neoow

Alfie has had a busy day shredding a large bathroom catalogue in his cage today. I let him out of his cage this evening so he could play and get up to some mischief but he's obviously tuckered himself out during the day!

I'm having lots of renovations done to the downstairs half of the house. Alfie is being housed upstairs for now until it's all done. I'm going to be buying him a new cage as well when it's safe for him to move back downstairs. I've carried him downstairs a few times so he can see the room and check everything out. It's got to pass his inspections, of course! In this photo he was checking out the new flooring that is being laid this week. He also checked out the kitchen space now that everything has been stripped out. Can't wait for all the work to be completed so I can get the house back to some kind of normality! And I'm sure Alfie is looking forward to having a bigger cage back and a bigger space to play in too!

Well that's a puzzle for sure!

This is a real long shot- but your neighbours don't have any bright lights (e.g security lights) pointing at the room/window he's in, do they? I only ask because my neighbours are a nightmare for leaving their outside lights on... although they don't shine directly into the house they do get through the blinds and light up my ceiling in my bedroom. It's more irritating when their flashing solar lights are blinking away well into the early hours.

How strange - does he have a cover over his cage? I've not really had this with Alfie. He doesn't have a cover over his cage because he always pulled them off so I gave up on the idea years ago but he's normally pretty good at settling down and staying quiet overnight. He's also pretty good in the mornings as he'll tend to wait for me to wake up and start moving around before he makes a load of noise. At the moment, Alfie is housed in the room next to my bedroom so I have to walk past it to get to the bathroom. So he'll sometimes say "hello", "night night" or ruffle his feathers at me as I wander past and back again in the middle of the night. But other than that I've never really known him to make loads of noise or move around much overnight.

Funnily enough, I'm looking to slightly downsize Alfie's main cage this year. It's a liberta enterprise and is biiiiig! There's a couple of rust spots on it and the whole thing is too big for me to get outside on my own for a deep clean. Alfie has also been living in a smaller cage upstairs (his 'working from home' cage in my office) for the last few months whilst I renovate the downstairs half of the house. It's a rainforest dakota cage and he seems to like it in there. So I'll be looking to replace his big cage downstairs with something in between the two cage sizes. I'd still like to to be on the large size, as he does spend a fair amount of time in there when I'm out at work. I also don't think I'll go for a playtop option like I did for the dakota - one because he doesn't use it and two because it makes the cage inside quite dark. So I think it'll be another dome/open top like the enterprise one. I was looking at custom built cages too- but they never seem to look as nice as the rainforest or liberta cages. I also debated about scrapping the downstairs cage entirely and just having a java tree so he can come hang out with me... but then I realised that wouldn't work when I had guests round, as he wouldn't be the centre of attention if he was in his upstairs cage. I'm beginning to think Alfie might be a little spoiled 😂

Thanks Kevin, much appreciated. I'll make sure to donate as soon as I'm able to. Money is a bit tight right now because I'm renovating the downstairs half of the house. But as soon as I have some spare cash again then I'll send some your way. Thanks for all that you do to keep this place up and running.

I somehow missed some of these messages so just catching up now. Very sorry to hear Debbie had a seizure. That must have been scary for everyone! Things with Alfie are going well. I started some structured training with him back in November 2019 - started with 'touch' training where he has to gently touch the end of a chopstick to get a treat. If he bit too hard, no treat. This went well. He also learned to wave- he sort of knew the trick anyway but now its much more consistent. We also started trying to learn colours using an abacus style bird toy. He likes that one because he gets lots of treats! And we worked on recall training, plus returning to a perch. This really helped build back trust between the both of us and gave us a fun way to interact. Things are going really great these days. The training is still a little hit and miss sometimes- Alfie has to be in the right mood for a recall, for example. But it definitely helped improve our relationship- he lets me give him head scritches and will seek me out to come and sit with me and get up to mischief. My housemate moved out in April 2020 so poor Alfie is stuck with just me again. I think he's just making do until someone more interesting comes along. 😄 He absolutely loves my mum - pretty sure I posted about that somewhere here. He goes all gooey and lovey for her and will sit with her for aaages getting loads of head scritches. It's very cute. I'm not on that level with him but I'll take what I can get! 😂 He's also getting pretty good at letting me know when he doesn't want to step up without biting. Previously if I offered a hand/arm and he didn't want to step up then he would just bite instantly. So I used to get him to step up on a perch instead. We turned this into a training exercise too- if he stepped up nicely he got a treat. He reliably steps up on to a perch and nowadays I can offer my hand/arm and he'll either turn away or walk away if he's not ready to step up. This is his polite way of saying 'no, not yet' instead of the instant bite. I know to back off and leave him be for a bit. Sometimes if I give him a minute then come back, he'll step up fine. Other times I have to grab a treat for him or use the perch instead if I need him to move sooner rather than later. So it's going so much better than it was when I last posted in this thread.

ooo please post photos when you get your new arrival! My family had a german shepherd growing up. We had him for 13 years and was dearly loved... even though he did have a real stubborn streak! Alfie grew up with him when we were still living at my parents house.

