I have a couple foster cockatiels, and they really connect well with my grandmother who has been wanting a bird(s). I think the arrangement may work out well for her and the foster birds.

What I am worried about is our african grey! He's 4 years old and has lived with his breeder, then with his first family (don't know if there was a petshop or other middle-person involved with that). The 1st family was neglectful and abusive and a 2nd family friend talked them into giving the bird up to them to foster. They couldn't keep him though, they just wanted to find him a better home. This is where we came in, having read about him online, feeling he was "the one" and driving 3 hrs to the middle of a cornfield in the middle of nowhere to get him. He has made some SSSSSSlLLLLLOOOOOWWWWW progress since we got in (Jan 1st 09) but still has numerous phobias, confidence issues, trust issue etc. So in his 4 years of life so far he has had at least as many humans, maybe more.

Now, he is not interactive with the cockatiels, but he watches them from his perch. If they suddenly leave this household, i'm worried the grey (Argle bargle is his name) will get scared that maybe we are going to send him away too.

What are common behaviours of greys who are feeling insecure about the permanence of their place in the family/household that I should watch for?
What if anything can I do to help reassure him that he has a home with us forever; that he isn;t going to be taken elsewhere yet again? Should he be shown the cockatiels in their new home, and then bring him back home with us- or will that just give a physical reality to another potential place he might be dumped off at?

A Woman In A Red Jacket Feeding A Parrot by Franz van Mieris the Elder just sold for 3.6 million pounds.

That's a fine-looking Grey she has there. But doesn't it look like it bit her before? She's got that white thing on her middle finger...

In case you were wondering what became of the proposed Alex memorial book...

it's on B&N's site now if anyone's interested.

So I had a custom cake for my birthday and had to put Theener on it. Here's her reaction. And sadly she couldn't have any. But she had baklava ice cream, so she was happy.

And yes, you can macro the picture.

African greys looking for a home [Jun. 15th, 2008|05:11 pm]


parrot_lovers
[pengybean]

I don't know if any of you are in the central NC area and looking for Congo African Greys, but My husband and I just saw a beautiful little pair for sale on the way out of my father-in-laws neighborhood. I spotted the cage for sale from the road and went to ask about it for our CAG and then realized there were two birds in it. It is a male and female pair ages 7 and 5. The male is ready to mate, but the female seems less interested so the male has plucked his neck some in the front. They are very friendly and speak both English and Spanish.

The couple who owns them is moving to Missouri and have to leave at 3am tomorrow morning. They are asking $1800 for the cage and both birds, but are negotiable because of the situation.

I would love to have them, but money is tight and we also feel like our current CAG is a bit of a lone bird so I don't know how she'd do with two new ones moving in on her. They even offered to sale me the male separately to mate with mine since their female hasn't been interested in his advances, but again, not sure how that would go with our current one.

Anyway, let me know if anyone in this area is interested and I can give you more info. It would be great if they could find a home here and not have to make the long move.

Crossposted to Parrot_Lovers.

Lost parrot tells veterinarian his address

TOKYO - When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught — recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

But Yosuke apparently wasn't keen on opening up to police officials.

"I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me," Uemura said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=557874&in_page_id=1770

Article about a blue and gold macaw teaching two greys how to swear. The end says it's unusual b/c parrots are copying another parrot. If they heard what my timneh sounds like when she comes back from birdie camp (the parrot store we board her at, we call it birdie camp) they wouldn't say it's unusual at all. She has all kinds of new things to say and sounds to make. Including macaw screaming.

My lovely parrot just loosed an unattended tea bag onto my carpet. I'm pretty sure she just chewed through the bag and didn't actually concentrate and eat any. How bad is this for the bird?

My 6 yo timneh is obsessed with my ficus plant. She spends her day plotting how to get to it. It isn't dangerous to her but I don't want her on it. Is there some plant y'all give your parrots to tear up and eat?

Yes, he loves to hide behind the boxes, and this is a LOT better than weaving news paper in between his cage bars... because with that, well most of it winds up on the floor...




Oh yes, he has a LOT of work to do....



"PEEKABOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" -Austin

Hope everyone has had a great holiday season, and spoiled their little grey rotten!

Group faults airline over parrot smuggling



By Tansa Musa
Thu Dec 6, 3:38 AM ET



YAOUNDE (Reuters) - A wildlife conservation group in Cameroon said on Wednesday it was considering suing Ethiopian Airlines for complicity after it caught smugglers trying to take 1,000 African Grey parrots out of the central African country.

The Yaounde-based Last Great Ape Organization (LAGA), working with Cameroon's security forces, seized a consignment of 500 African Grey parrots on Tuesday aboard an Ethiopian Airlines plane shortly before it was due to leave Douala airport.

