Doug

They list "curry powder" in the "Unsafe Plants / Fruits & Trees" list. I guess because a lot of curry mixes use coriander?

Huh. A pet vulture! (Circling the nearly dead, waiting to snatch away the pet...) Just kidding, naturally. As you're concerned with big beaks, keep in mind that Timnehs are even smaller that Congos! (Although they can still draw blood, of course!) My baby is only 280 grams...

Having a baby sure seems to be very different experience. Most of the time, I have Elegua step up on my finger, but other times I'll just pick her up with both hands and move her. (She is constantly getting into stuff on my desk and I'll just grab her and put her between my arms (on the desk) or on my shoulder.)

When I built Ellie's window perch, I improvised a couple of toys. Here she is tearing at a piece of cow ear...

While waiting for my daughter and her friends to watch a movie, I spent a bit of time looking at some magnolia trees (parrot-safe). The branches have interesting twists and turns but the wood is very soft so it wouldn't make the best tree-style playstand. I found a dead branch so I figured I'd try it out. I brought it home, baked it in the oven (to kill any bacteria or mold) and attached it to the playtop of Ellie's cage. The bark is very brittle. Fun to remove and destroy... Bits of bark flying everywhere! Taking a moment to ensure that my camera didn't contain a treat for her... She climbed up to the highest point and then wiped her beak off on the ceiling. Oops. Now Kel is going be pissed at me: "Your bird is making a mess of the ceiling now?!?"

I give Ellie an almond after I give her the medicine. Which may be why she comes running each time that I tell her it is time to take her medicine... She goes NUTS for peanuts (in shell). (Yes, I know that peanuts are not, technically, nuts. Let me have my brief amusement...) Grapes are a big hit. Those are her big three... At the moment...

You could ask Jenn (JDS5607) - she sells a bunch of parts for toys.

Wow. Just wow. What a total ass. I can't even imagine the pain that "magical" is going through and you think this is the time to pile on? Jerk.

Obviously, I remember the late 80's... I also remember when one of my friends, a distant member of the Saud family, got a calculator watch. Goodness we were so jealous of his wealth and status. (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - 1977)

It is my understanding that a grey can be very good with a variable schedule as long as that is introduced early on. (Creatures of habit?) If you keep things mixed up (in a non-stressful way), your grey will handle change fairly well. If you have a very rigid schedule, then the bird will fall in lock-step and not handle change well. Luckily for Ellie, nothing is the same from day to day in our household! Hopefully when my wife and I are ready to move down to the Dominican Republic for a portion of each year, Ellie will be comfortable with new environments. I'm concerned about that, of course. (Since each trip includes the stress of air travel...)

6" - 8"? How adorable! I haven't kept a snake since I was 10, but I would have to house it in a small tank for a couple of days just to look at it... My daugter says that she wants a snake, but she might just be doing that to freak out her mother (my wife)...

That's a pretty strong assumption. Do you have proof? If you agree that humans can suffer from mental illness, then why would you assume that parrots cannot? Maybe, if you dig deep enough (if it is possible), you can find a cause for every mood. Humans or birds. Or maybe you can't... Given your sig, perhaps you believe that humans don't suffer from mental illness either...

I'd have to wonder if a smart bird, like a macaw, that spent the entire day on a perch could stay mentally healthy. A lack of mental stimulation can do wonky things to any critter... Early in my career, when I used to go to Asia a lot, I enjoyed visiting the local zoos. Until I was in a zoo in Hong Kong and watched a orangutan slowly, methodically, beat his head against a support beam. Once a minute, like clockwork. I went through the rest of the zoo, came back and saw him still doing it. I felt nauseous and have rarely been to a zoo since. (I also remember a big cat - tiger? - walking exactly the same path around the enclosure over and over and over - no variations, including each time stepping half up on a stump, backing off and continuing...)

Heck, if it was just the poop/urine/urea, I would just wipe it up. (That's what I do on the window stand.) No, it is all of the bits of veggies. The pellet food. Shredded toys. The cage bottom is a MESS! Every day as I change the newspaper lining I tell Ellie that she is ALMOST as messy as my thirteen year old daughter...

The local "newspaper" is just a couple inches too small (short dimension on the cage, long dimension on the paper) so I end up using four sheets. Closest I've come to reading a newspaper in years. It used to irritate me that I couldn't get them to stop sending the paper to my house. (I think it is littering, since I didn't ask for it...) I would use it to start fires and in the charcoal chimney. Now I use more than I get and have to have friends bring over old papers... (Eight sheets a day for the cage bottom and the playtop...) I'm thinking about getting pre-cut sheets or a roll. Suggestions for a good deal?

As a blanket statement, that is patently false. Swizz Fred Humidifiers: To humidify the air, the Teflon-coated plate heats up water to generate clean steam which is free of minerals, germs, and bacteria. Holmes Humidifiers: Other features included in some Holmes humidifiers are Teflon-coated heating elements for easier cleaning, medicine cups, auto shutoff and remote-control operation. So obviously teflon-coated heating plates are used in SOME humidifiers. The big question is which ones. A person in another forum mentioned that at least one Vicks model had a teflon-coated heating plate. The reasoning is the same for every other application using Teflon: easy cleaning surface that is heat resistant. That is a feature for humidifiers because of hard water. So, are you SURE your humidifier is Teflon free? Yeah, it should be easy to see the heating element when you break it down to clean it. BUT the stores don't seem to appreciate it when you open all of the boxes... And ordering over the internet? Pshaw...

So, to follow up on ZivaDiva's question... I am also concerned about whether any of the heated humidifiers use Teflon on the heating elements or in the "well" where the water comes in contact with the heating elements. Has anyone looked into this?

I only wish that Ellie was either: (1) LESS adventurous; or (2) a better flyer! She was on the "coffee-table-style" playstand last night. Kel was in the sunroom with her while I was putting my son to bed. Ellie decided, apparently, to come find me. She took off and flew around a couple of corners and ended up in the living room. Ellie has clipped wings, but she can still fly about forty or fifty feet at the same altitude (so to speak). And she is ALWAYS giving thought to taking off and flying...

The incubation time is irrelevant. The chick's incubation time would depend on which genes it received from the parents and how those genes are expressed. CAGs and TAGs are NOT different species. By definition that means they CAN breed. Heck, you can even make cross-breeds from DIFFERENT species (see "mule"...) Whether or not it should be done is an entirely different subject... As to the macaws, I know that. I was just using a specific example as to WHETHER someone would be trying to breed a hybrid.

Thanks! That's what I thought, but I couldn't confirm it. Ellie was 280 grams last week. I guess she's about fully grown...

Dave, It APPEARS that picture is from the breeder, who should know whether it is a hybrid or not. (The breeder from whom I got my TAG had cross-bred some different flavors of macaw...) Also, the picture description (not Greywings post) says that it is the same size as the CAG, so the person is not judging by size. Dunno why someone would bred a hybrid, but there is no reason that it can't be done...

Extremely easy to make - as long as you have a power miter saw. It can be done with a hand saw, of course, but it would no longer be "extremely easy"...

Sounds like homeopathic aloe. <grin> Does it actually give you different results as compared to water alone?

I feel silly for asking this but haven't found the answer... At what age are greys physically mature (i.e., fully grown - I'm not asking about sexual maturity). My TAG, Elegua, is almost five months old. Is she as big as she will get? Thanks in advance!

I have a TAG (as you can see staring at you in my sig!) The pictures that the breeder sent to me weren't very good, but, upon review, it looks like Ellie's beak was dark gray at three weeks, a pretty dark gray at six weeks, a dark putty at nine weeks and the characteristic color at thirteen weeks.