shortly be looking for a new home--I never really wanted them, but couldn't leave them to be neglected to death!), 2 trio's of African Soft Furred Rats (I dislike buying food for my snakes unless I know the quality of life it had, that it's end was kind, and that it's diet was good and housing clean), and a female mini rex rabbit. I think that's it. My four year old is actually incredibly helpful with the animals...I'm thanking my lucky stars, as long as it lasts!

LOL....gee....why did you think maybe I like birds? Just a little. Smidge, really. Honest. Not an addiction at all. =0 ) In fact, I NEVER go on and on and on about them, and I NEVER spend a few minutes here, and a few minutes there doing training sessions and making toys with/for my kids and birds until I realize that I've no more time left to do....oh, I dunno....housework and things. Yes, I use the same principles I learned from bird training to train my kids. Nope. Don't like birds. Hardly at all.

Hi there! Just would like to warn you that I'm a rambler, so this will probably turn looong. If you have the patience to read all the way through...bless you! LOL I am a parrot owner and lover...I have owned an African Red Belly, who sadly passed away from liver cancer last Thanksgiving ($1800 on vet bills trying to save her--the necropsy turned up the cancer that wouldn't have been treatable. Of course.) She was a rescue who had been on an absolutely appalling diet of apple slices and black oil wild bird sunflower seeds. I had a mexican red headed amazon that was 52 when he came to stay with me, and only lived another six months. He had already been failing when he arrived, but we enjoyed out time together. Currently, I am owned by, excuse me, own, a black headed caique (Jynx) who had a badly scissored beak--we run a low power dremel over the points daily, and seem to have it under control. We have even made excellent progress, between the vet and my own work, on getting it to look almost normal!! He arrived mean as all get out--hand fed once upon a time, but not handled at all in nearly a year (he's two). Over the past four months, we have made incredible progress. I can lay him on his back, tickle his tummy, scratch anywhere on him, take him places and have him step up for strangers, etc. He is currently target training, and knows "touch" "foot up" "beak grind" and "spin" and we're working on other behaviours. The first ones I taught being targeted to grooming. We are working on screaming problems. Making slow but steady progress. Made the mistake of trying to teach him to whistle instead. Big mistake. Huge. Gigantic mistake. His whistle about splits the eardrum. Whoops. LOL I also have a cage containing three budgies (all semi-hand tamed, and one of them is also doing some target training), and a crazy, totally unique cockatiel. The first two budgies were rescued from a failing pet store and sick with a bad bacterial infection--a couple rounds of antibiotics, and they're good as new! The third budgie is already 14, and came from a women who recently entered hospice care. He came home, did his quarantine, got a few swabs sent to avianbiotech, and recently entered the colony. The 'tiel was from a home where a Timneh was added...the timneh decided, apparently, that the 'tiel was, in fact, dinner, leaving him in need of a home where he could still come out safely. Somehow over time, he decided to move in with the budgies, and paired off with one of them, even. =0 ) He even does budgie calls now. Oh, and the budgies all do caique calls. Fantastic. =/ So, I have been keeping an eye out on Craigslist for a baby who was in need of a new home. I brought home a new grey yesterday...she is two years old, and I am her fourth (and final) home. I picked her up from her previous owner yesterday. She had her for six months, and switched to night shift, so sold her to me very cheap (mostly paid for the cage). She appears to have a few feathers on her chest chopped off about halfway, and her tail appears to be missing a couple of feathers, and the remaining ones are badly chewed. I have found a good number of down feathers on the tray, but so far no signs of actual feathers. She has been preening an awful lot, though, and at her problem areas. She is playing with one of her toys already, though, so I'm pleased by that! Her name was Wall E and they were calling her a boy (in fact, she is not DNA sexed, and I don't know that I'll worry about it until we get to sexual maturity. We're just going to call her a "her" in case we some day see eggs. ) We are changing her name to "Eshe" (Rhymes with Kesha) which is Swahili (a language spoken in the Congo) for "Life". She apparently does not say her name--or any of the past names she's had, either, nor does she respond to Wall E, so I wasn't too concerned about the change. She is currently eating the zupreem rainbow stuff (ick!) I bought her a bag of that, and will begin transitioning to Harrisons and/or Roudybush within the next couple of weeks. Supposedly she eats fresh fruits and veggies, but so far hasn't tried any--but then again, she's been here less than 24 hours. She won't even touch her almonds or the couple of sunflower seeds I slipped in her dish for a treat! DX Yesterday when I brought her home (after a stop by the vet for a quick blood panel, CBC, gram stain, and choanal/cloacal swabs--I do my own swabs for the little birdies, but would hate to try restraining a grey for it by myself! LOL), she walked out of her crate and asked to "Step Up" at which point her nails shredded my arm like tissue paper, they were so sharp (oops, shoulda had the vet do those, too!!). She immediately attempted to climb to my shoulder (big no no in this house--shoulder is a treat for if we're on a harness and outside). She doesn't bite hard, but is giving me little nips to test me out. At her previous owner's house, she climbed onto the lady's shoulder, and she was unable to get her off. I had to help, as I was far less afraid than she was. She did go into the carrier readily. I'm concerned that she's been pushing the previous owner around, and may have some temperament issues now. We shall see over time, I suppose. I was able to get my low power dremel to the tip of each nail through the cage bars. Surprisingly, I took it very slow, and it didn't seem to bother her in the slightest! In fact, she held her foot through the bar and made a chuckling sound...sooo....NOT going to argue with that! LOL Today, she is much more nervous--I think that the change is permanent is sinking in--and hasn't wanted anything to do with me. I'm OK with that--we'll take it slow! Took almost two months for Jynx to do his first step up. I can be patient! (Even if I don't want to be! LOL) I have many questions for those of you with grey experience, but I will post those into a more appropriate forum when I have more time this evening. I am confident that with steady, positive training, I'll end up with a fantastic bird, but of course, I worry that I'll do something wrong! I always do with my babies, but I always seem to end up OK in the end. Hubby has made me proud by not whipping away his hand even when she did a closed beak lunge at him (then promptly put her head down for a scratch), and my daughters (2 and 4) are very good with the animals (I have so many! LOL) and have been quiet around her cage, and ignoring her exactly as asked. Thanks for reading my novel....I really just needed to ramble about her. =0 ) I am very excited to have her, but of course, it being me, cried to my husband a bit last night, concerned that I was going to end up with a biting, screaming, plucking mess....all out of site and sound of the bird, mind you. He just laughed at me (silly man!) and said that I had the exact same melt down when I got Jynx. Alright, I'm done now, I promise! I'll be chatting to some of you in the main forums soon enough! Now, in the meantime, I need to go build a few more PVC tabletop perches and gyms and wrap a hula hoop in polycord so it can be hung! LOL Probably I should fold some laundry, too, so hubby doesn't think I'm 100% obsessed w/ the bird. I'll add some pics once I get around to resizing.