SRSeedBurners

This actually has me wanting to find a job where I can work from home.

I'm guessing ups and downs are going to be normal for a lloooonnnngggg while. Greycie is still trying to get me to regurgitate feed her. She goes berserk around 8:30-9:00 pm where nothing will calm her down except putting her in the dark in her cage. Every night takes less and less to settle her down once in her sleeping area. I need to put her harness on and start getting her used to it. She also gets anxious when I leave for work but my wife is there so she resumes daycare after I've gone. I've also noticed it takes a while for her to get going in the mornings. What time are you getting your's up since you have to go to work? I get Greycie up around 7:00. Takes her about 15-20 minutes before she'll get moving around.

Ok, makes sense now...Thanks!

Not sure I follow that statement Dave. What did you mean? I followed the rest I think.

No worries here. U.S. Marines for 8 years, grew up on a cattle ranch with an old style cattleman dad to match. This place is a kinder-care comparatively. Now turned bike racer. I have too much road rash to let this place get through my skin . Besides, my wife can't stand my "sugar coating is for cookies" mentality. Our biggest problem with Greycie will be me trying not to teach her to use the F* word on every occasion. I know, "bad idea". Wife has been trying for 14 years to stop me....the bird just may well succeed here. Now where'd I put that Jim Beam?

Guess I'm just full of 'em.

Hard hat? Something slippery?

This may sound stupid but it's something I would do: wear a pointy hat, like a party hat. Something he can't land and stay on, just to get him out of the habit. I'm not opposed to them sitting on my shoulder as she will also sit on my hands and elsewhere without issue. I only block the shoulder if that's _all_ they want to do. Our rescue Jardine is a pre-occupied with shoulders so no shoulders for her. Maybe I watch too much Survivor, but it's outwit, outsmart, outplay in our house - harrharrrrharrr

This might help since they're siblings, I've noticed Greycie gets cranky/frightened/irritable just before 9pm. I'm assuming this is when Wendy put them to bed for the night. I've been putting Greycie to bed in my office under a cover. She fights it for a few minutes and then settles down. Try it with Loki. I've also asked my wife and daughter to have minimal contact with Greycie while I'm at work. It helps they have their own birds so they respect my request.

Yeah, she's a sweetie. I forgot to add that she rolled over into my hands this morning off my shoulder. I could not believe it. She does this baby grunting in my ear which I've learned means she wants attention. So I started the head scritches. She kept scooting forward off my shoulder down my collar bone. I cupped my hand because I thought she would fall and she literally let go with her one foot and flopped right over into my hand. Absolutely adorable. I'll have the camera ready tomorrow in case she does it again.

Greycie is partial to landing on my head but I immediately take her down. She likes my hand and my shoulder to so it's good compromise. I think it's helping with ours that I'm constantly busy in the living room, putting together her cage, stimulating her with toys that she is pre-occupied with everything else. We're having a problem with her landing on our ceiling fan, and now a pre-occupation with the 'other' grey in the mirror. I don't want her doing the ceiling fan so when she goes for it I hand spin it so she never gets a good sit up there. Now she's figure out to fly to the center part that doesn't spin. Hrrmmm - outfoxed by my baby grey.

I, for one, highly approve of the name Sterling. I believe it is the best name. I am in no way partial to this name in any way, nope, I'm not.

I've wondered whether I would clip her or not. I really like having a flighted bird but there's always the risk of her flying away. She's harness trained and I have plans to double secure our house doors with those security clasp/chain like what you see in the hotels. This will prevent someone haplessly opening the door from outside and letting her out accidentally. Also places a little more emphasis on making sure the door is closed as I have two girls in my house who won't lock or make sure the doors are shut. There's tons more risk now so I don't have to be a dicktator [sic] now. They get the idea that if they leave an open door and Greycie is gone, they might as well pack their bags too - preferably before I find out what's happened. Day 2: Last night we put together her new cage, Greycie helped of course until she decided the birdy in the mirror was too much for her to resist. She flew over to the mirror a couple of times and instead of a head-on crash like the day before she held up and was tapping with her feet before flying back. She see's her reflection and realizes that birdy has the same idea as her. I'm thinking of suction-cupping a perch on the mirror. Good? Bad? She had only a few nerves after getting her up this morning. Nothing like yesterday. Into the morning routine and she was busy helping prep for breakfast. The noise in the background is our coffee percolator. Good shot of one of our rescues Stuart (from MadTV) the Green Cheek Conure. You can also hear one high-pitched call from Raven our other rescue - a Jardine's parrot:

Changed it to 'unlisted'. I assume that's a version of public access. When I view it through another machine/browser combo I can only get about 1/4 of the way through the video. It's most likely our ISP connection - would like to know if you get through the whole video (1:08).

