grey falling to the bottom of its cage

[not damonk]

My african grey has a particular toy in its cage that it likes to do battle with on occassion. She hangs from the bottom of the toy, back side down, and goes to war with it. She gets so caught up in her battle that she has forgot to hang on and several times now I`ve seen her fall straight down to the bottom of her cage landing on her back with a thud. She never seems to be the worse for wear though. This is a big-ass cage so the distance to the bottom of the cage is quite a drop. She loves this toy - or hates it - but it seems to get a lot of her attention. Wondering if I should remove it, or should she be fine? Like I say when she plunges to the bottom of the cage she just shakes it off and seems fine.

[SERVO the elephant]

My Charlie does the exact same thing. He been doing it for a year now and he still does it. Im thinking, that if they hurt themselfs, and they are really that intelligent, they would learn from the experience and stop doing it. And if the toy hurt them, they would grow afraid of it, and show fear of it. So i think he likes it a lot.

Also about 6 months ago, we came home from a walk and Charlie was sitting quiet and puffed i the corner of his cage. He would not take any of his favorite treats and just looked very ill. It seemed he could`nt use his beak. So i tryed to examen him. When i did, he screamed as loud as i`ve ever heard. He backed away still screaming. I became very afraid that something was wrong with his neck. Ofcourse i contacted the vet. She told me to give a few days and then see how he was doing. And after 2-3 day he was back to normal

But i think that he had taken a bad fall from his toy and hurt himself. And like i say, he still does it.

[Guest]

die. When they show signs of sickness, they are very very sick. It seems like your bird is living in spite of your lack of care to it.

[Guest]

am mean and `orrible has been shattered. ;0)

[Grupples]

"> thing and stopping the falling. Remember they have around a 3 or 4 year olds IQ. They don`t always make the right decision, do they?

I can`t prove it, but I think a Amazon I had for a while broke his neck swinging down into his cage. He was healthy when I left for about 6 hours, came home and found him dead in the bottom of his cage. It really shook me; so much so that I ony have cockatiels now.

Do the right thing, and protect your birds well being, everyone. You owe it to them, as their parent.

[Moddy]

Well grupples. Ask almost anyone and they are going to have a parrot who has a particular toy that they are going to hang upside down from their cage and fight with and occansionally fall. There not falling on purpose and it doesn't bother them. And yeah bad things can certainlly happen. But if you try and teach them not to fall there not going to get enjoyment out of that toy anymore. My bird falls everyone once in awhile and he's perfectly okay. Noticed the first week. Just shook it off and called him a dork. Because birds become fearful easy and it if he thought it was really that much of a problem then he would have stopped. Damonk I would say let him play because it is quite normal but if he is landing on his back.. Which I don't think my grey does maybe put a washable pad on the bottom of his cage during the day something big enough to fill the whole bottom of the cage so he won't land on just part of it and he can chew on it if he wants.

[Guest Monique]

I think every bird falls once in a while. If it was real often I might remove it (or move it lower in the cage for a shorter fall). Our Grey fell once a distance of about 5 feet from hand to kitchen floor and its beak was broken from the fall. It recuperated just fine but it was very scary, and due to the open bleeding could have contracted an infection. But if it is just on occasion, well you never will stop that!

[Moddy]

Ouch Monique!! That sounds scary.

[Mattsemoto]

Ouch! I would completely freak out if my bird was bleeding! But it seems to me that birds can be clumsy, just like people. Sometimes it hurts, other times it doesn't. If it hurt him a lot he would quit doing it I think.