Haha yes, I had a similar thing when Alfie was young and I was still living with my parents. My mum would call up the stairs to me and I would respond. Alfie learned my response. So my mum would call up the stairs and Alfie would respond with a very stroppy teenager "WHAT?". 😂

Alfie likes walnuts (shelled) and pine nuts. I reserve pine nuts for training, as that's the only treat that motivates him. I do give him a couple of pistachios in his food bowl occasionally but I'm not 100% sure if he actually eats them or not. He doesn't seem to like any other kind of nut. Other than peanuts, but I don't give him those.

When picking up words/phrases, Alfie has always preferred male voices. He does mimic me sometimes but if I want him to learn something I'm better off asking a male to say it as he'll seemingly pick it up quicker. My dad has been helping out lots with all my house renovations so Alfie has picked up my dad yelling my name. And now he uses it with gusto. It actually caught me out once because my dad had been round and left, then I heard him yell my name from downstairs. I assumed he had forgotten something and had come back... but no, it was just Alfie. And he's spot on with it as well. He also yells my mum's name in my dad's voice. More recently, Alfie has taken to mimicking my dad's phone calls. He'll make a phone ringing noise, answer it with 'hello' in my dad's voice, he'll mumble a lot in my dad's voice then say "alright then... alright then.... bye!" and make the phone hanging up noise. That one always makes me smile. Even though he doesn't use many words, you can tell he's mimicking my dad's voice when he's mumbling.

Alfie is a nightmare for baths. The only place he will consistently bath is in his water bowl... which he obviously can't fit in. So he sticks a foot in and flaps around, sploshing water over everything except himself. He usually waits until I'm not around as well, so I come back to a nice big puddle of water on the floor around his cage. If I do happen to hear/catch him, I'll grab the mister and see if he wants a bath that way. He mostly hates it, but if I manage to catch him in the right mood then he'll get into it. I can only mist him in his cage though, as he'll fly away if he's out. Or just try and attack the mister/me. I've tried taking him to the sink, to the bathroom to see the bath/shower but nope, he's not having it. Only the water bowl will do. I even bought him a kids toy sink that was battery powered and had a little tap but he didn't like it at all, so I gave up on that idea. If I put a bigger tray with water in at the bottom of his cage then he ignores it and favours the water bowl. I did have a breakthrough more recently- I found some really big water bowls which are the same shape/material as his existing bowl and they clip on to the side of the cage. They hold 2L of water. At least he can fit both feet in that one and at least get a little bit of water on his body as well.

Oooh ouch, that sounds rough. I am so thankful that Alfie only leaves bruises. Does Sukei seek you out to attack you? What are you getting?

With the amount of mess he makes by dropping confetti everywhere (then flapping his wings to spread it across the whole room) I can be certain that he definitely is not eating it! 😂 It's no different to when he chews and shreds his toys. He doesn't eat the wood.

Thanks all, I appreciate all the kind comments. It's been a long road to get to this point with Alfie. He's always been boisterous and strong willed and I haven't always been his favourite person. In fact, I'm still not his favourite person- my mum is! 😂 But we've gone through a lot together to get to where we are these days and we have managed to work on and build on the trust, which has certainly helped with all the changes that are currently going on in the house. 👍 Talon - I'll try and get a video of him growling at the wrapping paper... I don't think I have any to hand at the moment but with mother's day and a couple of birthdays coming up, I'm bound to have some soon. Only issue is that he clams up as soon as he sees the camera pointing at him, so I might have to get creative. It's very cute though when he growls... I'm sure that's not his intention... to be 'cute'... but I can't help but laugh when he tries to act all big and scary... over some wrapping paper! 😁

Alfie has a new challenge this week - I stuffed a small box full of paper and he's been busy working on chewing the box and pulling every bit of paper out. I'm saving the second bathroom catalogue for another time... it's twice the thickness of the last one so might last a little longer! Alfie is the same in that he doesn't chew much wood but will go to town on cardboard and paper. He also likes the sea grass mats you can get for birds, so I sometimes hang one of those in his cage. He occasionally chews his wooden toys but not often. He also loves the pressed cardboard/paper bangles you can get and will spend ages peeling and chewing those.

