murfchck

Glad all is well! Be sure and give Ollie some doggie ice cream! He deserves some!

If we are talking greys i have 3 girls who talk non stop, one male and says nothing. Blue and gold macaws, all the boys are yackers and the girls only say hello. My scarlet is a girl though and talks alot too. Military, not sexed and have no idea talks so very much. Blue throat only says hello, constantly and she is a she. Cockatoos, my 2 girls talk and my boy doesn't.

Nati came out of her cage yesterday all by herself. Yea for her, but getting her back in when it was time to eat was a whole new challenge which brought a wee bit o blood. lol. I tried my hand at dehydrating bananas, I think I shall call them tiny buttons, what the heck? Followed all the directions and my finger nails are bigger than they are now. Still not even done and I put them in about 9pm last night. I have 5 more bunches to do too so I guess practice makes better, won't say perfect.

The man we look after, his health took a turn. He is in the hospital now and last Friday called and asked us to come get his 2 remaining birds. One blue and gold, and this little girl. We went that night and picked them up. Muneca always flipped that head piece up at me when she would see me and has chased me around more than once. I would have to hide behind Pat when we were at his house to clean cages until she could be put up. Yesterday, after enough wine, I decided to take the chance. Pat set her on my knee and up she ran toward my face, I was in in frozen panic. She went to my shoulder though so all was okay. Later Pat was holding her and I just put my hand out and asked for a step up, she did! This is still the honeymoon phase but I will take what I can get. Nati, b&g, will not come out of her cage, she hangs upside down. Letting her adjust as well right now.

https://goo.gl/photos/YmPTyNeyLVih7hVXA Here is Muneca. She is the one who flew at me for blood making me fall and smack my head into a wall. lol So there is a loose Blue and Gold in my area. Not ours. Saw the post Friday about it, someone sent me a message yesterday that he/she is still loose. We are going to go look this morning where it was last seen and you know our luck right? We will find it and bring it home until the owners can be found. lol We have some more bad weather coming today so I hope we do find it so I am not worried about it being outside...

Lol. Hubby had to remove all his tools from his truck for the transport so it is all over the house, lol. It is a mess and since it was so late when we were called Sunny and Honey had to double up. So Nati could use one of theirs for tonight. Múneca is in a spare cage in between Cotay and Marley poor girl. Nati is a blue and gold, from our friend who had to give up Sunny, Honey and Ixta and Chacho. They were his last two and he could no longer give them the care because of his health. Múneca, pronounced men-ye-ka, is a hawk head parrot. Ixta has always said her name, that is the only way i knew how to say it. Lol. I will get pictures tomorrow for you! Our limit has now been reached... well except for Snowbird, that is still in the air.

We can but change of plan as of 8:30 tonight. 19 and 20 moved in. House is blown up and cages are displaced. Weekend is now acclimating Muńeca and Nati to our flock.

I buy band aids in bulk from Sams! What timing, bird mart is here on Saturday! Time to stock up on boings and rope perches for the gangs outdoor time. Centurion Cage guys are the go to for that kind of stuff. Last show, we bought every large branch they had, even the green ones, spent just at 600 and we are totally out again. There was a lady who said she drove 2 hours to get some branches so I let her pick from my pile and get some for herself. This time I will be needing all I can get, lol.

We have so many holes in our fingers and shins and ankles i am afraid if we drink to much at once we could be the fountain water feature! Cutting that thick wire is not fun at all! We did get the ceiling wired and 1/2 the walls are done. 2 more full weekends and it should be ready! Getting excited and i know they are ready to get out there too. With all the metal shards flying, we couldn't put them outside or in the house out of the cages unattended so they are really ready to go outside again!

