SRSeedBurners

I converted an old two-drawer dresser into a Huey hangout. I put a utensil tray in the drawer with a bunch of wooden cuttlery and other cardboard chewy toys. He is HIGHLy possessive of this now. It's his roosting area and you better keeps your mittens off of Hueys stuffs. He has chewed a hole on the back side of the top drawer and now crawls into his little cubby hole. I suspect he's nesting back there but so far he hasn't convinced Greycie that it would be a good idea to join him.

We moved our Huey and GreycieMae into our bedroom as well. Greycie used to have night frights all the time. We could hear her thrashing around in the birdroom. Stressed me the hell out. When we moved into our new house, one of the deals I cut was Greys in the bedroom since it's so big. She sleeps on a ladder and he sleeps on a rolling perch. Not a single night fright in a whole year now.

Welcome to the party. Would love to see pics of the babies. Don't think it's been mentioned yet so...one of the most important things you can do is get them on a proper diet. I use two Volkman products: Soak and Simmer and Birdeez Buffet. Those are cookables which I use as a base and then throw whatever I have available, jalapeno peppers, sweet potato, frozen peas, etc. After while on this stuff they start to shine. We rehomed a couple birds on rotten diets and you could see their transformation within months. If she's on pellets, those can be holding the weight on. Most pellets are corn-based. Garbage fat-fillers. Also Harrisons is bad for weight too if you're bird is not active enough. My GreycieMae is very active and she somehow can plump herself up on that stuff (we don't use it anymore due to their predatory price-fixing). That will help reduce the weight and get birdy healthy. If you're comfortable with the idea, once birdy is settled, you can help with little exercises like perching birdy on your hand and lowering your arm over a mattress to induce some flapping. Will help with the leg strength too. I'd be careful though with a bird in the condition you mentioned. Don't want any accidental flights and broken bones.

We just moved here. Give it some time 🤣

Huey gets put on a rope in the kitchen every morning while I make mama's coffee. I usually go off to the office for a few minutes until I hear the coffee is ready. It's not unusual for him to fly to their cage area to investigate as he has been in our room all night long. I heard him fly as he sometimes does but this landing sounded different. I stalled about 5m and then decided I better go check in case he's remodeling the wood work. Poor Huey got hisself in a pickle and needed a Halp from the kitchen staff. That footy....and his expression at the end when he finally gets rescued off the door frame. 😍🥰 Halp.mp4

Vorna's flying reminds me of our Huey who also never learned to fly as a young bird. He was a cage bird for the first 20 years of his life and when he came to us, I started by giving him small tosses on our bed to strengthen his wings. It wasn't long before I was taking him to the end of the hallway and letting him fly a nearly straight path to the living room perch. He had some really hard crash landings to start with but those didn't last too long. His flying is very different from our GreycieMae who was allowed to fledge normally and is a master graceful flyer. She will regulate her speed and smoothly corners, can fly through tight spaces without error. Huey has one speed when he flies and that's 'haul ass'. He also corners like he's flying around the edge of a wall, hard left/right, nothing smooth about it. He's getting much better though, loves to fly as he will initiate his own flights from his cage, around the kitchen and back multiple times...just for the fun of it I guess. Good to see your still posting about your Greys.

Come on Grammy....gib headrub 😍 🥰

I only had 1-2 when we lived in Allen last year. Up here I have probably 12-15, maybe more. It's location location location. We now live by a giant lake with lots of foresty areas around. Seems like a hummingbird habitat along with a lot of other birds. Got lucky I guess.

Here's the mob outside my work window. I have three other feeders up and it's the same at all of them. I sometimes feel like a I have a swarm of gnat or flies around my head. It's weird about the video capture, it really slows their wings beats down as I believe the frame rate is only catching ever x number of beats, so it makes it look like the wings are slower than they actually are. ZippityChickensMob.mp4

Our new place is near Lake Texoma and the hummingbirds here are thick like flies. I hung four feeders in the spring and soon the place was a zippity chicken battleground amongst the Ruby-throats and the Black-chinned. This morning I found one in distress. The poor lil guy had gotten into some spider webbing and was all tangled up around his feet and was dragging around a nice little payload which made it very easy to catch him. So I brought him in flipped him upside down and started gently untangling his lil footsies. Hard to believe what a mess he had gotten into. Once that was done, it was time for some obligatory cuddle time with his favorite human. Took him back out to the feeder and he stepped up and flew off. What a cutie. One of those once-in-a-lifetime encounters, although this is actually my third time playing with a little hummer. HummerPet.mp4

Those look like well used, ready for retirement tail feathers. Ratty, hollowed out shafts. Sheesh....Alfie needs to get some new ones in for that dapper look.

