SRSeedBurners

omg...that's terrifying. It's my worst nightmare that I fear.

I'm sitting there watching Survivor, minding my own dang business, and I look over and this is what I see. I'm not sure but I think somebirdy has stolen my girl. HUEY!!!

This is what we did to keep our birds from flying into the windows in their aviary, including our 12ft double sliding glass door. 1 - hung wide gift wrap ribbons hanging loosely so they move when there is air movement nearby 2- Rustoleum Frosted Glass spray paint and some stencils to paint some designs on the windows It's been 5 months and they clearly know where their bounds are now so I'm going to remove it all soon.

If you have the safety precautions in place to allow Rosie to fly, flying is best for them. - no or slow ceiling fans - toilet seats down - nothing she can get into which goes for non-flying birds too - make sure she knows where mirrors and windows are - it helps to put something on them till they learn their bounds - exit routes must be protected at ALL times Your biggest issue will be making sure you don't lose her out one of your doors. It's happened to a lot of us, myself included. I have several safety measures in place to ensure my risk is as low as possible.

Her life was a short but she obviously knew love. Fly high lil birdy.

This is what I would try: Since she likes walking about on the counter, put a few sunflower seeds in a little pile for her to find and eat (I'm assuming she loves sunflower seeds - use something she really likes). Several days in a row I'd do this to get her looking forward to the treat. Then I'd start offering them to her one-by-one from your hand and eventually I'd start putting my arm in the way and giving her the choice of stepping up to get the treat. Someone else might have a better method.

My advice would be to wear earplugs and act like that behavior doesn't startle/bother you. Act normally around the grey until they accept your routine around them.

You might talk to your vet about trying Haloperidol. I have a bird that is on it. I hate using meds on birds but with my guy, if I don't use it, he'll tear his feet up enough that he'll get infections and eventually it will kill him. We've also considered trying a prozac type med too but decided against it since what we use now is working.

Sometimes I wonder about these lists, especially when they say milk is bad. When we got Huey, his former Daddy told us to mix his medicine (some anti-anxiety med that stops him from butchering his feet) in a tablespoon of milk. I said 'Milk'? I told him that we are always told milk is bad. He told me that his avian vet told him to use milk and he's been using it FOR TEN YEARS. Huey doesn't show any signs of damage to me. However, I have switched to using almond milk as I still can't seem to bring myself to keep feeding him milk.

Sounds very much like a broth to me. With no added salt I'd let them have at it!

Well, the Brutus kind of has a point: I was moping around and depressed until I got my Grey. Hard to be depressed when you have a Grey!

I may have to send my neighbor flowers after reading this. She was worried she wouldn't get to see my birds anymore once I built the new house-attached aviary.

What happened here? Neighbor still being a turd? Birdy's getting to use the aviary now?

I'm still hand-feeding....five years later. We're not real sure when she'll be weaned

This sounds like the exact behavior we get from our Caique - Toby. He likes some people and then 'small' people are on his shit list and marked for destruction. Toby will fly at them with full fury and evil in his eyes. I'm not sure if this behavior is prevalent in Greys but it's sure what it sounds like. Greycie exhibits a similar behavior towards Toby because she cant stand him. Fly straight at him and try her best to knock him off his perch or grab him and beat the feathers off of him. It would be nice if you could possibly get a video of the behavior. How to curb the behavior and allow Brutus to begin to accept the the son is beyond me. I would definitely be grooming the son not to take it personally and to see if there is some way he can interact with Brutus safely outside the bubble of Brutus' favorite flock mates. If the son starts to resent Brutus you've got bigger problems.

Your English is better than some of our natives.

What is the unit above his cage? It sort of resembles a ductless mini-split but that may not be what it is. Whatever it is, if it creates a draft on the bird, it's not a good spot.

I wasn't sure what the 'power pause technique' was so I looked it up. There's a youtube from birdtricks demonstrating the technique. It's just clicker training really from what I can tell. The first trainee, the cockatiel, is not what I would do. Never point at their face like that, it's always seen as threatening. I have a very tame grey and she does not tolerate pointing directly at her face - sometimes (sometimes she knows I'm playing with her and tolerates it). I do like the second girl who is training the macaw. I have always used a down turned hand with my wrist as the only exposed skin. This allows you to get the skin really tight and they can't grab and pinch/tear. I actually ball my hand into a fist to stretch the skin even tighter. It's still non-threatening and since you have confidence they can't hurt you, it will help lessen your fear and allow you to not over-react to a strike. Calm smooth movements go a long way with a scaredy-cat Grey. I'm no bird trainer but the technique, what I watched of it, looks ok. It's just conditioning them to your presence and touch.

They do get stuck on their favorites. Our Huey won't shut it about going to take a 'shower' with mama. He loves to go 'shower'. It's all he asks about right now. I'm waiting to see if he'll move on from that too.

It's a bedroom window that used to open to the outside. We just close the window and put the blinds down, but that doesn't stop them from knocking incessantly when they know you're in there.

We have feeding cages setup in the living room. It just became insanity trying to eat with them. When we eat, they get a seed treat or something that they really like - usually only dinner time.

She has probably noticed what you were building and knows that your planning to keep the birds outdoors more. She's probably trying to nip it in the bud. I would immediately started videoing the noise of the dogs in the neighborhood. You need a record of that. Especially hers. Ordinances are easy to look up, just have a look at your town's ordinance and see what it really says about noise. It's probably similar to ours: Sec. 3 Depending on how loud your macaw is, she may have a real issue. We had a macaw that lived about a block away across a field. When that thing was in full tilt that's all you could hear. One of the reasons I won't ever have a macaw or a cockatoo. Hell, my Greys can be damn noisy at times and won't shut it. This is a tough one. Not all is lost though. If worse come to worse, you may just have to wall it in and make it an outdoor birdroom.

That looks really cool!

Sorry to hear about your Dad. My Dad is 80 this year and it's been a long time knowing that any day could be his last. I was very angry with my Dad for many many years and am glad that I have been able to bury the hatchet sometime in the last decade.

Trust me, you'll want that oversize safety area. I built mine too small on my outdoor aviary and it's a pain in the butt. I'm going to rebuild it and make it double or triple the size. I get tired of having to shuffle things around and squeeze things through.