SRSeedBurners

She's 9mos and has landed her first word/phrase: <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! <whistle><whistle> "COME ON"!!!! ...when will it stop already? She's been saying it for about a month but she really perfected it a couple of days ago to the point where she sounds exactly like my wife calling the damn dogs. Of all the words I've been trying to teach her to see which one would be her first and it has to be that damn ear grating , out-of-tune <whistle><whistle>"Come On" that my wife does. Greycie's a great whistler and she even mimics the out-of-tune'ness of the whistle. It's hell. Now I have to listen to it constantly.

That's cute. I have no idea what the bird is saying but I can tell he's talking up a storm. He has a lot of personality.

That first picture reminds me of a Grey I saw at the shop where I buy pellets. Only this Grey was plucked to the down feathers everywhere including on his wings. The only feathers were on his head. He actually looked cute as he was a down fuzzball. I know his situation was pretty sad, his owner died and he was being sold on consignment by the heirs I guess. They were asking more for him than I paid at a reputable breeder. It's sad what these guys have to go through - makes me depressed thinking about it. I'm glad Smokey has found you.

Greycie likes ice cubes of all things. She stole one out of my drink one time and I watched her eat it. Now I give them to her whenever I have ice water, otherwise she'll get into my drink and get them herself. She'll even take them out of a drink on the counter and fly them back to her tree and eat them.

My Greycie has gotten used to me grabbing her can opener between my thumb and forefinger so I have a solid hold and then I'll give her a soft kisses on her cheek, forhead etc..., careful not to make a loud sound because her ear hole is nearby. When she's real sweet in the evenings I can talk to her real softly in the same spot but without the grip on the can opener. Usually when I do this she's upside down in my lap either by her idea or mine. She got me once by accident on the lip - didn't mean to I don't think - but I now resort to controlling her can opener whenever it's near my face.

She needs to learn to dance. Have you seen the videos of Einstein from Texas? Start teaching her tricks and maybe clicker training?!?

Great article - thx for posting. One thing I was looking for in there was amount of outdoor time, maybe I missed it as I was speed reading it. Can't seem to find any consensus on how much outdoor light is optimal or minimal. We put our birds out around 8am which means the arc of the sun is lower and they can only be out there for an hour or maybe a little more before they become cooked chickens (at least right now when we're hitting 100+ daily).

What's her daytime routine like? Is she out a lot. Does she play a lot? Does she get a lot of interaction? Is she flighted? I'm curious because you seem to have a well adjusted Grey and I find it odd that she'd pluck. I'm hoping like crazy mine doesn't start. My previous Grey plucked and we tried everything to no avail but this was back in the good ol days when no one knew much about them and info was not readily available without an expensive trip to the vet. Hopefully you'll have good luck finding to solution.

Greycie does that when she's trying to get our attention to let her out of her cage. Looks like similar behavior. See how he pops his head up to look, I'm assuming to see if he's having any affect. I'm assuming he's wanting something?

We have a green-cheeky too....cute birds.

My grandmother fed hummingbirds every year and she would sometimes have hundreds of them during the migration. Every year she would have a nest right outside her kitchen window and we would watch the little beaks emerge and eventually the babies. One year two of the babies were abandoned, I was somewhere in my early teens. Grandma knew I had a thing for birds so she brought them in and asked me to come up and take care of them. I had no idea what I was doing but somehow managed to feed those little guys through fledgling and they eventually were released right out my Grandmother's back door. The part in the video where you see him practicing their flying, I did that with mine. I would place them on my hand and would let them float and then catch them. Wasn't long before they were flying to other landing spots. They were the cutest things and my Grandmother loved to always talk about how I raised those two hummingbirds when I was little. I have the feeling she had a hand in it more than I knew though.

