Tales of a Parrot

Our pet parrot started life as a hamster, believe it or not.
Maybe I should explain that.
For my wife's 40th birthday present, our loopie 3rd son bought her a hamster. George was brilliant. I used to laugh like a drain when he dived into Aggie's cleavage looking for biscuits that I threw down there.
Anyway, he was great for for nearly 3 years and then he died. He lived longer than most hamsters do and we like to put that down to the happy life that he had. So we decided to get another hamster but then we asked ourselves if we could look forward to another dead pet in a few years and decided that we couldn't do that. So then we discussed a dog but that would need walking and all kinds of looking after so that was a NO. Then we thought about a parrot.
Parrots live to be 60 or more (Churchill's parrot lived to be 112) so if we got a parrot it would probably outlive us both which solved that problem.
So we spent a while checking out different breeds for their talking abilities and their friendliness with humans and settled on an African Grey. At the time we wanted one, the going price was around £800 if you include a large cage and a few toys. It's not cheap but when you think that a pedigree dog can cost the same and only live for 12 - 15 years, a parrot begins to look like a bargain.
So we bought Geordie. We actually bought an egg but there were a few guarantees along with the purchase price.
1 ... If the egg didn't hatch we were not obliged to pay the balance and our deposit would be refunded in full.
2 ... The fledgling stayed with the parent parrot for 10 weeks during which time we were advised to visit as often as possible to bond with the baby parrot.
3 ....... During that 10 weeks, if the fledgling developed any problems, again, we were not obliged to pay the balance and our deposit would be refunded.
Plus others which all boiled down to saying that up until the 11th week the baby bird was still theirs and they ran all the risks. After the 11th week and once we had taken baby home, he or she was our responsibility. Fortunately, all went well for those first 10 weeks during which we visited most days for an hour and Geordie came home with us. We had bought a large cage for when she was in the house but we had also bought a smaller cage, about the size of a budgie cage, for traveling and this cage had been taken with us on visits so she could get used to it.
I call her "she" because although it is notoriously difficult to determine the s e x of an African Grey without doing either a DNA test or getting a vet to poke a telescope up the parrot's hows yer father and looking for either eggs or testicles, there are clues to be seen. An example is that if you turn the parrot on its back and look at where the red feathers of the tail meet the grey feathers of the body, in a female, the line will be poorly defined whereas in a male, it will be a clearly visible line.
So we got her home and ....... (continued tonight.)

The first thing we had to do was get her finger-trained. This is easy enough but very boring. To do it properly, you need to position yourself and the cage in such a way that you can sit comfortably for an hour or so, maybe while watching a film, with a pad of some kind, maybe a towel, over the sharp bits at the bottom of the cage door and your hand inside the cage resting it on one of the perches. It has to be done such that the parrot can't sneak out by climbing over your hand.
This may take a few days but eventually the bird will get to the stage where putting your hand in the cage won't send it off into a fit with feathers flying everywhere. During this "finger training, the top of the cage is obviously closed. Not much point in all the rest if the bird can just fly out at the top. At other times though, the cage top was opened and she could come and go as she pleased.
One bad note here is that the breeder had clipped her wings so she couldn't fly at all. This clipping malarkey has both good and bad points and both camps argue their corner very convincingly.
On the one side we have the folk who say that clipping a bird's wings is a good idea. It stops your bird from flying away into the wild blue yonder if a door or window is accidentally left open. It also stops a bird from seeing a closed window and not realising that there is glass there and flying into it at full throttle.
On the other side are the folk saying that clipping a bird's wings stops it from being a bird. It also stops it from using its main defense against other animals which is simply to fly away.. We made the informed choice and "trimmed" her flight feathers only. This meant that she could fly but couldn't generate enough lift to fly upwards for a long period. To test this out, I would stand at the top of the stairs and call her. If she flew up to me it was time to trim a half inch off the end 4 feathers on her wings. This wasn't just after we got her though. This trimming took place after about a year.
The next thing after the Finger Training was Potty Training and that was great fun.
..... Continued tomorrow.

