Couple of questions

ok Sammy my U2 17Yrs old. had him 18 months now.
ok first year he used to tear up everything he could and
pile it all up in one corner of his cage pretty much making a nest.
well about the last 6 months he has gotten to hanging out in that corner of the bottom of the cage and tearing things down to an almost sawdust and fine splinters, he loves the paper towel tubes and TP tubes, plastic lids, and he pulls the p-pads up from the bottom and turns them into a fine mess, i will let him steal a headrag or a hat every now and again and they also end up in these piles of stuff i have to clean out of his cage. i have to be careful of what are on his toys as he has gotten to where he goes to his corner and will use anything he can to pry and he has broke a couple of welds on the bottom screen. kind of cool to watch him thinking up what his next prying tool will be. i have watched him make tools for prying out of chunks of 2x4 hell he has a knot he got out of one that he has been using for months and still has not wore it out but it does no damage so i make sure i put it back when cleaning. is this kind of stuff pretty normal for a krazy cockatoo?
he is a super cool bird and im going to be forced to rehome him in the future which makes the wife and i both sad but im being forced to make a move to get some legal matters squared away in the state of Nebraska which i can not do from living in the state of Ohio. got till next OCT 2018.
to try and figure out a way to keep him but right now it does not look very good. he is just so much to handle and a lot of noise. Lily and Max are the only 2 i plan on moving these parrots bought as babys are so much more manageable and not near the noise.

what makes it so he can't go with you may I ask? Is it the type of home you're moving to or is it to do with some law I'm not aware of between the states?

I'll let Scott front this one as he is a definite expert on Toos. To me it seems relatively normal, bit of fun and trying to make a comfy corner, if I were to describe a bird as a chewer it would be a Too

Sorry to hear that Sammy may have to have a new home. Only thing I have is start this process early and then there is more time to you to vet suitable homes rather than being held ransom to time.

will be more then likely moving into an Apt type
living. i am giving myself plenty of time i rehomed cheech and chong a couple of weeks ago. funny story little old lady next door has no one and had been feeding the ferral kittens in the park where i live well she caught my wife at the mail box one day crying about an eviction notice she had gotten for feeding the cats. Max sits in a window facing her front door and she had told me she had once had birds and loved them. so guess what she is now the proud keeper of some cool birds. damn park people why not find some kind of answer to the cat problem instead of scaring people with eviction, another reason to move cause i feed the deer and have them in my yard every night.lol

ah I see, yes not the best place for a U2. Such a shame to hear this is the way things have to go. I'm sure you'll find someone good to care for your birds

wow I assume the notice was fake. That's a disgusting trick to play on someone let alone an older woman who's alone

Well Dave...if you ever watched YouTube vids by Dan,the parront of Max the Umbee ( I think)..he does the exact same thing..So I'm gonna say its a 'too thing.




Jim

Sounds like very typical too behavior! Some are more active than others, and Sammy seems at the upper end of agility. Haven't seen much of the tool-use described, but that is not uncommon with highly intelligent parrots.

Sorry you may have to re-home Sammy. Apartment living can be difficult with a large too, but perhaps you can find a compromise?

Very normal behavior. Cockatoo beaks are made for destruction, and most of them enjoy the heck out of it. They are chipping, ripping, shredding machines! I know if mine don't have things to destroy at all times, I become the surrogate chew toy (my poor fingers!)

Sorry to hear about your homing situation, that's always a sucky decision to have to make. But I can understand the noise constraints. It can be incredibly difficult to have a large too in a small home environment. Many people aren't overly understanding when having to deal with 100+ decibel calls coming through thin apartment walls.

I wish you the best on being able to figure out a good solution for everything!

well Sammy will be going back to the Aviary i got him from in a few weeks.
they are in the process of moving to a new huge local where they will even have a large inside flight area. they will find him a new home or turn him into a shop bird.
really hurts the heart to have to do this but it is the best thing for him as he needs to be in a home where he is the only parrot as he seems to really hate my others. no replacements will be coming home, i also have a Sun Conure to rehome sometime within the next year, as the wife and i bit off more then we could chew when i flocked us up. we only plan on moving Max and Lily and become a 2 parrot family.

it's hard but rest easy in the knowledge that they will be a lot happier there than if they were to come with you

Seems a bittersweet solution, but appears Sammy will be well cared for!

So my new 9 year old male U2 is bonding with my 9 year old son and ignoring me. He actually lays on his back for my son and talks too him. He's not aggressive towards me he just doesn't stay on me unless he's on my shoulder then he will go everywhere with me even drive in the jeep.