Our Jardines has to have his beak dremeled or it will grow out like that. I have my dremel setup in a bench vise so it is completely stable. Then I work the beak around the dremel not the dremel around an angry beak that's going to move. I also use a wooden dowel in the mouth to prevent the tongue from ever making contact with the bit. That also serves to hold the beak open so I can get in there and take beak off. The hardest part for us is catching and turning Rio into a birdy burrito. He knows what's coming and does everything in his power NOT to get turned into a birdy burrito.

I see it now. Dorian is taking inventory of what to target first for when he's out and you don't know it. They always look like they are walking with skis on. So cute.

Interesting. Not available when I click on the link.

They are busy beavers. Our male has to have stuff to get into. He and our female are in a birdroom and I have an old dresser drawer setup with a wooden cutlery tray filled with wooden spoons, spatulas and other toys. He ends up in that drawer making toothpicks, throwing things on the floor, just doing his daily constructionings business. He's a very busy bird but I've got him tearing up stuff he can tear up. My female is fine to sit around and pamper herself all day.

They can live pretty rough lives outside of the right care. Think hard before re-homing her. Have you thought about creating an aviary for her? Inside or outside. I had to do this with mine because I wasn't willing to rebuild all the parts of my house they could get to. They tore up drawers, cabinets, door trim and lots of other stuff in our old home. I ended up building aviaries to put them in during the day and had a bird room with rough cut wood all around the the trim for them to go after. You can even get those really big huge walk-in cages for them.

Huey gets all the girls. That's because he has rock hard abs of fluffers. Tues and Thurs (usually) I get on the bike trainer which is in the attached bird room. Huey always gets excited with the loud music and activity. Here he is busting out some hanging crunches. What a stud muffins... 20210817_112548.mp4

We used to have a similar setup with the birdroom down the hall away from the living room/kitchen area. It was too easy to just leave them all asleep for a bit while we got out of our zombie state in the morning. Now that we no longer have a birdroom and they are all smack in the dining room, there's no avoiding them. Plus, my two Greys sleep in the bedroom with us now. GreycieMae is on a step ladder that has a monster living under it, and Huey has his own rolling perch. They now make note of our coming and going in the middle of the night and if it's near 5-6am, you might as well get Huey up. Greycie likes to sleep in though and will stay put until 7am if I'm being lazy.

Great to have you back. I think we have maybe 4 regular posters here right now but it goes up occasionally. I took a several month hiatus recently as we moved from our place in Allen Texas to a ranch near the Oklahoma border. I think I posted some pictures here a while back. We don't have the nice aviaries that I built anymore but working on setting up some new ones outside. Slow process....

Yep, they love being around while I'm working. Huey basically runs a call center behind me about half the day. He's doing it right now and I just heard the F bomb 🤣

Miss GreycieMae sometimes gets to sit with me in the office. Occasionally throughout the day, I will suddenly get a gentle nip on the back of my elbow. She has worked her way down the back of the chair and wants me to play fight with her. Usually I will play but on days when I'm busy..she takes the pressure up a notch. She crawls onto the arm of my chair and does a flop. Now how am I supposed to ignore this? That little soft belly and those wing pits right there for a tickle tickle. Then out comes the footy of fury 🥰 😍 😆 GreycieMaeDistraction_med.mp4

GreycieMae is my baby. I can do anything with her. I'll post a video of me tossing her in the air on her back. She completely trusts me.

GreycieMae is sizing up her new roost. This little tree is a junk tree growing up underneath and slightly impeding the growth of a massive oak tree where I'm planning to construct Miss GreycieMae's new aviary. Going to cut the branches to where they all fit just under the top wire. It should be a real hit. Greycie will have her very own one-tree forest.

The best I have found is Higgins Premium Mayan Harvest Yucatan. I give it to all my birds from CAGs down to the little guys - conures. They act like I'm bringing out the crack cocaine when they see me with the bag. They only get it once every couple of weeks or so as a treat. I love it because GreycieMae comes back with star anise and spearmint breath. She smells delish after she eats this stuff. Have a look at the ingredients, it's some super stuff.

No way I'd touch that without talking to a vet. I see no reason to risk any side affects.