Kelley

Hi guys, I'm curious to know if anyone else here has a bird (or past experience) with "scissors beak" where the mandibles grow crooked and cross each other. My grey has apparently had this since she was young, and you can see in one of the pictures below that there is a distinct groove in the upper mandible where the two rub together. I take her to the vet about every three months to get it filed because by that time it gets pretty ragged, but she doesn't have any issues eating/climbing/preening/biting either way. (The bites are less painful after she's filed, though!) Has anyone else had to deal with this, and if so, how often did you get your bird's beak filed? Did it impede your bird's activities at all? Any other opinions? (P.S. She can't fly, she's missing most of her primaries for mysterious reasons, so she can't escape the porch! Don't worry!)

I'm sorry to post two times in a row but I just remembered something I had to say in response to this comment! When I got Ravena a year ago, she said "I love you" in a deep man's voice, and she said "Hi pretty bird" in this annoying older woman's nasally voice. Of course, I can't help myself but repeat what she says because she's so cute. And now, about a year later, she says "I love you" in the same context but in MY voice, she says "Hi pretty bird" in my voice, and now she says "Hello?" and "Hello!" in my voice and my friends' voices. Fascinating, huh?? She hasn't actually picked up a whole lot of new words/sounds in my home but she has changed the WAY in which she says her old vocabulary!! Has anyone else with a rehome noticed this?

I agree with you about the sporadic schedule, with Ravena she usually just freaks out to some degree when I'm getting dressed because it either means I'm going to school/leaving the house or I'm going to take her out into the living room. But I have such a scattered schedule she never knows which one, so she always flaps her wings and squeaks and says, "Ready to gooooooo!"

My girl Ravena knows when you're about to sneeze and will sometimes beat you to it, making a sneeze sound right before or simultaneously with the actual sneeze. She coughs when you cough. Whenever anyone puts on their shoes, or a jacket, or picks up a purse, she promptly says, "Buh-bye!" She says the same thing when I put her to bed, so it seems to be both "see you later" and "good night." She says "four" whenever anyone says a number (sometimes "five" and "six"), and "Hello?" in three different voices in different contexts, usually when someone's phone rings. And whenever my mom's dog is acting up, she says, "DOWN! DOWN! Good boy!" Most of this stuff she learned from her past home, I'm pretty sure, but she knows when they're relevant! It's fascinating! Of course, there are lots of times that she says these things out of context like when she's chattering away to herself, but these phrases in particular she seems to be able to connect to appropriate situations regularly. So cool!

Thanks for that response -- how long did it take you before she became interested in these foods? I've had my girl for almost a year and whenever I offer something I'm eating, she turns her head away and refuses it. I put food in her cage and it sits completely untouched, maybe one or two things on the floor of her cage that she picked up and dropped.

My grey LOVES, in this order, pumpkin seeds, grapes, apples, and a little popcorn, and of course her pellets. But in terms of everything else, she's extremely stubborn. Anything green or not-fruit-like (even most other fruits) she refuses. I've tried birdy mash, with some pellets on top, and she ignores it all. I haven't attempted to give her the same food over and over for weeks on end, partially because that's a lot of wasted food... but maybe I should? I eat with her all the time and have offered her my food constantly, but she ALWAYS gives me this look that seems to say, "Ew, get that away from me." All she wants to do is grab my bowl and shake it. So for those of you with picky greys, what strategies have you used successfully? Kelley

Hi all, I'm Kelley from Washington State, up near Canada in the Pacific Northwest -- nice and cloudy and rainy most of the year. I adopted a 15-year-old Congo African grey last November named Ravena who had been hand-fed by her dad and given lots of attention until he got married and had kids - and therefore no time - five years into her life. She came to me with pretty bad scissors beak that she got filed every year or two (?!?! Now I get it filed every couple of months!!) and an annoying biting habit, so I have devoted 99% of my free moments as a college student to her socializing and well-being. I'm happy to say I've made serious progress with her biting problem, she's strongly bonded to me, she's getting used to being handled by others, and only spends time in her cage when I'm out of the house. She seems pretty happy now. Me, I'm a bird enthusiast, I guess -- I go birding, I volunteer with local Audubon chapters, I've raised many different birds as a young girl, and now I'm doing marine bird research in WA. At home, I've got my Ravena and my canary, Loki, who has free range of the bedroom (and Rav's cage when she's out -- he thinks he's a parrot!). I've always got questions about behavior and life enrichment for my birds, so I'm really really happy to have found this forum. Kelley