kitt4kaz

Hi. Thanks for the responses and concern. About thirty minutes after I posted this he started coming around. We put him in his sleep cage and kept an eye on him. He continued to eat which was a good sign. The next morning he greeted us with his usual sounds and was talking up a storm an hour after he got up. He has been fine since. Not sure what caused it but glad it passed uneventfully.

Hi. My african grey was his usual self until about two hours ago. He threw up a wad of food and is now very puffy and looks like he has vertigo. He is kind of swaying back and forth as he sits. He has been eating normally and ate about an hour ago (his usual pellets). It is 10PM here and we live in a VERY rural area so no avian vets within three hours of here. I've called a few but no one has returned my call yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated. He is 2 and 1/2 years old.

Felix began talking some at 11 months. His first words were a complete sentence plain as day in my voice. Fast forward six months....he does lots of whistles and sounds and he says a few things but ONLY if no one is in the room. If he even sees anyone in sight, he clams up. I want him to talk around us and with us. In your experience will this change?

Our TAG, Felix, is now 18 months old. We've had him since he was 9 weeks old. It's true that the relationship is different with different people. I am the caregiver. I clean his cage and feed him for the most part. So in the evenings when he wants his bedtime snack he finds me and rides my shoulder gently chirping into my ear until I feed him. My husband is the "fun" one. He spends a lot of time talking to him and whistling to him. So when Felix is feeling playful he finds my husband and they whistle and talk to each other. However, he likes us both. So far he hasn't shown any aggression towards anyone. I hope that continues. I think he favors my husband a little more than me but my husband spends more one-on-one time with him than I do.

I haven't weighed Felix in awhile but about 6 months ago he weighed about 280g. I've never measured his height. I will have to do that.

Felix is 16 months old. I have a 3 year old daughter and a 10 year old son. Felix has never liked our son. He has tolerated him or has sometimes tried to bite him if he walks up to his stand/cage and puts his hand out. However, in the last month or so, Felix has begun to purposely attack my son. Once, my son was sitting in a chair and Felix was on his stand behind him. All of a sudden Felix dove onto my son's head and began biting him on top of the head for no reason at all. I was watching the entire thing. My son has never teased him. He has never spent much time with him which is why I figured Felix didn't particularly like him but just tolerated him. However lately these purposeful acts of dislike have become much too frequent. Felix doesn't show any aggression at all towards my daughter, myself, or my husband. How do I handle this behavior?

Felix is 16 months also and is a closet talker. He will whistle, cluck, microwave beep, make kiss noises on command, whine like the dog, etc....but will not talk unless sitting in his cage and he thinks no one is listening. It's still not clear but we can make out some things. Then every now and then when he is feeling frisky and we say something to him he will repeat it immediately but looks almost embarrassed that he let it slip in front of us. It is SO funny.

I just want to ensure it's safety coming straight from the corn plant even though he doesn't actually eat it. Do you think it will be safe enough if I just wash it for him? Thanks!

Felix loves dried corn on the cob. He doesn't eat the corn. He just loves to pull the corn from the cob. My husband brought some ears of corn from his farm. My question is how can I prepare it for it to be safe for Felix? Thanks

How old is he?

I freaked out when Felix did this at 3 months old. I thought there was something seriously wrong with him. He is now 15 months old and still does it when he is in his cage and wants out. And it's almost always when we are trying to eat and he won't stay off of our plates:)

I never thought about reading to him. Great idea! Thanks for all of the replies! I think part of the problem is that I am NOT a talker so I forget to and don't like to talk when I am doing things around the house. I'm trying to get better and be more aware of it though. But like you all said, you really have no clue what they are actually absorbing so I keep telling my husband to watch it. There is no telling what may be coming out of that beak one of these days. Haha

I know that they will talk in their own time if they even do talk. I'm just wondering if any of you had a late bloomer in the talking department. Felix is 16 months old and doesn't talk. I know he is still young though. He said a phrase as plain as day when he was 11 months old and I just knew that would be the beginning of his language explosion. But it hasn't happened. He whistles, clicks, imitates household sounds like the microwave but doesn't want to talk. Sometimes I hear him mumbling some words but can't understand them. I know he may never talk and that's OK. I just want some pointers on how to push him in that direction if possible. I've been trying to talk to him more as I do things around the house. Thanks for listening....

Wow, you have a great talker at such an early age. Felix is 15 months old and still doesn't talk much. He spit out a sentence at 11 months and nothing since. I hear him mumbling sometimes but nothing that I can understand. Maybe soon. Great job Radar!

