SRSeedBurners

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.

One of the best I've ever seen is here. It's probably a lot overkill for what you're wanting to do. See Murfchck's post in this thread. She built something very similar to what you posted a link to.

Dan's solution won't fall out if you're going straight into a ceiling joist. If not use a toggle bolt. If you have access to the ceiling, drill only a hole large enough for the bolt to pass through. Screw the toggle on when you're inside the ceiling. These usually require a hole large enough for the whole toggle to pass through but with ceiling access, you can make a tiny hole and get away with that.

Pretty sure you're correct about it helping that we had her out. One thing we realized yesterday when we went to see the tree again is, it's right on the trail that I take her on bike rides. Not only that, it's nowhere in the direction she flew, which is why I never checked it. I'm pretty convinced that she flew around and saw a spot she recognized and parked herself there in an attempt to reunite with us. Pretty darned amazing these Greys. Tree in the pic is the one she was in and the trail we're on is the trail we pedal frequently. Probably a good 2+ miles from the spot we saw her fly to. Checking out 'Greycies Tree' as we now call it!

Cool videos. Makes me really miss my BFA 'Tigger'. He sounded just like Chili. I'm jealous of that bird room too.

Ha...me too! I noticed that I suddenly had a long green bar over my avatar. Decided to see what it was. I had no idea. I was incorrectly assuming it was just a post-count indicator of some sort. But when it jumped from one little green box to a bunch in one day I figured some idiot was using my account.

A nice camera - we demand baby pics!

Here's a picture we had on one of her wanted posters. This picture was taken the morning before she flew away. When my daughter had made up the posters and showed them to me to see if they are what I wanted - this photo caused some serious heart ache. When I was hanging them around town, I refused to look at them because of the pain they caused. The picture is just so cute. She was posing for a picture for Christine (the lady who let her fly out the door) and we were showing her how we ride around on the Townie bike. I had just given her a big smooch and she shook and fluffed up like she always does. Thankfully, I can now look at the pictures and enjoy them again. We stuffed a few copies of the various posters away in my keepsake box.

I'm not sure how long you had her the first time but I posted a story about my previous Grey who I also lost due to a divorce. She ended up with my aunt after my ex-wife could no longer care for her. I had her when I was 19 and lost her at 24. I went and saw her again at my aunt's house after not seeing her for 19 years. She knew who I was and lapsed into some behaviors that we used to do that my aunt said she had never witnessed her doing in those years she has had her. They do remember.

Greycie admiring her handiwork.

I don't know why but 'Oreo' came to mind when I was looking at that last pic.

How old is Charlie? No words here as we're only coming up on 8 months old.

We learned some valuable lessons - you can never be too careful with a fully-flighted bird. I've resolved to double and triple check her harness every time I put it on her. Doors will be reinforced with cargo netting so there are two layers of protection. It's also a constant reminder to us and visitors to be door aware. I need to figure out a way to secure an open window as occasionally we like to open one and I know she can chew through window screen like nobody's business. We're going to get moving on the outdoor aviary which will serve as another layer of protection through the back, most often used doorway. I can't believe how much I anguished over losing her. The first few hours we spent frantically searching and calling. Later that day and into the night despair and depression quickly set in. I'm not one to cry, probably have cried less than a handful of times in the last 20 years. I bawled like a baby multiple times over the last two days. Every little thing I did that reminded me of Greycie, like taking a shower and seeing her handy work in our shower curtain full of holes. Eating and there's no one on my shoulder with her left foot grabbing my ear desperately wanting to share my food. No morning and night singing and terrordactly flights. We woke up the next morning and there was this huge empty hole in our home. Even Raven our Jardine who is Greycie's daytime companion was acting different. We started searching with the car but it's impossible to see up and the engine noise prevents you from hearing things. I switched to my scooter and it helped cover a lot of ground quickly but still the noise issue, I would have never heard her call had I gone by her - maybe I did a few times and didn't know it. We finally switched to our Townie bicycles as they are dead silent and we can hear everything. We found her around 9pm - I stayed up on a natural high till 2am this morning. None of us can believe that we found her. She seems to have regressed back to her baby ways. I haven't seen her beg to be fed like a baby in a few months. That's all she's doing this morning. She will not be placed on her tree - only my or my wife's shoulder will do and she is doing that constant baby cooing. It's cute but I hope it doesn't mean she now will have 'issues'. We're hoping she'll get back to her naughty self soon enough. We're still debating whether we should clip her or not. She loves to fly around the house. Having her fly to your shoulder and being able to toss her back to her perch from across the house is extremely fun and useful. Everytime we see our Jardine just sit there we wished she could fly too, it's really sad to see a bird that doesn't have the confidence of a flighted bird. Sorry for the long posts....we just can't believe our luck. So so lucky.

It happened and it sucks in the worst kind of way. Our Greycie got past two doorways and flew to the horizon without a trace. My wife has had two of her Australian visitors in our house and I have had an inclination to just lock my Greycie up permanently until they are gone. We have her mother and her husband again in September and he's the one I'm most worried about because he takes over the place like it's his own. My least worry, her sister who had her own bird in Australia, was the one who left a doorway wide open and allowed Greycie to slip out and fly into the great unknown. I've hesitated on posting this because I feel highly irresponsible. I feel absolutely horrible and have had nightmares including an extremely vivid dream of Greycie sitting on my pasture fence calling to me. I woke up bawling at the fact that the dream was so real and realizing that it was only a dream and I couldn't go save her. This forum is on my button bar so I see a Grey every time I open the browser. Greycie's picture is my Facebook picture. Her picture is also my IM avatar which I constantly use at work. I'm completely surrounded by her image and I'm trying to figure out how I can begin to remove all this as I don't think I can handle getting another grey at least for a few years until I get over this. So we have posted a hundred full-color and some grey-scale flyers on local 4-way intersections. I had my secretary at work print off over 200 full color flyers that I planned to tape to doorways and intersections. My wife read online somewhere to search before dawn and after dusk. We've recorded my Jardine's parrot's contact call that I planned to hook up to a portable boom box and play behind my bike in a trailer to see if I can get a response. The area she flew, I've search the neighborhoods relentlessly, some areas I've been to over ten times. The advice I've seen, don't ever give up. We never did. Now for the good news - we found her tonight after only 48 hours but it seems like a month. We found her, after dark, on a path that I never intended to search as it was not the direction we saw her go. We were headed home after an exhausting few hours of calling and searching. My wife stopped to adjust her seat and I heard that tell-tale squeak I know oh so well. I called back and Greycie started contact calling in the dead of night. You cannot imagine the relief at hearing her call to us. Once she knew it was us she wouldn't stop calling. She was planted in a tree in front of a house. My wife went to the doorway to ask permission to try and retrieve our bird but Greycie had other plans - she busted out of the tree in the dark and fluttered down brushing by me and finally landing on my wife. She really really wanted to go home. We got her home and she was emaciated. It's been hot here but not Texas 110 degree hot. She drank up a storm and ate like a pig. She's now sleeping in her cage that she never really liked. She really wanted to be put to bed tonight. It's amazing the change in her demeanor. I can't tell you how relieved we are to find her. We held out hope that the mass flyers and the constant searching and calling would pay off and it did. Two days in the wild and Greycie was ready to come home. Time for the cargo netting in the doorways that I've been meaning to put in place. I've learned my lesson on this one.