SRSeedBurners

Kids make good chew toys, and they're self-healing. HAAAAAhaaaa j/k

Hrrmmmm...must be a family trait. Head strong being the key trait. GreycieMae slips in and out of the mean bit. One day sweet and loving and then, I'm guessing just the sight of Toby will set her off, she will all of a sudden get nippy and growly and just plain cantankerous. We've learned to adjust, after all, I am Certified Felix Trained now.

I banned her from posting pics when she wouldn't quit it with GreycieMae's sibling. Too much risk that I would make a 3 hr drive and commit a breaking and entering.

If you have the opportunity to introduce them and have a trial period, that would be best. However I don't think a short trial period will divulge all the long term problems that may arise. If you have the opportunity to give the bird back sometime down the road that would work best. I'm only talking around a month or so. Bringing the bird over in a cage for an afternoon won't tell you anything. Both birds will behave differently down the road over time. When I mentioned Toby's flying being reckless, I meant in a more daredevil type of way. He's in no way clumsy. He will cut corners and go around and through things that would kill him if he made a mistake and misjudged. I'm just waiting to see him do a barrel-roll as he comes out of the bird room and down the hallway. Like I mentioned we trimmed him to slow him down because he has made a couple mistakes and one time I thought he was dead for sure. That was the day the scissors came out. I have the feeling that's how they expire in the wild - too many close calls and their number was up. Our Caique prefers to fly but I know most prefer to walk/hop. Ours has never hopped. You mentioned chasing the cat. I forgot to mention that our Caique is the only bird in our home that picks strangers to hate on. He does not like children or short people. He will go after cats/dogs/bunny you name it. They are fearless. Toby has attacked a painter we had in our house, my niece, my nephew but he likes everyone that passes his height requirement, or if you have lovely long hair. They are funny little creatures. Here's Toby trying to stall me as I'm headed to work this morning. I heard him knocking on the door so I had a peek and this is what I got: [video=youtube_share;aJgSITv2VM0]

I have a Grey and a Caique. Caique personalities are very peculiar and I describe them as Amazon's that won't take their ADHD meds. They have more energy than you will know what to do with. If I had it to do over again, I would have 2-4 Caiques or just my Grey. I've found Caiques are the only bird that can safely play with Caiques. They are just too rough and tumble. Their mood can be extremely sweet and playful one minute and then Satan's Spawn the next - each bird has their peculiar triggers. They just have a lightning-quick nasty temper, some are worse than others. Our Toby seems to have a mild temper compared to what I've seen in others. What you've read about trying to kill is correct - if that's what they get in their little heads. Once that sets in, I know of no way to get it out. They are persistent little ******s. Our Grey is always plotting against the Caique. And once he gets wind of her intentions, his feelings get hurt and he's hell-bent on finding his way to her and making sure he's in her spot. He will relentlessly persue her but she brings it on herself. I personally believe adding a Caique has a huge potential for being a 'recipe for disaster'. I 100% guarantee the birdy dynamics in your house will change and the Grey will have to adjust. It could lead to plucking, jealousy (our case), anger etc. I highly doubt they'll be best buds. Also, if you plan to have a Caique that can fly - they can fly circles around a Grey in tight quarters. Caiques are zippy little flyers and make tight fast, almost reckless, maneuvers. We've had to slightly trim our Caiques flights to just take the edge off his speed for his own safety. However, the air is the only place our Grey has an advantage mainly due to her weight. That's the bad news. The good news is we've managed to find a way to deal with it. - I'm not allowed to play with the Caique. Those are GreycieMae's rules. So I play with him in secret but that's not much. Fortunately my wife is Toby's favorite so she plays with him some. - Our Jardines has fallen in love with our Caique. They like each other but again, the Caique is constantly making the Jardines squeal and pulling feathers out of his forehead. So they get supervised playtime and my wife will absorb some of the rough behaviors from the Caique. - They all seem to get along in our outdoor aviary. There are just too many distractions and they have far different interests out there. Caiques like being on the ground whereas our Grey likes being in the rafters. I have never witnessed them fighting out there. - Over time we've managed to find some peace in the house and they can actually sit on a bowl and eat together - as long as I'm not involved. GreycieMae does not like sharing me. That's my experience. I'm sure others with better bird whispering abilities have made it work but I feel it has more potential for disaster due to personality traits of both birds: Greys and their jealousy and Caiques with their hyper-activity disorder.

Good to hear. I never knew about your illness in the first place. I always love seeing your avatar - such a cutie-pie she is.

Great to see she has a good home now and that the collar is gone too. Did you ever check into trying out a sock buddy or just leave her as is?

Steel wool - thanks for the tip.

The thought going through my head before I even read your 2nd paragraph was the bird is bored. I would agree they are hard to train because they are so intelligent. It probably takes a higher level of expertise to train them successfully similar to training dolphins etc. I've noticed with our three birds our Grey is an order of magnitude smarter than our Caique who I would compare to a dog that will repeat the same command many times. You may be very surprised that you have an ultra-smarty bird and you need to move forward faster with advanced recalls etc.

That's the way I felt about losing Raven. Caring for her around the clock and watching her cling to life was extremely heart wrenching and still hurts. It's been 1yr 2mo and we still miss her. I sill don't like looking at pics of the stuff we buried with her. Before the internets I thought there was something seriously wrong with me as I get overly attached to my feathered friends. I had a hell of time when I lost a pigeon I used to fly in 1990. Now at least I know there are others out there that get severely attached.

