- May 23, 2018
- 3,559
- 157
- Parrots
-
Sunny a female B&G macaw;
Japie (m) & Appie (f), both are congo african grey;
All are rescues- had to leave their previous homes for 'reasons', are still in contact with them :)
I have never propperly introduced Japie and Appie to you guys, I will do this later.
Lets just leave it at: Japie (m) has an unknown past, I have tracked his lifestory back as far as at least 2000, but he could be much older than that.
His parents most likely lived in NL or Belgium, but since he was not banded... nobody knows for sure.
Appie (f) was hatched in 2009, NL born and bred and like many parrots in those days taken away from the nest and parents way too early.
(papegaai info handvoeding verboden)
Both of them are a bit 'insane in the membrane' because of their past and obviously have no clue how to be/ deal with parrots and now they are grown up and when hormonal try to mate with humans (me in this case) instead of their own species.
Anyway- they decided to move in the large cage together (as in: they both wanted the large cage, so I let them have it) about 2 years ago, and went between mostly ignoring each other (but watch what the other one is doing all the time) to trying to drive the other away during the hormonal periods.
That's when the cagedivider goes back in ...
(to my chagrin because I want them to have as large a cage as possible, and no room for another large one)
Appie laid eggs the first year she was here (2017), but none in 2018.
The dominance / "I have right of way"-status is very fluid between those two, one week one makes way for the other, the next week it can be the opposite.
(The macaw is always at the receiving end btw, those greys are boss!)
Japie has been quite a little a$$hole lately, divebombing the other parrots and giving them the deathstare. (He has been doing this for months.)
But... we've hit a dry and sunny spell in the weather and (even though he missed Valentine's day) all of a sudden he got his flirt on! :52:
(And not his usual "flying to my shoulder, making desperate horny noises in my ear and regurge whenever he sees a chance and trying to mount my head".)
He followed Appie this morning to her favorite hangout!
NOT to divebomb or stare or even threaten.... nooooooooooooooo!
He respectfully landed far away from her and let her come to him, not giving her 'the stare' but turned one eye and kept his beak a bit low.
She actually beaked him a bit (just touching tips of the beaks, hooking them in a bit) and was a bit unsettled because he did not act/react agressively.
After regurging almost non-stop the past few months...this was his golden opportunity of course...but the big lump is oblivious! :30: :09:
(Appie is completely foodobsessed atm and will climb inside strangers mouths given the chance.)
This was the first non-agressive encounter in months AND one of the rare times they actually sought each other out and came within beaking distance - on the same level (flat surface/ top of a cabinet).
Anyway, something else happened that startled them and he flew off.
Later that morning Appie was investigating the Macaw-backpack I was messing with and decided she liked it, so I let her.
Japie flew in after I left.
So there is Appie inside the open backpak, on the perch and Japie on top looking in, and making "plze give me scritches" sounds.
Of course she was sitting there, not agressive, ready for him to give HER scritches...
and he did not get that! (again!)
(That happens a lot btw, they both want scritches, and even though Japie will "preen" my fleece/sweaters for hours he will not start untill you scritch him first...)
But since there also was no agression... she beaked him a lot gentler than she had in the past.
My interpretation: this was "new fresh territory" neither of them had a claim on it, since it is normally not in the livingroom with them-- so they were not attacking or defending anything 'theirs' already.
We found Switserland! (Neutral territory.)
Anyway- I was standing there, minding my own business (reading this forum etc.) and once in a while they both would stop and just look at me ...
(asking directions? who knows)
LOL, like I knew what to do now, figure it out guys!
You are both adult birds! Good :41:
Japie flew off, came back, (quite a few times) more beaking, more looking, still no fighting or even agression... this is really, really interesting!
*
No- I am not looking to breed them at all (they probably would be disasterous parrents anyway- not having had parrents of their own for long enough), but if they manage to find some sort of friendship (mutual preening, no more bullying from either of them) THAT would be nice!
*
====
My friends are trying to help in suggesting letting them watch CAG-p0rn :08::18:, since Japie learned to fly watching NatGeo documentaries on birds ... not even that crazy a suggestion; but nobody ever learned anything about relationships from that kind of "entertainment".
So now I am looking for youtubes of CAG's doing mutual preening, maybe that will give them some more "healthy" ideas - but that all depends on them realising they actually ARE african greys...not humans-with-wings...
I am not so sure they have that mindset yet, they may just be learning to deal with 'that grey alien that lives here as well'.