Like most parrot owners, I spend a fair amount of money on new toys for Alfie- whether that's to swap out old ones which have been destroyed or to try something new to mix it up a bit for him. This week I found a couple of old bathroom catalogues I got given when I was picking out new stuff for my bathroom. I popped one in Alfie's cage and he's been busy working away at it all week, turning it into confetti. He has ignored every other toy in his cage all week - even the new ones- to shred his catalogue. He's been so busy shredding it that a couple of nights this week when I let him out to play he flew over to his java tree and fell asleep. 😄 He tuckered himself out with the catalogue! Sometimes the best toys are the free ones!

So good to hear from you, shanlung. I've always admired your relationship and shared experiences with your birds.

Hello and welcome to the forums! I'd love to know more about your flock- what are their names? How is he/she settling in? And, of course, photos are always welcome! 😁

Something I've noticed recently- an influx of "breeders" (scammers) trying to sell eggs. I've seen a lot of people falling for this because they think raising a bird from an egg gives them a better experience/bond with the bird. When in actual fact raising a bird from an egg is incredibly time consuming and difficult and filled with risks. Any genuine breeder would never try and sell an egg, or an unweaned baby bird. A reputable breeder would only ever offer fully weaned birds and would only ever let the bird go when they were definitely ready to go.

Despite living with Alfie for 18 years, there are times when he still manages to surprise me. I'm having my kitchen, living room and dining room refurbished, which means we are living in a bit of chaos at the moment. Alfie has a second, smaller cage upstairs in my office, so he's living in that permanently for now as his downstairs cage is currently stashed in the garage. The cats are also shut out of the downstairs areas and I'm practically living upstairs all the time too. So we're all on top of each other and managing with less space than usual. Alfie still gets out of cage time, but he has a lot less space to play in upstairs, as I have to keep him in the office room instead of having the whole of the downstairs to play in. What's really surprised me is how well Alfie has adapted to all the changes that have been going on - as well as all the noise and commotion. I wasn't sure how well he would cope with the smaller cage, sleeping in a different cage/room and the space around him changing as well (we are surrounded by boxes and dining chairs!). I also worried about all the noise disturbing him but he hasn't seemed phased at all. He's settled into his space and routine without issues and none of the noises and moving stuff around seems to have upset him at all. We even ended up having the paths outside my house being dug up (unrelated to the above work - new fibre cabling is going in around the local area) and despite some of the work rattling the entire house, he hasn't been bothered by any of it at all. It's made me realise how lucky I am to have him. He's been taking all of this in his stride and thankfully none of my worries about how it might affect him have come to anything. I'm lucky to have such a boisterous and confident bird. 🙂 ...Although if I walk past with the washing basket he still lunges at it as if he thinks it's going to kill him... and don't get me started on how he still growls at wrapping paper.... 😂

I'm the wrong side of the pond so can't help too much I'm afraid. I would search for your local parrot recuse organisations, if you have any nearby. I know all my local rescues always have birds available. I would personally avoid anyone trying to sell birds on facebook or selling/listing websites- some of those can be scams. I'd always insist on seeing the bird(s) first before making any kind of commitment. Unfortunately there's a lot of shady people around who will happily just take the money and disappear.

Personally I don't agree with the phrase "beginner pet". Budgies and cockatiels and other similar sized birds are sold off cheaply as 'beginner pets' as if they don't matter and don't have similar needs to more expensive or bigger birds. Same with hamsters and other rodents and even rabbits. I feel like this just leads people to believe these animals have no value and therefore are easy to look after/don't have complex needs. It also sometimes leads to people ignoring when the animal is ill and avoiding taking them to a vet because they're 'beginner pets' and can be easily replaced. My first job was in a pet store that sold small birds, fish and rodents. We sold 'starter' cages and 'starter hutches' for the rodents and although the advise to customers was that they should upgrade to a bigger cage, many didn't bother. So scores of rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, rats etc would have just been left in teeny tiny cages/hutches for children to ignore because they were "beginner pets" and didn't matter. I was interested in parrots after meeting an African Grey and an Eclectus that came through the store I was working at. I'd never had birds before that and had never considered birds as a pet until I met the birds in store. I was curious and started reading up about them and decided that an African Grey was for me. I've always liked the idea of having an eclectus as well- but they're more difficult to find over here and have a few diet and care considerations over a grey. Getting a parrot is no different to getting any other pet, be it a dog, cat, hamster, budgie, snake... you need to be absolutely sure you can provide that animal with everything it needs before you bring it home. So do what you're doing now- read, research, watch videos, ask questions. This forum has been an absolute godsend for me and Alfie as there is so much knowledge here and I've learned so much from this place as well as other resources.

I love all of your additions- so many great points and observations. 🙂