Naughty bird

[happyroo_bunji]

I placed my bird (in his cage) on the front verandah while tidying up.  After about 1/2 hour I glance out the door to see my bird waddling around on the floor of the verandah 😮  Not only that my dog who likes to eat birds was wandering around on the verandah.

Thankfully I was able to catch him and get him back in his cage.  Little booger brain is now in the house with pegs all over the cage.

I need a bex and lay down :^O

[kengillard]

We had a budjie called Joey Joey (he told us) who dropped in here into our pool 7 years hence and stayed since....donated him to my DD...he loves her and sits on her shoulder and never bites....still bites me when I visit tho...little shoot!

He has an enormous vocabulary!   "tastes like shoot" etc.:^O

[godsandmen]

godsandmen, what a cutie!  I don't trust Sunny to not fly away, he gets spooked by loud noises sometimes so I just don't want to take the risk.  I do however let him out of the cage in the house regularly so he can stretch his wings, although he usually just sits ontop of his cage when I let him out! Does your bird say anything?

Birds are so intelligent aren't they?  More intelligent than dogs.

My caique was originally named Sunny when I first bought her, but I changed the name. Sunny sounded too feminine for me 🙂

I know what you mean by them getting spooked by loud noises and such. I've taken her outside with me hundreds of times without her flying away, but there have been a handful of times when something spooked her and she flew away. I've managed to get her back each time, but it does make me nervous that the day will come when I can't find her. A couple of times she got spooked and flew off, and I had no idea where she was. But I managed to find her by walking around and whistling our "contact call". Every night when I put her in her cage downstairs and I go to bed upstairs, she gets concerned because I'm so far away, so she whistles her contact call to me several times, and I answer her with the same call each time. Then she's okay. On those couple of occasions when she flew off and I didn't know where she was, I walked around the neighborhood and whistled our contact call. Each time I could hear her answering in the distance. Then it was just a matter of honing in on where her call was coming from.

Caiques are very poor talkers, but they make up for it by their being super-affectionate and playful. She only knows one word - "peekaboo". But she had two versions of it. There's the standard version - "peekaboo" - and there's the deluxe version, which goes like this: "peeka-peeka-peeka-peeka-peekaboo" 🙂 She also barks like a dog, and I taught her how to do a wolf whistle. I had an african grey for a couple of years, and he was an amazing talker. But he was messy, destructive, and somewhat aloof. I sold him recently. I'd take my caique over an african grey any day. Talking in parrots is overrated.

[cat_mioux]

Cute birdies!

I once found a little yellow budgie in the cat enclosure!

Luckily the cats weren't in the enclosure at the time. We had a spare bird cage and we put the little thing in it and took it to our local vet. They found the owner a couple of weeks later. 🙂

[godsandmen]

What a beautiful parrot.  It's great when they don't need to be caged.  We were on our way to the Gold Coast and stopped at Macca's in Warwick and a bloke had his parrot.  He took him everywhere.  Here he is playing with a straw.

That is a Indian ringneck parrot. I did a search on Youtube for Indian ringnecks named George, and I came across this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHwZUzvtbiQ

I'm wondering if this is the same bird that you met. It's from Queensland Australia (I'm in the U.S.) so it seems to fit.

[happyroo_bunji]

I named my bird sunny so it could be changed to Sonny if I ever found out the sex of him/her.

My bird says Hello, hop up, come on and tries really hard to say thankyou.  I don't have a contact call for Sunny, but if I call out his name he usually chirps back.  If Sunny did escape I have the really problem that a magpie could kill him, a magpie once landed on his cage and poor Sunny was absolutely petrified and if I hadn't of been there I'm positive it would of attacked Sunny.

Ohh an African Grey, they are so expensive here starting at $5k going up too $15k or more.  Some amazons are cheaper!  I've read about how destructive they can be and can be prone to feather plucking, although most birds can be prone to that.

My great aunt had a cockatoo that used to get the crust off a piece toast each morning, but when my aunt changed jobs and had to start earlier, no toast..... so the cocky would attack her!

[godsandmen]

I'm sorry. I don't mean to dominate this thread. But I love my bird so much that I just have to share a few more pics.

Okay. Barring any questions or comments from other posters, I'll shut up now 🙂

[happyroo_bunji]

Please feel free to share photos, its nice to see someone loves thier bird as much as I love mine.

I have to go to work soon, so I'll be leaving the tv on for a couple of hours for Sunny.  He seems to enjoy it, especially the kids shows like Giggle and Hoot (thats an aussie show).

[godsandmen]

Ohh an African Grey, they are so expensive here starting at $5k going up too $15k or more. 

Wow! Are they really that expensive there? Here a baby weaned grey sells for about $1,200 U.S. dollars (not sure how that translates to Australian currency). Mine was 10 years old when I bought him, so he didn't cost as much. I sold his for even cheaper than that. I priced him lower than any african grey ad I've ever seen. I did that because I didn't care about the money as much as I cared about him going to a good home. My plan worked. I had many, many responses to my ad. Because of that, I was able to pick and choose who I would sell him to. I sold him to someone who had lots of experience with greys, and it has worked out well. They love him. It was a win/win for everybody involved.

Cockatoos are said to be the best parrot pets of all, but it comes with a price. They are extremely demanding, and need a huge amount of attention. They can easily dominate your life, demanding all of your time and attention. That's too much for me. But for those who can handle it, they are the best of all possible bird pets.

[happyroo_bunji]

Yep they really are that expensive here.  USD$1,200 is roughly AUD$1,153.  You would probably have to pay through the nose for some of our native birds like certain breeds of cockatoos.

I haven't heard/read much about cocky's as pets so can't comment on the demanding part.  I did consider getting one, but thought starting out I should get something that wouldn't do too much damage if it bit me.  My grandfather (who died 1980) had a cocky which only died in the last 5 years (my uncle inherited him) was a bit of a character..... he once told a policeman what do in rather colourful language! :^O

[happyroo_bunji]

This my cheeky bird.  It was taken almost a year ago, so he was still quite young.  Green is much more vibrant now