The discovery came just over a week after the authorities arrested two Ghanaians for trying to illegally export a first batch of 500 parrots out of Douala to Bahrain.

"We're considering initiating a court case against the airline company, which has been found to be irregularly involved in the transport of wildlife without permission," LAGA director Ofir Drori told Reuters in an interview.

No comment from Ethiopian Airlines was immediately available.

The African Grey is a medium-sized parrot which is held to be one of the world's most intelligent birds, partly for its ability to imitate human speech. This makes it a popular pet.

The species is listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to which Cameroon is a signatory. The pact requires that exports be accompanied by a permit issued by a national authority.

In total, the two batches of parrots are estimated to be worth $800,000 (394,000 pounds).

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Mary Gabriel)

Today is my CAG Schroeder's very first hatch day and I wanted to share a few of the pictures from our bash this morning :)















Xposted to parrot_lovers :)

My name is Melissa and I just adopted my first African Grey. I do have some bird experience, but it has been with Cockatiels and Quakers. I have spent time with a Grey, but this is the first one I have owned.

I have a soft spot for needy creatures and a situation presented itself that I just could not turn down. I have always wanted an African Grey and this boy desperately needed a new home. So desperately in fact that his adoption fee was unbelievably low. Yes, he is a plucker and will take lots of TLC, but he is such a sweet, gentle boy and I have done lots of research over the past few years so I'm confident that I can help him and things will go well. He has had a vet check and got a clean bill of health so the plucking is behavioral. I'm hoping that in a new home where he will get lots of attention he will stop. This all started when his last owner had a baby and the baby became scared of him so he has spent a lot of the past year in his cage.

Here's Max!

 

I found a video about Alex, but I can't link to it directly, there's the page of videos it's on.

Press release from The Alex Foundation - no obvious cause of death found during postmortem.

Alex died. 

(cross posted)

Do those of you with african greys or other birds prone to feather plucking or mutilation ever worry if thats whats going on instead of a molt? :/

I'm sure that I'm just being paranoid but I really would love some reassurance about my little guy.

I have a CAG who is almost 1 year old and has not had his first molt yet. Recently he has been loosing allot of feathers, mostly down but a few bigger ones occasionally.

There are no bald spots that I can see and I haven't ever seen him physically remove a feather. One of the large feathers that came out was bent on the shaft but not damaged.

His beak doesn't look like its peeling now but it has been quite a bit. He recently went to the 'groomer' and they smoothed out the peeling so it looks OK for the most part.

I think I'm mainly worried because it seems like he is mostly loosing down feathers. They just seem to fly off him when he flaps or plays.

Otherwise he's a happy talkative little bird. I hope that he is molting because many of his baby feathers are so beaten up from rough housing and rolling over on his back, lol.

Shadow got some extra time out this morning after I read this one! Then she started pulling keys off my laptop and flying on my head... ;P

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD04080907.htm

No spoilers, I promise!

I brought my congo african grey Schroeder to two of the Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows book release parties friday night. I was so impressed with how well he did being in such a strange and crowded enviroment (and past his bedtime, no less) and I thought some of you might like to see the pictures :)



Walking around Downtown Disney after party number two.


At Borders for party number one.


Posing for pictures


Ready to get home and get to bed!

Any of you have bird blogs on Birdchannel.com?

This is Theener's!

Hi Everyone! I am now a new African Grey owner. Well to make a long story short, Pepe was my Grandpa's bird. He was sick for a while so I was helping out, since I love two houses away. Now my Grandpa is in the hospital and it doesn't look good, so my husband and I now have Pepe. She did well bring her to our house, not trying to bite or anything. And she is doing well with my dogs! (She likes to trick them and laugh)

So I have many questions. Neither of us have owned a bird before. I went to the library and got some books. I this community looks very helpful. I'm sure my questions are very basic So...

Do you recommend any food, treats that I can use? Are there any ideas for getting her more tamed so we can hold her? Throughout all this, she hasn't been held in a while. Pepe has also plunked out many of her feathers. Again any ideas to stop this?

Also, any tips? We could use any! And thanks in advance.

Long story short, my Theener broke her leg. And now she has a "walking cast" that she keeps picking at, and she keeps trying to climb her cage, especially when I'm not in the room. What can I do to keep her on the cage bottom? I moved all her food and toys down there, but she still climbs and picks at her cast and feathers.

Have any of you had to deal with broken legs before?

So I'm sick, and my grey wants attention. How can I play with her without risking infection? Also, what should I do when I'm holed up in bed and she's calling for me?

I've already got antibacterial hand stuff, but with me sneezing all over, that's not really going to do much.