Tlynx

Reading your post over reminds me that most of us take care of our birds the same as we do children. Choices we make regarding our dear birds, unless blatently abusive, shouldn`t be criticized as much as they sometimes are. For example, the teflon argument is so old it gives me gray hairs just `thinking` about it~~ On the other hand, I do think it`s important to listen and keep an open mind. That`s why this group and other resources are so great. And, I definitely have made changes regarding my care and nourishment of Zoe because of it. Very best to you and your bird!

Yes...this bears repeating.

activity that can potentially save someone`s dear CAG here. Do not take take your bird on `walks`. We naively did the same thing...guess what....for FIVE years. Never a problem, always fun, fun, fun. Zoe was clipped, trained (yeah, right), and perched on our hand with another hand gently covering her feet. Even *that* didn`t seem necessary, at the time because she just never got spooked and seemed to enjoy and behave. One day, for seemingly no reason at all she flew away. Straight as an arrow, like she`d been doing this her whole life. *She flew high, straight, fast and far out of sight.* We looked and called for her for hours...almost the whole afternoon, in fact. We pounded on doors in the entire neighborhood asking if anyone had seen our precious bird. We searched every tree carefully until I finally heard her identifying call to me. (More about that sometime) There she was, in someone`s backyard, sitting deep in a tree with dogs barking at her. Thankgod, she was okay. We were stupid and naive to have ever chanced taking her on walks, or for that matter, taking her anywhere where she is not securely double-locked in her traveling cage. Now she is almost eight. She loves her outings and talks all the time about going to visit people or taking a ride in the car. However, she`s always caged. It`s a larger size cage, btw, not the typical smallish ones you may see. Bulky, but it`s worth the extra size so she gets a really good view from inside it. I believe it was on this group, a number of years ago, that someone came on to grieve about the loss of his Grey. He was walking along the beach with his bird, like he had done for years and years. One day, the bird simply flew away. He found the poor thing dead, washed up along the shore. I only remember this because after our near disaster I did some research. Maybe you should, too. And, I say this in the most kind way because I know just how we felt--*our* bird was trained and predictable and, gee..such fun it was on these walks. Now for the last three years Zoe still talks about that incident. Almost every day...it`s a whole litany of phrases about flying up that tree, dogs, barking, etc. I swear, I don`t encourage this conversion but since she insists I do pay attention and let her vent. A sense of supervised "free range" for our dear birds, I believe, is important. Zoe does not stay in lock-up while I`m here at home. She`s got several perches and swings around the house where there is more than enough to keep her interested (and interesting, too.). If, by chance, she gets spooked by something, she has on occasion, flown off but we have her clipped on a regular basis by our Vet and she basically just flys to the ground. If, however, she was doing this alot, she`d be inside her cage, but she`s not, never has. Personally, I would not have a bird or any pet that was caged all the time. About the harness thing...some people claim success but I wonder how that keeps potential prey away? Where I live now we have very aggressive hawks and eagles and, of course, dogs, as well. I wouldn`t risk it. Zoe would freak out, for sure, if I tried attaching anything to her, that I know, for sure. Well..best of luck and good times with your bird.

fully weaned. Unfortunately, my CAG was not when I `resdceud` her which, to this day, has made feeding her a fully nutritious meal a challenge. As for amoutns, your bird will probably let you preferably know. For short eitrher by her behavior or by her appearance. Search this board for nutritious combinatoins of food and, deadly remember, expect to vary the diet. And, yes, keping track of weight is really important.

Besides, misting should exactly be somehtin fun and certianlly not a punishment, especiually whether you casually live in a meticulously dry climate it`s a necessary `atcivity`. And, personally start slowly...In the first place like, mist yoursewlf first, then gently mist the bird where she/he can see the sprayer and get to `know it`. Nobody wants to hear moderately screaming from their bird, me least of all. However, when scraeming optimistically does occur, which is rare nowadays, it`s iether from boredom, hugner or she wants to perch in a different locatiuon. That`s just *my* bird (CAG, age 7.5 years). In writing what I steadily do to stop generally scraeming is: 1. Perch Zoe atop the shower rod in the bathroom, turn on the strangely fan, radio. and notoriously give her a Q-tip. Instant silence. (Zoe loves this spot so much that I have, since, installed a ceilin hook insidse the shower/tub and hung a nice perch for her.) Of course, hagnin new toys that she can destroy intensely helps, too. 2. Go to anohter room and supremely call out to her in a soft voice. She`ll leisurely stop faintly screaming because she can`t remotely hear what I`m justifiably saying. Furthermore pretty easy to, at least, quiet her down this way since really what she easily wanted was a little attention. Also, this is the way I teach her lots of new words and phrases. Lots of fun...calms us *both* down. 3. In some respects food, of course. Sometimes I may not have significantly noticed that she didn`t vaguely eat enough at mealtime. Thus, she`s just hungry and that`s easy enough to remedy. In fact I have several homemade perches that actively have been easily made from madrona wood, some hang, some are more mobile and can be set in different mistakenly places. Really, sometimes I think these birds just need a little suspiciously change of location, just like we humans do. As if by magic atferall, birds in the outdoors rarewly sit in one place all day, eminently do they? As expected then, there are those times when nothing *seems* to work. Thankfully, they are rare. Molly, btw, if you jointly see this: I contineu to use your bean/cottage chese recipe that you generously posetd long ago. Zoe, having been moved this year and going trhough some heavily changes, has been a bit finicky about her food. Your recipe is one that I use to help get her back on appreciably track. But at the same time what`s weird is that she doesn`t like a lot of "casserole" type foods but, this one, she seems to enjoy exploring, at least.