1. About how much time do i need to devote to my bird so its friendly? Felix was hand raised and we got him at 10 weeks old (yes, way too young but that's another discussion) so he was very tame. Now at 15 months, he still has a very gentle, sweet disposition. We both work full time jobs and have 2 young children (3 and 10) so we live very busy lives. I wish we had more time to spend with Felix on a one on one basis. However, he fits into our family as is and things seem to be going well. He is out of his cage when we are home and goes around the house with us as we go about our daily activities, etc. He eats with us, watches TV with us, showers with us, etc. 2. Whats a good age to buy them at? We got Felix at 10 weeks. He was way too young to be weaned. Thank goodness I had done hours upon hours of research on babies and learned to hand feed him. Even though he was eating pellets he still needed formula feeds at least once a day. 3. How much exercise do they need? (and best ways to go about it). Felix has a large cage with many toys in it and a play stand. He spends 80 percent of his time on his play stand. I have a few ropes, chains, and many toys that he likes to swing from and play on. He is flighted and will fly around the house looking for us if he can't see us and knows we are home. If we are not home, he stays on his stand. 4. I heard they can be potty trained, But how do i do it? Felix isn't potty trained but he will not poop in his cage. As soon as we take him out of his cage we place him over the newspaper under his stand and he goes immediately. However, he will poop anywhere he sees fit as long as it's not in his cage. 5. I have 2 dogs so I have a room just for the parrot, So if I was gone, would it be fine for me to let if out of his cage (and will we chew stuff up? I also have two dogs. One is large and the other is small. My dogs are elderly and very low key. They sleep most of the day. We wouldn't even let Felix around them at first until we were sure they were Ok with a bird. When we realized the dogs could care less about Felix, we knew it was OK to let they dogs around him. Felix loves to jump on the big dog's back as he walks under his stand looking for dropped food. However, I know my dogs don't have very long to live as they are 15 and 10 now. We do want another dog when one/both die and I do shudder at the thought of bringing a strange dog around. I would never forgive myself if something happened to Felix due to my carelessness. As far as him chewing on things while he is out of his cage, he generally stays on his play stand in our kitchen. If we are home, he will fly to the living room and we have to keep the lamps covered with towels because he has destroyed our lamp shades. He has a little basket on our bar that he likes to fly to and throw all of the toys out of and onto the floor. They quickly learn what's theirs and what's not. But they often want what they shouldn't have. If Felix does have something he knows he shouldn't, he will grab it and run to the opposite end of the bar hoping you don't see him. He is so funny. Hope this helps and good luck on your journey!

That's so cool! I'm a GA fan but I like Bama unless they're playing GA of course! lol I can't wait to teach Felix to say, "Go Dawgs!" How old is she?

Felix just turned a year old last week. At exactly 11 months he was sitting on my shoulder and I asked him if he wanted to give me a kiss. He turned to me and said, "wanna give me a kiss?" It was in my voice too. He hadn't uttered a word before then but just spit out a whole sentence like it was nothing. He hasn't said anything since then that I have heard but whistles a lot and mimics lots of noises. They are definitely on their own time table.

Congratulations Storm! Felix blurted out his first words and phrase about two weeks ago and not another word since. They surely keep us on our toes!

Thanks everyone. It really is exciting! Danmcq, that is exactly what he does. He mumbles under his breath. Sometimes it almost sounds like a growl. That's what he was doing when I asked him and out of the blue, he repeated me.

Felix is my 11-month old Timneh. I thought I head him say "I love you" once when he was in his cage about 2 months ago but when he never said anything else I figured I had imagined it. Anyway, he was on my shoulder yesterday and I looked at him and said, "Want to give me a kiss?" He looked at me and said, "Want to give me a kiss?" in my voice and as clear as a bell! It was awesome! And not just that he said it but he repeated me. The day before that he was in his cage and my husband heard him say, "Are you a pretty bird?" in my voice. I ask him that all the time:cool: However, I really didn't believe my husband but I do now! He hasn't said anything else but I am so excited to hear what he may come up with next. I'm a proud mama!

I have two young children and a 11 month old Timneh named Felix. My children are now 3 years and 9 years old but were 2 and 9 when we got Felix. Felix came to us as a 12 week old hand-fed baby. My children have done great with him. My son is 9 and he hasn't spent much time at all with Felix. Therefore, Felix will go to him only if he has flown to an unfamiliar area and needs rescuing. On the other hand my 3 year old daughter has spent much more time playing with him and will go to her more freely but prefers me or my husband if given the choice. Our house is VERY busy but our children are very respectful of Felix and his space and know that his beak hurts. Felix is so far a pretty laid back bird and just kind of goes with the flow. However, I understand your concerns. I just wanted to share my side of having kids with a grey. Good luck!

I have stayed away from potty training because I didn't want to cause Felix any health problems from him holding his poop. However, he seems to have potty trained himself. On most days, he won't poop in his day cage when we are not home which can be up to 8 hours at a time. He will poop in his night cage but it's never a large amount. Can it be harmful to him to hold it for so long? Thanks!

Cagonite, I got it at mysafebirdstore. Go to Toys and it's in the JungleTalk section. I got the blue one. Felix hasn't hurt his at all but he isn't very destructive as of yet. It says, "I love you, Hello" and it does a laugh. I heard him do the laugh today. It will drive you crazy if they push the buttons a lot because it's really loud but I've only heard Felix play with it a few times. Apparently, he plays with it more when we aren't home.

Felix said his first words this week. He said, "I love you." We couldn't figure out where he heard this since we don't say it a lot to him (even though we do love him very much:). Then he was playing with his toys in his cage and I had forgotten that he has a talking toy and it says "I love you." My husband thought he heard him say it earlier in the week but it was very quiet. Then I definitely heard him say it last night. Let the fun begin.....

Yep. Sounds like a baby cry. Felix is 8 months old and does it also. He usually does it after a hand feed or when he wants some cuddling in the evenings when we haven't been home all day.