===
I am just very happy they finally (of their own free will) got within biting-range of each other without *any* agression before-during-after.
That only took them over 2 years :40:
Lets just leave it at: Japie (m) has an unknown past, I have tracked his lifestory back as far as at least 2000, but he could be much older than that.
His parents most likely lived in NL or Belgium, but since he was not banded... nobody knows for sure.
Appie (f) was hatched in 2009, NL born and bred and like many parrots in those days taken away from the nest and parents way too early.
(papegaai info handvoeding verboden)
Both of them are a bit 'insane in the membrane' because of their past and obviously have no clue how to be/ deal with parrots and now they are grown up and when hormonal try to mate with humans (me in this case) instead of their own species.
Anyway- they decided to move in the large cage together (as in: they both wanted the large cage, so I let them have it) about 2 years ago, and went between mostly ignoring each other (but watch what the other one is doing all the time) to trying to drive the other away during the hormonal periods.
That's when the cagedivider goes back in ...
(to my chagrin because I want them to have as large a cage as possible, and no room for another large one)
Appie laid eggs the first year she was here (2017), but none in 2018.
The dominance / "I have right of way"-status is very fluid between those two, one week one makes way for the other, the next week it can be the opposite.
(The macaw is always at the receiving end btw, those greys are boss!)
Japie has been quite a little a$$hole lately, divebombing the other parrots and giving them the deathstare. (He has been doing this for months.)
But... we've hit a dry and sunny spell in the weather and (even though he missed Valentine's day) all of a sudden he got his flirt on! :52:
(And not his usual "flying to my shoulder, making desperate horny noises in my ear and regurge whenever he sees a chance and trying to mount my head".)
He followed Appie this morning to her favorite hangout!
NOT to divebomb or stare or even threaten.... nooooooooooooooo!
He respectfully landed far away from her and let her come to him, not giving her 'the stare' but turned one eye and kept his beak a bit low.
She actually beaked him a bit (just touching tips of the beaks, hooking them in a bit) and was a bit unsettled because he did not act/react agressively.
After regurging almost non-stop the past few months...this was his golden opportunity of course...but the big lump is oblivious! :30: :09:
(Appie is completely foodobsessed atm and will climb inside strangers mouths given the chance.)
This was the first non-agressive encounter in months AND one of the rare times they actually sought each other out and came within beaking distance - on the same level (flat surface/ top of a cabinet).
Anyway, something else happened that startled them and he flew off.
Later that morning Appie was investigating the Macaw-backpack I was messing with and decided she liked it, so I let her.
Japie flew in after I left.
So there is Appie inside the open backpak, on the perch and Japie on top looking in, and making "plze give me scritches" sounds.
Of course she was sitting there, not agressive, ready for him to give HER scritches...
and he did not get that! (again!)
(That happens a lot btw, they both want scritches, and even though Japie will "preen" my fleece/sweaters for hours he will not start untill you scritch him first...)
But since there also was no agression... she beaked him a lot gentler than she had in the past.
My interpretation: this was "new fresh territory" neither of them had a claim on it, since it is normally not in the livingroom with them-- so they were not attacking or defending anything 'theirs' already.
We found Switserland! (Neutral territory.)
Anyway- I was standing there, minding my own business (reading this forum etc.) and once in a while they both would stop and just look at me ...
(asking directions? who knows)
LOL, like I knew what to do now
, figure it out guys! You are both adult birds! Good :41:
Japie flew off, came back, (quite a few times) more beaking, more looking, still no fighting or even agression... this is really, really interesting!
*
No- I am not looking to breed them at all (they probably would be disasterous parrents anyway- not having had parrents of their own for long enough), but if they manage to find some sort of friendship (mutual preening, no more bullying from either of them) THAT would be nice!
*
====
My friends are trying to help in suggesting letting them watch CAG-p0rn :08::18:, since Japie learned to fly watching NatGeo documentaries on birds ... not even that crazy a suggestion; but nobody ever learned anything about relationships from that kind of "entertainment".
So now I am looking for youtubes of CAG's doing mutual preening, maybe that will give them some more "healthy" ideas
- but that all depends on them realising they actually ARE african greys...not humans-with-wings...I am not so sure they have that mindset yet, they may just be learning to deal with 'that grey alien that lives here as well'.
===
I am just very happy they finally (of their own free will) got within biting-range of each other without *any* agression before-during-after.
That only took them over 2 years :40:
