Right now Salty is.....

[wrench13]

1-22-25 Apparently Salty has hurt his beak or strained the muscles of his beak, again. He seems to do this occasionally, once or twice a year. How we know this - he VERY slowly and gingerly takes his treat of a piece of pine nut and tonite has hardly touched his dinner of chop. Possibly sliced his tounge on that razor sharp beak! Its hard to see, with his black tounge. Usually he is better the next day or two, so fingers crossed.

New batch of chop is being accepted well. Note to self, lower the pasta proportion back to 1/2 lb for the batch. THe Brussel sprouts seem to be better run thru the processer rather then just chopped up.

We had company over on Sunday, Salty was so cute, singing his hits and talking a bit. The woman, who is not a bird fan, was actually quite taken with him, the little ham. "Adorable" was the word used - coming from a dedicated cat person, I'll take it!

The bicycle - back to square one, again. Still too hard for him to actually pedal. I saw one in a video the other night, with a small 'too doing it, seemed to pedal really easy, I wish I knew who made it. Or how it was constructed. I really don't want to re-engineer the one i have with things like ball bearings and stuff, too overly complicated. Salty loves the trick though and eagerly jumps on board for a go. We'll see.

 

[Jcas]

1-22-25 Apparently Salty has hurt his beak or strained the muscles of his beak, again. He seems to do this occasionally, once or twice a year. How we know this - he VERY slowly and gingerly takes his treat of a piece of pine nut and tonite has hardly touched his dinner of chop. Possibly sliced his tounge on that razor sharp beak! Its hard to see, with his black tounge. Usually he is better the next day or two, so fingers crossed.

New batch of chop is being accepted well. Note to self, lower the pasta proportion back to 1/2 lb for the batch. THe Brussel sprouts seem to be better run thru the processer rather then just chopped up.

We had company over on Sunday, Salty was so cute, singing his hits and talking a bit. The woman, who is not a bird fan, was actually quite taken with him, the little ham. "Adorable" was the word used - coming from a dedicated cat person, I'll take it!

The bicycle - back to square one, again. Still too hard for him to actually pedal. I saw one in a video the other night, with a small 'too doing it, seemed to pedal really easy, I wish I knew who made it. Or how it was constructed. I really don't want to re-engineer the one i have with things like ball bearings and stuff, too overly complicated. Salty loves the trick though and eagerly jumps on board for a go. We'll see.

Aww, hope you feel better soon, Salty . And excellent work on converting a cat lady to the bird side!

 

[wrench13]

Vet visit scheduled for Tues, if he is not better by then.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

My baby budgie Joey recently charmed a cat lady, too. Her very old cat died a few months ago and she's not a bird person. She bird sat Joey for several hours a few weeks ago. She opened Joey's cage door and Joey ran up her arm and sat on the edge of her hood. She said Joey was really sweet and she played with her a bit. I offered her some budgies but she declined.

 

[wrench13]

Salty happily eating a mashed up sweet potatoe and earlier ate a lot of apple sauce. Hoping the hurt beaky is on the mend. Still not taking his nut treat and he had difficulty climbing around earlier.

 

[SailBoat]

It is surprising just how sensitive the nerves and muscles that connect to the Beak can be. Sadly, there are any number of activities that can result in this kind of painful results. Since, it is happening multiple times within a years' time, one can only be diligent in what causes it. Remembering, it could be several different actions.

 

[wrench13]

'Boats, last 2 times were definitely muscle strains. Salty pretty much didn't climb around a lot or play with anything. This time I think he may have cut his tongue on the razor sharp beak of his! Regardless, he's much better as of tonight. Say 90%.

 

[wrench13]

GOOD LORD - this years mating season is full of surprises. Saltys really never done the broody, nest making, hidey hole seeking thing, but this year, we got that in spades! And loud, loud from the minute he comes out to closing the cage up for night night. This is getting-chucked-out-of-an-apartment type loud! And cause he's an Amazon, the type of scream changes daily! Their creativity in speaking means he is coming up with a new ear piercing call all the time, from maniacal laughs to throaty gruff cat calls, its all there! It doesn't really bother me much, but the wife - she hates it, so I got her a set of shooters headphones, the noise cancelling type, for when it gets too much. Peace does not reign supreme, but at least I only have one shrieking entity in the house.

I made a classic mistake in making his latest batch of chop! I usually add some cooked pasta to the mix, this last batch I added WAY too much, and he loves his pasta! The added carbs (which turn to sugars in his system) has only added fuel to the fire, so for the last week or so I've been picking out the noodles.