Potty training a parrot is a lot harder than training either a toddler or a puppy but as with the other 2, once it works, it's well worth it.
You must all have seen videos on these TV shows where a duck or a pigeon or some other bird does a poop. Did you notice that just before ejecting the bird did a kind of squat? That's very important during training. You also have to know that a parrot's digestive tract takes about 20 minutes from eating to pooping. So what we had to do was take the food out of Geordie's cage for half an hour and not give her any titbits in that period. Then her food dish was filled up and she would go in and scoff. @0 minutes later, I would get her on my finger and take her to a tin waste bin that we had set aside for her use. I had fashioned a stand on one side with a tree branch perch for her. Once she was sat on the perch it was a case of sitting there with her until I saw the very start of that squatting motion. Then I had to say, "Geordie go poo-poo" over and over until she did and then she got praised like crazy.
This whole routine was done once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once during the evening. On the 5th day, she flew over to the bin, sat on the perch and said, "Geordie do poo-poo" and did.
The amazing thing is that when we were out and about, doing walkies down in the town centre, she would be sat on my shoulder and she would say "Geordie do poo-poo" in time for me to get her set down on a kerb or a drain or something. But when we went out in the car, her little budgie cage came with us just so she could get a drink or some food as required and she would tell me about poo-poo and then go in her cage to do it.

[shazzababie]

i'm having fantastic visions of u walking around town in a pirates costume with Georgie on ur shoulders lol x

Just for you, shazz, to help you with your vision, here is a list of places in Blackburn where Geordie was a regular.
Several pubs, especially those with bowls of nuts and crisps on the bar. She was notorious for sneaking up on an unattended pint glass and taking a sip. Only allowed on the bar top with the permission of the gaffer, of course.
ASDA .... I had been out with Geordie but needed something from ASDA on the way home. Rather than leave her in the car alone, i stuck her under my jacket and walked into the store. I saw the boss at the inquiry desk so I asked him what store policy was on birds. I think he thought I was nuts but then Geordie gave the game away by poking her head out. We had a 10 minute chat and the outcome was that she was allowed in for a quick shop but not allowed to go flying around the place.
Cancer Hospice. Geordie was a regular at the local hospice. The regulars on the eBay chat forums do charity auctions on the last Sunday of the month. Just do a search for MDCC (Monthly daft charity competition) where you have to list something really crazy and give all your winnings to charity. To give you an idea, I once auctioned ONE of a pair of identical cornflakes. I got £12 for that, lol. Anyway, my chosen charity is the local hospice and every month Geordie and I would go in with a cheque and visit the terminal wards. We would spend an hour or so there going from bed to bed. What is surprising about these visits is that Geordie was always soft and gentle. Did she know? I honestly don't know if she knew that these people were signing out. One thing that she was good at there was "Line of sight flying" as I called it. I would stand at one side of the room with Geordie held in both hands. A patient would be laid in a bed or sat in a chair at the other end of the room with an arm held out. I would point her head at the patient and do a One .... two ..... three and launch her off in the right direction. She would then fly to the arm and settle. I like to think she cheered them up a bit.
She was also partial to a bit of sandwich in various cafes around town.
Last but not least, she even went to the Bingo with us one night.

[shazzababie]

She sounds amazing - she should have her own facebook page.... lol start a Geordie fanclub and post lots of piccies !!! Do you have her on youtube or anything ?

That's the sad bit, shazz.
You may notice that I say things like , "She WAS ...... " and "She used to .... "
She isn't dead but on the other hand I don't want to spoil what's coming in the story.
Plus, can you see where I got the inspiration for Charlie??

[shazzababie]

OMG whats happened to her ? and hell yeah i know where u got ur inspiration from ....hows the story coming on x

To be honest, shaz, it's going very slow.
On top of trying to use a new Voice recognition suite a lot of real life things have grabbed my time just recently.
I'll get back to it as soon as I can.

[shazzababie]

cool cos i was getting right into it lol and my Steven King is nrly finished ..... 800 pages of which i am loving BUT they have just introduced an alien element... wtf its ruining the story !!!