My bratty helper!
06-21-2016, 04:12 AM
#12
Super Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Illinois
Posts: 9,018
Originally Posted by ManiacQuilter2
Cute birds. Thay have interesting personalities. Hope he doesn't poop on any fabric! 
06-21-2016, 06:22 AM
#14
Super Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Pacific Northwest
Posts: 9,269
Too cute! I once had a green parrot, caught from the wilds in South Florida. I named him Buddy, he was so handsome and knew it too always preening himself and looking in the mirror on my dresser.
He had one nasty little habit, when I would lay down for a nap during the day. He would start calling my name over and over again. Thankfully he never did this at night since he went to "bed" inside his cage with a blanket over it.
His vocabulary consisted of:
Robin (my name)
his name
Hey
a whistle (although the kids tried to teach him the "wolf whistle, the one men use to get a women's attention. He never mastered it.)
Peanuts
Food (when his dish was empty)
He had one nasty little habit, when I would lay down for a nap during the day. He would start calling my name over and over again. Thankfully he never did this at night since he went to "bed" inside his cage with a blanket over it.
His vocabulary consisted of:
Robin (my name)
his name
Hey
a whistle (although the kids tried to teach him the "wolf whistle, the one men use to get a women's attention. He never mastered it.)
Peanuts
Food (when his dish was empty)
06-21-2016, 06:36 AM
#16
Super Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Pacific Northwest
Posts: 9,269
Originally Posted by bearisgray
For people that have birds indoors and uncaged - where do they pee and poop?
06-21-2016, 09:25 AM
#19
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: North Texas
Posts: 928
My aunt has a cockatiel which she brings to us when she travels. He is quite a little character and loves to sit on my shoulder while I sew. Amazing what precious personalities our little featherbys and fur babies have. And they are not a bit spoiled, lol!
06-21-2016, 03:15 PM
#20
Super Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Ontario Canada
Posts: 1,869
Her name is Echo and she just turned 15 in March, I've had her since she was 5 months old.
If she wasn't such a great bird, she would NEVER be allowed to have the room to herself when I'm not home!!!!
However, that is not to say that she's not destroyed stuff - she is a parrot after all!!!
I've also learned the hard way that when I am done sewing for the evening, EVERYTHING goes away. I have a great sewing cabinet, and a huge wall unit that I built to hold all my fabric so she doesn't get in to stuff like that (pins, patterns, fabric, etc.)
She will however, chew holes in fabric if you leave it out for her (lesson learned), and she will attack anything embroidered with a vengeance (another lesson learned - I was mortified at just how much damage she did!!!)
Echo has about 50-60 words in her vocabulary, and she is super smart! She knows my name, my dog's name (and the previous dog I had - she still calls for her after 5 years), my cat's name, a number of swear words (which I will not post here). Let's just say she is VERY proficient in using foul language at the appropriate time. She will even knock stuff on the floor so she can swear (much like her owner does LOL).
I've had to change to ring tone about 100 times because after about a month she figures it out and then starts whistling it, I run to my phone and she laughs.
She also makes the sound of popcorn popping in the microwave and then yells want want want.
She is a great companion, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, will be with me until we both die (hopefully around the same age) They live 40-60 years and I got her when I was 30, and I'll be 45 in September.
We will be the crazy "couple" in the nursing home LOL.
Here's some more pics of her!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552601[/ATTACH]
This is how fast she can destroy a chair - this took about 15 minutes.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552602[/ATTACH]
This is the "beginning" of one of her favourite games. I hold her upside down and then swing my arm back and forth and when I am at the "back" of the swing I yell FLY ... and I release her and she flies around the room. She LOVES this game and usually ends up flying around the room and lands back on my hand so I can do it again.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552603[/ATTACH]
Here she is in one of her boxes ... there's a bunch of toys in there for her to play with (i.e. destroy), and she spends hours in there chirping or getting mad at them, talking to them, yelling at them, destroying them, throwing them on the floor and then yelling want want want, which means I have to get up and give it back to her - so we can repeat the process (about 20 times before I give up and hide it!)
