Jardine's Parrot, a new owner

Also, i know there are mixed views about this subject, but her wings are currently clipped (with the outermost primary un-clipped for 'appearance'). I personally don't like clipping wings unless for a clear reason (such as them getting into trouble around the house) I was thinking of just letting them grow back out and leave it at that unless a clear need for a trim arises. I do have a cat, HOWEVER, I am never going to allow the cat in the room while I am away/sleeping/or have the bird out and I have no intentions of letting 'Jardy' explore the house. Downstairs is an 'open room' type of area with the kitchen open to the living room and I'd rather not like to expose her to the chemicals dad uses to clean the kitchen (not to mention he also cooks with teflon/non-stick, i've read this is only an issue if either the cookware heats up to a high enough temp to 'burn' or if the bird is in close proximity to it, he always turns on the fan thing when he does any cooking though and I always have my window open so I don't see this being an issue in terms of my room, but it's why I don't want her downstairs at all). Should I let them just grow out? Or trim them a few more times in the future until she's gotten comfortable in the room?

I don't think being flighted will make living with a cat any more dangerous (I say as my Quaker tries to bite my dog's ear). She will be able to get away from the cat by flying as opposed to being stuck on the ground if it comes after her. However, since you are living with your parents you first need to see if they will agree to birdproofing the house. Farewell using ceiling fans, bathrooms kept shut, secondary doors to the outside, dangerous stuff always put up, wires wrapped so they can't get to them, etc. As for the cookware, I would ask your dad to get some new pots. Not worth the risk IMO, and the cost is not that great. Too many birds die and we don't know why--the owners just wake up and they are dead. So why risk it?

Like you said, being flighted is a controversial subject, but I really think most of the time it comes down to whether or not you can really do the things you need to in order to keep a flighted bird safely in your home. Personally, I think birds should fly, but I don't think all pet birds should be flighted. For me it depends 100% on the bird, the owner, and the situation.

Can't wait to see pics of your lovely baby! Does she have a name yet?
 
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Oh Jardy would never be allowed in the rest of the house. I mean I may take her with me downstairs when i go to get a drink/food/etc. but for the most part she would be confined to my bedroom and my bathroom (when i take her in there for 'baths' and obviously outside once we've trained a bit) I know being confined to a single room isn't all that grand, but it would be the safest for her (with the cat around) and not to mention I'll be turning my room into parrot heaven. So she'll have tons of things to do. :p

I know being confined to only one part of a house isn't that grand, but for now it's what we'll have to make due with it.

I also agree with flighted birds being situational. I guess we'll just have to see how she handles it all. With the cat around (even though the cat will enver be in my room when im not home) I'd prefer for her to fly, just so if the unexpected happens (cat somehow manages to get into room when Im gone and bird somehow manages to get out of cage thing) she'll be able to keep herself safe.


As far as a name, no name yet. The folks at the store just call her Jardy, and it's kind of rubbing off on me ROFL so I might just leave it. It's what she's used to hearing.
 
:O a fellow jardy ownerrrr (soon to be haha) we shall have to have good jardy talks then :)

I've got him home now. He's talking up a storm this morning, mostly jibberish, his vocalisations sound almost identical to an African Grey but his "talking" voice is more robotic sounding.

So far I've made him out to be saying I love you, kisses, hello, night night, goodnight. I'm sure he'll pick up loads more too. He does this really cute thing when you kiss him he pushes his beak into your lips and kisses you back, so cute!
 
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Aw! thats so adorable! ;n; I can't wait to start sharing my own cute adorable stories with people. Yeah she wants absolutely nothing to do with me at the store. She'd rather hang with the other staff ppl that are in with me. makes visits a bit.... depressing I guess you can say cus its like:

"Here im driving 30 minutes just to visit you for... most of the time not even more than an hour cus the staff have to get back to work and you want nothing to do with me. I bring you toys and you like NOPE. Food? NOPE"

little turd. LOL
 
Haha hopefully that will change when you get her home :)

My little chap is very sweet, he's been "cleaning" my teeth all night. My friend thinks I'm nuts having a parrot in my mouth but he's very insistant about getting in there lol
 
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Ordered 5 toys for Jardy yesterday :D planning on taking her with me to petsmart (about an 1hr 30min drive away in spokane) once she's settled in to get even more toys. I'll probably miss their buy 2 get 1 free deal by that time but they still have nice toys :p (of which I will boil sanitize of course. god knows how many icky grubby hands and layers of dust probably sat on them). Unfortunately I won't be able to build her play stand until the paycheck after I make the final payment on her. but I think she can last 2 weeks with 10 toys P:

Been taking on art commissions too :O made $100 off just 2 people so maybe I'll even be able to pay her off sooner than expected squeeee. depending on how many people commission me @_@ heh.
 