Salty usually never climbs off his cage, though he is perfectly capable of getting off and climbing right back on. This years mating season, once he is out of his cage, he climbs off and searches out the dark hiding holes around the house, something he also has never done before. Although he is mostly flighted, Salty has never been much of a flyer.

And this year, tearing up and shredding the papers lining his cage is a daily thing! I'm almost running out of junk mail and flyers to line the cage (ha ha).

I have to keep telling myself my own bit of advice: THIS TOO SHALL PASS!

On a lighter note, I found a source for the small, hard plastic animal figures we use in one of our training tricks. Saltys gotten quite good at distinguishing between the several I already had (part of our "What Is It" trick); a parrot, bear, lamb and a pterodactyl. I got a chicken, piggy, rabbit and dachshund to add. LOL, he is mostly scared of the chicken!

 

[kme3388]

May I ask if you are still handling Salty? Blue (B&G macaw) is being very aggressive today. He’s throwing his food dishes at the bottom of his cage. He’s pounding the dishes against his cage bars. He’s biting his cage bars at us. He’s slamming all doors on his cage shut as I’m trying to put his food dishes in there. I’ve never dealt with a larger parrot that’s this hormonal. I’m a little concerned. That beak hurts badly if it gets ahold of you.

 

[wrench13]

Yes, still handling Salty with no issue. His hormones dont usually manifest with a distain for touching, but hey every season is different.

 

[wrench13]

So, big, big update. Mating season, and its attendant behaviors, is ALMOST over, and this year has been the longest, most intense and somewhat heartbreaking, in all my parrot experience. What's it been - since Feb last post, and here at the beginning of June, its still going on, albeit fading finally. Well over 4 months and closer to 6 (end of Dec '24). The sad thing is Salty started plucking his chest and under wing feathers, right down to the skin. I started a separate thread to document this and the treatments and stuff we did to try and abbreviate this behavior. The good news is that it seems to have worked because the grey down is starting to fill in and his vet says that she sees the start of the main feathers coming back in. Hopefully the plucking has not become a habit with him and he lets them fully grow. The other mating season behaviors noted previously, the screaming and incessant searching for hiding holes has almost stopped too. And it apparently is not just Salty having the issues, my vet says ALL her avian patients have been off the charts this year!

Salty is in trouble with plucking

On other news, Salty has mastered one of the new tricks I introduced months ago. Raising the Pirate Flag! Couldn;t find one of these tricks commercially, so I made one myself, with flagpole, pulleys etc and even a little pirate skull and cross bones flag. IT took him awhile on this one, very unusual for Salty, who gets the knack of most tricks in a few tries. But now he raises it up in 1 shot and he seems to be very proud now that he can do it effortlessly! Video coming soon. The other new trick, a version of the carnival strong man thing where you hit the thing with a mallet and the weight goes up and dings a bell - well he understands that he has to push the lever down but he wont smack it hard enough to make the weight rise. And I dont want him hurting his beak to hit it that hard, so its back to the drawing board on this trick - maybe a spring loaded lever with some sort of tripping/release mechanism? The tinkerer in me lives for this kind of stuff!

He has also mastered being able to tell the difference between all the new animals I introduced - guess whats his favorite now? The stupid CHICKEN! On nights when he is being a PIA and uncooperative, he will keep going to the chicken, regardless of what i ask for! But when he is on point and eager, he will correctly give me each of the 8 or so different animals or objects!

The other improvement I made - I got a big roll of brown paper and a holder/dispensing stand and I use that now to line his cage. It is LIGHT YEARS easier now to change cage papers, takes maybe a minute to foldup the 1 large piece, not spilling waste and stuff all over, and I only need to trim up the torn off new piece a tiny bit to fit the cage bottom. Not only is it cleaner and easier then using pieces of junk mail to fit together to line the cage, but because the 1 piece of brown paper lies totally flat, Salty cant pick out pieces of paper to shred up and make nesty type waste. Honestly, I would recommend this improvement to any parrot owner!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I can't imagine the mess my budgies would make if I lined their cages wirh small pieces of junk mail! I order 240 31x22 sheets of packing paper on Amazon for $24. The 31x22 fits the 24x32 cage tray where 6 English budgies sleep perfectly. I have to make one fold for it to fit the 24x24 cube cages and two folds to fit the 32x18 cages. At .10 a sheet it's worth it. I use 15 sheets a week.

 

[TiredOldMan]

I get 30" wide 50lb kraft paper from Uline. The cost of the roll isn't bad but the shipping almost doubles the price. Next roll I will try to source locally. I agree with Wrench, much easier to deal with than newspapers.

 

[onamom]

Can't wait to see the video!!