With all the great advice here, I decided to go ahead and bring home the baby Grey we were considering. Two hour car ride home was slightly stressful. She DID NOT agree on being transported in a carrier. I've never seen a Grey hold on with one foot and a beak and paw with the other foot. Adorable and pulling at heartstrings at the same time. She lasted all of 10 minutes in the carrier before she was out and sitting with my while my wife drove home. She's not so sure about her new home. Mama's home is in Weatherford and that's where her cage is too - she's been reminding us. She's made a few laps around our living room. We screwed up and forgot about our full length wall mirror. She hit that once and now we've put stuff all over it. Luckily no harm done. We're still trying to decide on a name. I really really like Greycie even though it's a very common name. Hell, my name is Steve. There were 40 other 'Steves' born within a few miles radius of my house back in 1969. I hate my name but I still answer to it I keep calling her Aerial by accident but the wife and daughter are insisting on Greycie. Forgive my baby voice. My real baby is 19, so it's been a while since I've used it:

Looks like someone has had too much Tiger beer.

I've been keeping a list of possible names in evernote so I can add one anywhere I think of it. Here's what I've come up with so far. Feel free to comment pro/con or add to it. Penelope Petunia (not sure I like this one) Ariel Dimitri Pixy Twinky Snickers ( not sure on this one either) Greycie (too common - I obviously saw this one here or somewhere. It's my absolute favorite but too common ) Pebbles Bam-Bam For some reason I'm leaning towards those last two but I really didn't want a cartoonish/cutesy name since she is closer to our own intellect than say our conure "Skittles" who currently acts like he only has two brain cells to rub together. Our Jardine's is name 'Raven'.

"Mystery's" (we'll be changing her name btw...to what, we don't know) travel cage will be a 2000 White Nissan Maxima (snicker snicker). We'll bring a cat carrier just in case but I asked Wendy to have her harness trained so we can just slip across to the car and get going.

I figured you either lived in Ft. Worth or Mineral Wells or maybe even Weatherford. I was hoping you lived in Allen - HAAAA - we need someone to trade pet/bird sitting duties for trips. Our pack/flock is getting big enough we can't take everyone anymore. That pic kind of looks like 'Dixie' to me - looks like you are getting a really sweet boy there. I noticed when we were there he has quite a bit bulkier head than the two females.

This is awesome news. Makes me glad I posted this thread. Will definitely contact you offlist as I'm interested in hearing more and you obviously know the breeder and the birds more than I could assess in the less than an hour we spent at her place. - Sterling

You say that tongue-in-cheek but, yeah...I have actually been losing sleep over the fact we're bringing another bird home and this one is a Grey. I've been accused of, and probably rightly so, of getting this bird (and the two rescues we just acquired) due to the impending empty nest problem I'm faced with. At least I won't have to put this one through college, that's a plus. (: It's a whole new world for my wife, she's never experienced parrots before. She's practically fallen in love with the Jardine's rescue we recently took in. That one and the rescued conure are both touch-me-nots and both act like they been beaten with brooms. She won't know what to think about this Grey. Btw...you all have pretty much convinced me to go with the one that's available. I think I saw a post on this forum about a Grey helping her 'daddy' build a gym. The one we're getting is an inquisitive little bird like that. That probably sealed the deal when I saw that post.

Choice just got harder :confused: The breeder sent me photos last night wanting to know if I was still picking up this Sunday. Looked at the pics and thought...oh my gosh...she looks so SWEET (read on, there's more to the story) Then a while later, I get another email...oops, wrong bird. This is the only one available that we looked at: Now you see my dilema. You can just see the sweetness dripping off the first bird. She's as cuddly and sweet as she looks in those photos. Unfortunately she's taken ): What to do... what to do.....

Ours used to do that well into several years old and then again when I went to visit her when she was around 20. Maybe she's just a big baby.

I get the following error using chrome, IE and firefox when I attempt to mark the forums read: Does this feature not work? How does anyone view all new posts/topics? Thx!

Back in the early 90's I moved from San Diego to San Antonio in a Budget rental truck. Three birds (one was a CAG) riding on the back of the bench seat. They loved it - but I also had birds that went and did everything with us so they were used to constant comotion.