Jeff, one thing we learned with our Greycie, she can sense fear. She will nip and bite people who are apprehensive about touching her especially my daughter. I learned this when I took her to one of our race venues. She was very nippy with anyone who showed any kind of apprehension about touching her. There was this one lady who races with my daughter that came by and boldly stated "birds love me". She threw her hand right under Greycie's breastbone and boldly told her to 'STEP UP'. Greycie stepped up and let this lady do anything with her. Hell, I nearly stepped up too! She really is just a big bully when she can get away with it. I can do nearly anything with our Greycie and I believe it's because I don't give a damn if she bites me and she knows it. I am a little rough and tumble with her too. I am with all my birds past and present. My Amazon had the most trouble with it as he was a friggni touch-me-not which of course, made me want to touch him non-stop.

That would just give me an excuse to buy a remote control car for them to ride on.

Interesting about the light...we were at the vet yesterday with our other bird and I asked her recommendation about using an avian light on my Grey. She made a short cone shape motion with her hand and said if your bird will sit within this radius of the light...they work, otherwise they're useless. She said bang for the buck, you need to provide them some outside light if you can. More reason I need to get on the ball with my outdoor enclosure. Light through a window was a another 'not good enough'. I guess it filters too much UVA/B Btw...we've been to four different 'avian' vets in this area and this is the first one that I can tell know birds and knows them well. She's a bird owner herself. I pretty much trust she knows what she's talking about - I sure don't.

looks like a CAG with a TAG beak?

I have this cage as well. Works great for our Greycie. She's a standard size Grey I'm assuming at 450 grams. All parts were there and it assembled well enough. I would prefer a ~$1000 aluminum palace but we only use the cage sparingly - sleep cage and a little cage time during the days when she can't stay out in her bird room.

Can you hold off on breakfast until it's time to go in the cage?

It's a spice she came from the breeder with. She sells it for $5.00/ounce. Consists of: alfalfa powder, barley grass powder, wheat grass powder, beet powder, carrot powder, garlic powder, kelp, dandelion greens, spirulena and yucca powder. I've tasted it a few times but it's best property is it smells really good.

We're still not over the high of finding our lil Grey who was on the lam for two days. So happy to have her back. We would have really missed this girl. I just love getting up in the morning knowing this is who I'll be sharing breakfast with: On the menu this morning: Okra, grapes, red raspberries, Adzuki/Garbanzo/Mung bean sprouts, and snap peas all sprinkled with a parrot spice that she loves loves loves. Fork is used to help get her started eating, because if Daddy is eating it, it's got to be good!

You may have a feathered-fashionista on your hands.

Not only that, they smell good too! Nothing smells like an Amazon - at least nothing I've ever come across.

I've learned that making a huge list of names is useless, at least in our case. I've attempted to name three birds myself and kept a nice long list of names. Our GCC, I settled on 'Skittles' and my daughter prompltly re-named him to 'Stewart' from the Mad TV skit. He goes by 'Stewy' most of the time unless he's in trouble and then it's full-on 'Stewart'. I have to say it fits him perfectly. Our Jardine's parrot was 'Sweet Pea' and the wifey re-named her 'Raven'. Again fits her. We also have Pickles our parrotlet. I can't recall what name I had picked out for her. Again, the daughter side-stepped that name and applied her real one.

Mine was weaned when we brought her home but she got me back on the hand feeding - smart birdy! Actually she was 4 months when we brought her home and fully weaned. I asked the breeder about the baby behavior and she said go ahead and give her what she wants she'll eventually outgrow it on her own. She's 8mos now and only relapsed after a stint outside on her own for two days. Back to normal now though.

haahaa...sounds like an abusive relationship that works <snicker><snicker>.

I have two hens running up front (as opposed to the back of our property with the barn) with little chicks in tow. Greycie likes to sit and watch them on the lawn. She now does the chicken bock-bock-bock-bock--braaawwwk. It's really cute, we helped get her going on it. We over-emphasize the 'braaaaawk' part and she under-emphasizes it. These hens were formerly docile when they had no chicks. One of them is now the meanest animal we have on the place. Dogs, hawks and cats give her a wide berth. She's even gone after me several times while feeding them.