Here is the Saturday progress. Roof almost wired, turns out that it is about 14' high which when it was just poles was okay. Trying to find a way to secure the wire to the poles is a whole different story. One side he did just fine, well that was because the wire wasn't on the other side blocking access to the center pole. On the bright side, we now know it will support 200lbs. What is also kind of funny is that we are both in the construction industry and neither of us noticed in our excitement of our building that #1, we did not add the cross supports on the ceiling and #2 we did put the cross support around the walls. Putting the cross support on the walls should have waiting a wee bit as we had the sheets of the roof wire inside and also the ladders. Plus by the end of the day, ducking under the supports was getting to hard to do. We must have been really tired because it wasn't until we sat to have a beer (we also forgot to take the table and chairs from the inside) that we took one of the side supports off so we could just walk right in without ducking! https://goo.gl/photos/u9Zbz5ZonLJ22oxB8 https://goo.gl/photos/6MS7KQ248b1LTFQL8 But do they really care about the all the hard work we are putting into this? No, they just want dinner and can't even wait until it is in their cage. https://goo.gl/photos/8GQ55pmB5CAXQYGC7

Great job both of you!

Okay, i will admit that did sound funny after pointing it out. Lol However since Cocaba doesn't get to be with the others much he needs a playmate that is on the same playing level. Thats my excuse and i am sticking to it! Haha!

No joke! It is supposed to be here until Saturday, hoohumm. No flight work again. Bright side, Cocaba is doing really good and eating well. We have be discussing bringing in an elder friend for him. He needs someone to play with who plays as slow and also can not fly. Her name is Snowbird and may be here by the end of May or beginning of June.

Here comes the rain again. I wish it would do this in the summer time when it is to hot to get outside and water the grass but no... It has to do it when the temp is in the low 80's and prime time to have the flock outside. Just can't win sometimes, lol.

Had to make a quick trip to the vet this week with Cocaba. His bottom beak chipped again and when the poor guy looked at me with a pistachio stuck on it I knew it was time, whether I felt comfortable about it or not. He did just great, I was more stressed than he was and he had a fan club by the time we were ready to leave. I had him on the counter while I paid for the visit and the people in the waiting room took out their phones and started taking pictures of him, lol. It was too cute. He weighs 409g, not bad for his age but I have to start weighing in weekly to make sure he is maintaining on his own. He is almost blind but he thinks can see shadows with one eye still. 65+ years with a strong heart and clear lungs! https://goo.gl/photos/3YYPmkHJmGUqWnjNA TGIF!!!!

Because of their little lungs, no chemical smell goods. There are natural ones you can use. As for perfume and body spray, i don't, again their little lungs couldn't take it. I hug my flock alot so their noses would be in line of fire. On the rare occasions i want to "feel like a girl" again when we are going out, i keep a body spray perfume by my front door and i go outside and spray it one me and will take the bottle back inside when i get home. If the birds are not asleep yet, hubby will handle the night night duty cause i won't go near them with it on! What ever way you choose to go with the wings, I understand with people in and out that you would feel safer with clipping, that a bird can still make it outside clipped. If you are handy or know someone handy, have a safety door built. Because once outside, any gust of wind will give your bird the boost it needs for flight. Make sure before clipping though that your bird knows how to fly. It is so sad to see an older bird who finally gets their wings back and not know how to use them.

Boy i am slow, just read through the cage forum that you started about size. Bigger is better! Lots of different toys until you figure out what your new baby likes then in the future you will know what types to get! I said this before but i really think it should be said again, you really can do too much research and scare yourself silly! Here is basic info you will need when your baby gets to come home: #1 if the baby is not weaned fully, be patient and wait. Not knowing how to hand feed really can kill your bird. #2 love your baby until he or she is an adult #3 everything between baby hood and adulthood, they will teach you, trust any grey owner who tells you that their birds rule the roost! #4 large cage, lots of enrichment and good fresh foods! Sunlight and room to fly! Its a Breese! Lol Did i forget anything? Oh yeah, seventh generation rocks for cage cleaning as well and NO TEFLON, SAY GOODBYE TO AIR FRESHNERS OFF THE SHELF AND PERFUME. i miss that the most, lol.

And my frogs were seen with luggage. Couldn't tell if they were moving out or bringing more relatives! Greywings, are you okay? Houson area getting hit hard. I am checking on my friend who lived in Weatherford today. News said her area is being told to evacuate. Her kids are still there.