I'm good with my Foscam. To adapt it to a parrot, it would need a flipper that splattered the treat on the wall. Just bypass the middle-parrot.

Man I would love to have that in my aviary.

That's interesting: I looked into making soap after buying my last pack of Dial and noticed they are really curving the bars so as to sell you as much air as possible. The bars disappear really quick in the shower too - maybe last a week. I swear I remember soap used to last A LOT longer than that. I decided I'm done with them after reading about others who are complaining about the same thing. Deceptive packaging really pisses me off and I usually won't put up with it. How hard is it to make your own soap? I've forgotten all that I looked into after I found a supplier of no-name-no-frills soap that we use.

Here's some more fuel for the fire: I came home late last night and since the sun is setting near 5:30pm it was already dark. I mildly paniced because I still had my Gambels outside PLUS our dogs are grounded 'for life'. Now the dogs are grounded because they escaped on Sunday when our gate froze wide open and they ended up running the neighborhoods for new hunting ground causing me an all-day search in 34 degree temps on my scooter (we found them after dark on Sunday night). Back to my qauil in the dark...So I ran to get my quail and found one be-headed and partially eaten through the cage bottom. He was still warm, so I knew the perp was nearby. So I ran and released my wickedly fast and notoriously good huntress - Bella our Rat Terrier - and sick'ed her on him, whatever it was. She found him in less than a minute: a big old disgusting rat hiding near my aviary of all things. JUST THINK IF HE'D HAVE GOTTEN MY CAIQUE!!! I relished in the slaughter of that lil <blankety-blank-blank-blank> while holding my headless Gambels quail. If Bella would have let me at him I would have hacked him into pieces with my machete since I was so pissed at losing one of my prize Gambels males. Suffice it to say - it's always my fault things like this happen. I had forgotten when I left that morning and put my quail out that the dogs were in deep doo-doo with wifey and wouldn't be allowed to patrol AND I'd be getting home in the dark. All that to say, I have no love for rats/mice around here. I caught the mice at the barn eating my less than week old chicks which is why I built a bucket trap. I can't use poison around here because Bella will dang sure get them and I do not want her harmed. Here's a pic of Sterling-Ranch rodent and varmit control. They also fend off the coyotes and even a bobcat twice. Both are rescues, Pinky the big one was actually found inside a dumpster as a week old pup:

I use a bucket trap in my barn. I lost my concern for their cuteness and well-being after they started destroying insulation, wood framing, wiring etc.

Oh, she's a cute little stripper.

Recall GreycieMae was beginning to enter what we all like to term the - "TERRIBLE TWOS" - whether it be real or a figment of parront imaginations. Whatever, she was getting nasty bitey, cantakerous and just being generally hard to live with. It was getting bad enough I didn't want her near me. Then we built an aviary. Her behavior changed dramatically. She went back to being that sweet little bird I remember. The one that barely talks but I figured that's ok because she has one hell of a personality and loves to wrestle and play and just be handled any way I please. Roll forward into November and we are caught in an Ice Age for North Texas standards. We are barely getting out of the 30s on a daily basis for the last two weeks. GreycieMae hasn't had any aviary time since the wooly mammoths began roaming the earth again. About 8 days into daily bird room confinement and here we go again. The nasty bitey witch has returned. There's something to be said for keeping them busy all day. She's nowhere near as busy in her bird room as she is on high alert all day in her aviary. Can't wait for this ice storm to pass.

Google chrome is now marking this site as containing malicious software which requires link-hopping for every request made to the GF site.

You may be mistaking the 'rotten' smell for the earthy smell they have once they get sprouted and going.

'Crackheads' - we're on a parrot forum - *CRACK* At least that's the way I took it.

No turkeys, ducks or geese. Have you seen their crap? So messy. I won't have anything here that creates a mess.

Murfchck - since you're running a bed and breakfast over there do you have room for: - three well-behaved parrots - two dogs - one cat - two Gambels quail - three Button quail - two fan-tails - two oriental frills - three llamas - two goats - eight silkies - oh about 35 assorted chickens We're going on vacation. The quail, chickens and pigeons aren't fussy, everyone else will need 3-squares a day and most of that will end up on the floor and the walls. If you do it right, the chickens will cleanup for you - well, sort of. They do have a bad habit of crapping everywhere but I'm sure you're used to that.

Maybe just zip the sharp point off but I wouldn't go any further as their nails contribute to their balance. You can always just simulate working with his nails too as it is nice to have a birdy that will let you maintain them.

Is this a possible case where you may suspect the lady may want her bird back sometime in the future? This is just my opinion on how I would deal with it: if her marriage proposal should go south, as they sometimes do, and she's missing her bird, I'd be happy to reunite them. I can't stand the thought of a bird with nowhere to go but if there's a loving home, I have no problems letting them go.

As one who has kids, I'd just let things roll. If they're both 'bird people' there are plenty of birds out there to accompany them through life. I didn't want to see my conure Stewart leave but he was so attached to Pickles the Parrotlet and Pickles is an external appendage of my daughter, I had no choice but to watch the three of them march out my door to life and beyond. Sounds like Sophie is going to end up with Ryan sometime in the future?