For anyone interested in getting a parrot - here's your warning ... they are super smart - African Grey's have the intelligence of a 5-year old, and the emotional stability of a permanent 2-year old. I rotate her toys weekly. I make most of them, but the ones I do buy are mind game toys, and I hide her food in them, and she has to figure out how to open the "box / drawer / cabinet / turn the key, etc." in order for her to get to her food. I make her work her mind.
They are MESSY. And don't let anyone tell you different. I clean the entire room every week - there is food everywhere, feathers, dust and pieces of toys all over the place. You haven't cleaned up a parrot's mess until you've scraped off dried shredded carrot pieces off the ceiling that you didn't see for two months.
Pooping? They poop every 15-20 minutes. Echo's set up is against a wall that is 20 feet long. There are 3 tables that run the length of the wall and they are covered in linoleum (I just bought a roll and unrolled it over the tables). Then there is about 5 layers of newspaper. On top of that are 6 different perches. This way when she poops, it lands on the newspapers. The flooring in the room she is in (and where I sew) is laminate. So if she does poop on the floor, it's super easy to clean. You do NOT want to clean parrot poop off of hard wood - it destroys the hard wood LOL (lesson learned in one of my houses I rented ... oops - cost me $1500 to have the floors refinished after I moved out.)
She also has a 15-foot wooden dowel that hangs from the ceiling and she sits on that a lot - there are lots of toys that hang down from there and she spends hours attacking and destroying those toys as well. When she's up there and poops, it lands on the newspaper.
It takes me a solid 2 hours every week to clean the entire room. There's dusting, vaccuming, cleaning the floors, washing perches - every couple of months I take these outside and pressure wash them. (In the winter I go to indoor car washes and use their hoses LOL)
It's not a huge amount of work of maintenance ... you just have to be there with them in the same room so they can interact with you. She's not a cuddly parrot by any stretch of the imagination. She will sit on my shoulder for about 5 minutes, my head for about 10 and then she's off doing her own thing (which I am very happy about LOL ... I really don't need a parrot on my head while I am quilting!)
She LOVES the dog and the cat, because my first dog and her were best buds, and my last two cats adored her. Alas, my current dog (a long coat GSD) and my cat think she's lunch ... so they are never allowed in her room - EVER!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552605[/ATTACH]
This is Echo with one of my other cats Dawson ... the cat would actually let Echo preen his ears!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552606[/ATTACH]
This is the ONE and only picture I have with Kyleigh and Echo. Kyleigh was about 7 months old and Echo still had a cage (as you can see). I took the picture and about 10 seconds later Kyleigh tried to jump up on to the shelf to get to Echo. She's fully flighted so simply flew up higher, and that was that.
I rearranged the entire room, installed a pocket door and the dog and cat have never been allowed in since. Given that she now had her own room, I gave her cage away, and she only has a small sleep cage.
So there's all my Echo news!!!! Thanks for reading, and I hope I answered everyone's questions.
Have a great night.
If she wasn't such a great bird, she would NEVER be allowed to have the room to herself when I'm not home!!!!
However, that is not to say that she's not destroyed stuff - she is a parrot after all!!!
I've also learned the hard way that when I am done sewing for the evening, EVERYTHING goes away. I have a great sewing cabinet, and a huge wall unit that I built to hold all my fabric so she doesn't get in to stuff like that (pins, patterns, fabric, etc.)
She will however, chew holes in fabric if you leave it out for her (lesson learned), and she will attack anything embroidered with a vengeance (another lesson learned - I was mortified at just how much damage she did!!!)
Echo has about 50-60 words in her vocabulary, and she is super smart! She knows my name, my dog's name (and the previous dog I had - she still calls for her after 5 years), my cat's name, a number of swear words (which I will not post here). Let's just say she is VERY proficient in using foul language at the appropriate time. She will even knock stuff on the floor so she can swear (much like her owner does LOL).
I've had to change to ring tone about 100 times because after about a month she figures it out and then starts whistling it, I run to my phone and she laughs.
