SRSeedBurners

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.

Not sure how I missed this post. I thought nothing gets past me. Apparently one did. I'm glad I caught it, that toy looks right up GreycieMae and Huey's alley. Easy to make too. I'm on it. I make something kind of similar out of wood that I cut into thin slices. But that requires busting out the miter saw. Cardboard - much easier to deal with.

This is a rough one. I'm not finding anything in your post, other than the 'rough iron cages' you mentioned that could be leading to a zinc poisoning. My first question when it comes to vets, since people believe they are miracle workers - are you sure she is seeing an avian vet? You mentioned your vet 'has avian vets'. They either certified or not. I'm only shooting in the dark here that they actually know what heavy metal ratio to look for. This is a really good article I bookmarked years ago when I was agonizing over using GAW wire in my outdoor aviary. It's talks about chronic vs. acute zinc poisoning and you are definitely describing the chronic. There are some ideas in there about where it may be coming from: http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww14eiii.htm

Even cooler! So you're waiting is nearly done! Did you ever decide on a camera [system]? I'm still fumbling around with getting electric and LAN cabling out there. We have graduated to leaving our two mids (Caique & Jardines) out there during the day. They have the smaller of the three sections. I had a guy give me a quote on steel reinforced security screens which I'm going to need before I can leave the Greys out there $3300!!! At that price I'll get my own welder and do it myself. Also got to have something before the heat comes along because mine will definitely overheat with no airflow. But even with just the two mids out in the aviary, that has freed up my bird room to where my Greys are loose in their bird room, and the two lils are just loose in the house. So we're technically cage free right now.

So 5 weeks from Monday it should be done?

How close is your breeder? I'm wondering if they can come over to help you get the bird in a carrier. Some people aren't as fearful of getting bit and that's what it takes with some birds (our Huey butchers my hands & arms). I'm really surprised you're having this trouble with a handfed baby with a known history.

That's the way I see it. I'm not really up-to-speed on alerts and how they work as I don't plan on using them. I suspect that alerts are done through some software detection either on your own NVR system/BlueIris or you pay for a service, like the Nest cams, that do it for you. In both cases, your aviary cam would constantly be sending you alerts from the birdy movements if you tried to do it with one camera. I have seen some of the software, where you are setting up your zones and you could map out the aviary outside of the alert zone. I think that's how it works. In that case you could get away with one over-head turret cam. There are professional systems installers if you think it's something that will get over your head quick too. In our case, this new aviary is getting security bars on the inside that will serve to keep the birdies from crashing into the windows and also keep someone out.

I'm not sure one camera will work for your situation. You are wanting to survey the surroundings and receive alerts but you don't want the fids interfering with that. So in that case a bullet camera, mounted at the top near your roof ridge to monitor the perimeter of the aviary and a PTZ camera inside the aviary to watch the fids. That's what it's looking like to me. I would definitely consider getting it wired. Where is your electric panel in relation to the aviary? If it's just inside that wall where the cement was poured easy-peasy for an electrician. You can run a cat 5 and electric out of that vent just below your roof ridge.

NVR is Network Video Recorder. It's similar to a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) camera system which is what you typically see at a 7-eleven or some other stop-n-rob type joint. Both record video for later viewing. DVR transmits an analog signal, over coax cable, directly to a DVR unit which in turn does the H.264 compression/conversion and stores the video. OTOH, IP cameras run over your standard Cat5 ethernet cable, are fully compatible with your LAN and do the H.264 conversion right at the camera sending the feed either directly to an NVR unit, or through your LAN/WAN whatever. They seem more versatile to me. I won't even consider a DVR unit if someone gave me one for free. I'm sure there are good uses for them I'm just hell bent on an IP camera so no DVR for me. Based on what you wrote, the only camera that I can think of that fits what you want is the Arlo camera. They are wireless - completely - running on batteries. I tried some out in my outdoor aviary and I could not make out my Jardines and Caique from the surroundings half the time. But it sounds like you are more wanting a perimeter surveillance? Not something to watch the birds? If you use something that gives motion alerts inside the aviary I can imagine it would be going off non-stop. I can't recall if the Arlo required a subscription for alerts or if you got a certain amount of cloud storage and alert for free. I'm highly adverse to any kind of subscription service for my cameras. I'm probably going to setup a BlueIris system and run my own server. I'm ordering my cameras this weekend once I crawl up in the roof and see how the heck Im' going to run cabling to the soffits.

Oh oh...I have done a TON TON TON of research in this area. I am currently running a Foscam FI9826 in their bird room and have been for years. Foscam is chinese as are most of the cameras you can buy. The camera is average, decent, whatever, but my problem with it is accessing the camera offsite. Their software absolutely SUCKS! On their support forum it is nearly a 'set stores on fire, turn over cars' riot situation with users like myself who have spent money on these pieces of shit and they will do nothing to address the issue of accessing their cameras. A camera is pretty useless if you can't access it right? So far their only answer is to use a very outdated version of IE if and until they decide to somehow write an interface for HTML5. They won't because they rip everything off and nothing has come along to steal. Don't buy Foscam. Don't buy their U.S. former counterpart - Amcrest - they have the exact same issue. Nearly all cameras will have this issue with browser support being a moving target I've learned, so while it's not really Foscam/Amcrest's fault that their crap no longer works, they are still selling their cameras under the pretense that you can use a browser, bullshit. I have considered all the usual suspects: D-Link, Nest, AvertX, Q-See, Lorex, Arlo, Samsung, Night Owl... There are just too dang many to really figure it out so I threw myself onto the cctv gods, thankfully. I have learned that the Dahua cams are pretty damned rock solid and very highly trusted among the cctv gurus. Also the issue of accessing them offsite is pretty much solved by running Blue Iris on a machine dedicated to running the software. It has the ability to function as it's own webserver. You can also buy a pre-packaged NVR system too that does the same thing. Do you have cabling to the area? Power or will you need PoE (power over the ethernet cable). Want wireless or wired? Pan/Tilt/Zoom? Do you need it to be 'outdoor' proof? Do you need nighttime IR capabilities (I use my IR all the time)? I can recommend a setup once I know what you're parameters are. It will be one of the Dahua Starlight series as they seem to be the best on the planet right now at consumer pricing.

I'll ask my question regarding your comment in Talon's thread since it's getting derailed: - why don't you condone glofish? From what I've read they are merely genetically modified with a fluorescent protein gene that's naturally found in other marine animals. My problem with them is the business behind it. They are very guerilla tactics when it comes to use of the glofish word and completely have that market cornered. As much as I would like to have some, I don't really want to stuff the pockets of corporate pigs. That's my problem with them. I believe that photo that I posted in Talon's thread was some kind of non-glofish tank. It was very stunning to look at in it's own right. Re-linking that image here:

oh oh...you're taking requests. I want to see: - Maalik (no wine bottles - haahaahaa) - The two dusky conures and the pineapple GCC (do you know about my Tinkerbell?) - The BHC and the Jardines (we have those two as well and they are best friends forever, or until Toby doesn't want to share)

Greys are the most photogenic. Naturally a black and white...my favorite.

What kind of fish do you have Jayd? I went to see a lady about some parrotlets when I was getting one for my daughter and she had this fish tank that was so stunning when you walked into the room. I've always wanted one after seeing it. But I need another hobby to clean up after like I need another hole in my head. I keep my lights off in my office at work and a glofish tank would be awesome there. this is the tank that was in her office. I don't think they are glofish though.