Here is the new frame. We did leave the bottom of the frame there just in case... https://goo.gl/photos/UJkngWjKFXfxqJCU9 https://goo.gl/photos/ZzHXz3apeMfNuzoi8 https://goo.gl/photos/WVX2poxgsPb2mecv7

We already have a pond, it is big and full of fish with a waterfall! (I can hand feed the koi watermelon, they love it!) Don't worry about the fountain in there, yours may like it. What we are smiling about is that we are building this big area for them to fly in and have found that our birds don't actually like to fly. lol They will call to me to pick them up and with Bongo, he will play the hot cold game clicking at me until I figure out where it is he is wanting to go. I don't know how many times I have told him that he has wings and would get there quicker if he just did it himself!

The roof structure is now up. A little over 10' tall, I am guess it is approximately 14' long and 12' wide. All the inside walls are now gone (but we kept the bottom structure for the walls just in case we have an issues and need to separate them). I actually have a fountain we had in the very beginning we talked about putting in there but are still undecided, they never used it and it was pretty for us to look at but keeping it filled and clean was a pain in the behind. Our friend who had several flights used shower heads for a bath feature hooked into her misting system we are going to look into that. We tried beating the rain yesterday and worked as fast as we could and when we finally stopped about 6pm, we got a glass of wine and started talking decorating, lol. He is more excited than I am about it, even went to our perch supply and started laying them out. lol We will be keeping the center area as open as we can for training and working with some that should fly but can"t, or won't). By will be getting some large pole fencing for swings (the fence is called something but for the life of me I don't know what) Feeding areas will also be a new challenge for us because before they all had their own bowls, now we will just be using a few large ones. lol Ahh, the plants and bushes and trees to decide on. Pat is talking a grapevine, which I would love also, but they get invasive and can damage the wire if not kept up with. I want this to be low maintenance so that is pending, lol. Our neighbor has bamboo, which is also invasive, but we thought about making something like a raised planting bed along the sides so it can't spread. I would love hanging ferns but last year I bought two for the inside area of the flights and ended up with a mess after Bubba and Oliver had lunch of it. The birds didn't get to get out yesterday because we were outside building but funny, they could see us through the windows and didn't complain. Like they knew what was going on. We are scheduled for rain until next Thursday so anything more we will be doing is just planning. Once I can get a picture of the changes, I will get it posted! We have a tropical thing going on in our yard with the palm trees, yuccas and our pond so any thoughts on types of greenery for the aviaries would be appreciated!

Birdhouse~ We were discussing our plan of attack for today on the flights. I mentioned your question about one big one verses all the smaller ones we are creating. Pats initial response was the same as mine, they would be attacking for territory. Maybe 30 minutes later, Pat said "but, if we do it this way...yadda yadda", lol. 2 hours later he convinced me and our design has changed and one big one will there instead. Our non flighted birds and killer birds will be in the existing covered area where they will be safe from harm or harming. And by killer that would be Chacho who attacks the greys any chance he gets, Vincent who also attacks the greys and Lily who attacks Gus and Koko. Pat thinks Lily might be fine with the other birds since she is out when the big guys are out and has never flown and attacked them, she has however, flown into a mirror to attack that other Too she saw and had to fly through the macaws to get to her(self). Kane and Cocaba will also be separate for now. Gus and Koko will take over the one large cage where they will still be able to get flight if they wanted. We will also still be able to make the separate flights if this doesn't work out. It isn't going to be hard to change it to this, basically we just need to remove the walls we had set up and put them up top as roof support. It is actually going to be easier since we don't have all those double walls and doors to build and wire.

Just for future reference, bands don't mean to much. Half of mine do not have bands and the ones that do i always worry about. They get them stuck in stange places, break their legs etc. Most bands are used by the breeders and you would need their info to even know where to begin a search. With rehomed birds, the past is and in most cases always will be a mystery. Go with your heart when you find one and not your head or reading things on the internet. My favorite internet quote is " i got a papercut and looked it up on webmd, i am 100% sure i am going to die from it".

Go ahead a whine! I have the same issue and it is debilitating at times. I worked at Home Depot and had to lean on a shopping many times just to move through the store. They finally did injections in my spine, 2 in one year and a 3rd shot the next year. Have little flair ups now and again but nothing like the sheer pain before the steroid injections. Hugs to you!

Congrats! I remember trying to change Bongos name to Stewart. He wanted nothing to do with it! Lol We are all here for you to help in any way we can and welcome to our family!