She also makes the sound of popcorn popping in the microwave and then yells want want want.
She is a great companion, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, will be with me until we both die (hopefully around the same age) They live 40-60 years and I got her when I was 30, and I'll be 45 in September.
We will be the crazy "couple" in the nursing home LOL.
Here's some more pics of her!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552601[/ATTACH]
This is how fast she can destroy a chair - this took about 15 minutes.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552602[/ATTACH]
This is the "beginning" of one of her favourite games. I hold her upside down and then swing my arm back and forth and when I am at the "back" of the swing I yell FLY ... and I release her and she flies around the room. She LOVES this game and usually ends up flying around the room and lands back on my hand so I can do it again.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552603[/ATTACH]
Here she is in one of her boxes ... there's a bunch of toys in there for her to play with (i.e. destroy), and she spends hours in there chirping or getting mad at them, talking to them, yelling at them, destroying them, throwing them on the floor and then yelling want want want, which means I have to get up and give it back to her - so we can repeat the process (about 20 times before I give up and hide it!)
For anyone interested in getting a parrot - here's your warning ... they are super smart - African Grey's have the intelligence of a 5-year old, and the emotional stability of a permanent 2-year old. I rotate her toys weekly. I make most of them, but the ones I do buy are mind game toys, and I hide her food in them, and she has to figure out how to open the "box / drawer / cabinet / turn the key, etc." in order for her to get to her food. I make her work her mind.
They are MESSY. And don't let anyone tell you different. I clean the entire room every week - there is food everywhere, feathers, dust and pieces of toys all over the place. You haven't cleaned up a parrot's mess until you've scraped off dried shredded carrot pieces off the ceiling that you didn't see for two months.
Pooping? They poop every 15-20 minutes. Echo's set up is against a wall that is 20 feet long. There are 3 tables that run the length of the wall and they are covered in linoleum (I just bought a roll and unrolled it over the tables). Then there is about 5 layers of newspaper. On top of that are 6 different perches. This way when she poops, it lands on the newspapers. The flooring in the room she is in (and where I sew) is laminate. So if she does poop on the floor, it's super easy to clean. You do NOT want to clean parrot poop off of hard wood - it destroys the hard wood LOL (lesson learned in one of my houses I rented ... oops - cost me $1500 to have the floors refinished after I moved out.)
She also has a 15-foot wooden dowel that hangs from the ceiling and she sits on that a lot - there are lots of toys that hang down from there and she spends hours attacking and destroying those toys as well. When she's up there and poops, it lands on the newspaper.
It takes me a solid 2 hours every week to clean the entire room. There's dusting, vaccuming, cleaning the floors, washing perches - every couple of months I take these outside and pressure wash them. (In the winter I go to indoor car washes and use their hoses LOL)
It's not a huge amount of work of maintenance ... you just have to be there with them in the same room so they can interact with you. She's not a cuddly parrot by any stretch of the imagination. She will sit on my shoulder for about 5 minutes, my head for about 10 and then she's off doing her own thing (which I am very happy about LOL ... I really don't need a parrot on my head while I am quilting!)
She LOVES the dog and the cat, because my first dog and her were best buds, and my last two cats adored her. Alas, my current dog (a long coat GSD) and my cat think she's lunch ... so they are never allowed in her room - EVER!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552605[/ATTACH]
This is Echo with one of my other cats Dawson ... the cat would actually let Echo preen his ears!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]552606[/ATTACH]
This is the ONE and only picture I have with Kyleigh and Echo. Kyleigh was about 7 months old and Echo still had a cage (as you can see). I took the picture and about 10 seconds later Kyleigh tried to jump up on to the shelf to get to Echo. She's fully flighted so simply flew up higher, and that was that.
I rearranged the entire room, installed a pocket door and the dog and cat have never been allowed in since. Given that she now had her own room, I gave her cage away, and she only has a small sleep cage.
So there's all my Echo news!!!! Thanks for reading, and I hope I answered everyone's questions.
Have a great night.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