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Heeeeeeeeere's Jardy :D She has her leg up to her chest in that first photo :D which made me REAL happy cus from what I've read it means they're content with their surroundings, etc. I had fed her a few almonds. She ate a whole one, and then took a few bits after that. I offered her half of one before i left and she picked it up, dropped, it looked at my finger, and munched on my finger. the little turd... LOL

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I know we'll have a LOT of work to do for our future, but I'm excited. I know i'll probably go through phases of "omg wtf jardy stahp!" but that's just another hurdle we'll both have to get over down our many years together. She doesn't have a lot of toys, but then again they leave her out ALL day and most of the time she rides around the store on their shoulders or sits at the cashier desk and plays on a boing by the window.
 
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Man, what's the deal with petstores lining bird cages with sand, hamster shavings, or some other kind of mulch that promotes bacterial growth?
 
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Its walnut shell. of which I've read isn't a good choice either because, like you said, bacterial growth.

I plan to line my cage's tray with... oh what's it called... Carefresh or something? It was on My Safe Bird Store, it's just paper. That or just paper towel... but I feel paper towel is unsightly and birds can flip it up/over and crawl under it, etc.
 
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So some quick, curious questions:

I know that the store I'm getting her from has used a spray bottle to 'bathe' her, and that's all fine and dandy, but in the end I'd be moving her into the bathroom to mist anyways because I don't want to get her cage wet or anything around it. And I was thinking to just get her use to the shower instead, if just to sit atop my shower door and enjoy the warm 'misting' that easily gets up there. (I don't have a fancy shower head and I feel the water comes out far too hard for her to actually bathe in it, I'd have to get a new head before trying that) but how do you guys go about introducing the shower noise to the bird?

Also, I'd like to prepare her for vet visits, is there any way to make it as stress-less as possible? I know they probably towel them up for their own protect (as well as the vet's protection) which is fine but at the same time I'd like to avoid it as much as possible @_@ Would simple things like clicker training of sorts to get her to let me say pull her wings out, lay her on her back, so on so forth be a good place to start?

Also, I know I do eventually want to let her flight feathers grow back out. However, I'm 99.99% certain that she was never fledged, being in a pet store her whole life I'm sure they've clipped them probably as soon as they could. So I'm sure her flying capabilities will be very poor. How can I work on strengthening this? I know clipped birds can still possess the ability to lift themselves up just by pure strength, but their lands are pretty much always wonky. I don't want to just let her feathers fully grow in without her having even learned 'proper flying' so to speak, that just spells trouble to me, with a capital 'T'. Should I just clip less and less as time goes on, slowly allowing more of the feather to stay intact while helping her 'practice' if I even can?



I feel like I have more thoughtful questions but they're escaping me at the moment o-o


edit: Oh and yes one more quick Q because I read about this in a different thread. So... The very first time I met her, she had plenty of opportunities to really bite me, but all she's ever done is given me pressure bites. They're uncomfortable, but never painful. The first time I knew it was just from me moving to fast. I had gotten her to step up and went to slowly and gently 'pet her' so to speak and she nommed my finger. But the other times they've just seemed random to me. Those ones were usually pretty 'gentle' in comparison to the first one. And of course there have been other times where she's opened her beak and leaned forward in an attempt to nom me (it's never fast lunging, it's always like a slow lean forward with beak open) and I just drop my hand slightly out of her reach, or i'll move my hand to the topside of her beak. I've actually 'pet' her beak a few times after her 'lazy' attempts to bite me. She doesn't snake her head around to try and bite, just kind of sits there, beak still open as if she thinks she can still bite me but doesn't actually try. I'll stroke the rim of her beak a few times then retreat and she'll go back to doing whatever it was she was doing before. Of course, the latest time was me feeding her an almond, where she took it, rotated it around a bit, dropped it, and made a 'semi-quick' nom at my finger. That one surprised me cus I wasn't expecting it at all (she had a almond in her mouth... why would i.. LOL) and when she gripped my finger i pulled back sharply -slaps self, bad. naughty me- out of shock, not pain. It was like all the others, just an uncomfortable pressure. So... is this just her being hesitant with me in a way? Is she 'testing' me? She's had PLENTY of times to really do some damage, but never seemed interested in really hurting me. Which... believe me I'm grateful for. That beak can be pretty intimidating on such a tiny bird haha. But like I told the staff there, "You shouldn't get a bird and expect never to be bit because it's going to happen at LEAST once." so I'm not afraid of being bitten. Well... not afraid, but of course, obviously I wouldn't every put her anywhere near my face, etc. during these early stages of our relationship because that DOES make me uncomfortable. As far as run-of-the-mill bites... I like to think she wouldn't be capable of say... breaking my finger/removing my finger like a macaw could if they really wanted to heh (although I know you really gotta mess up to have that done to you, that or just unlucky circumstances). Let me know you're thoughts on this please. This could jut be normal behavior too, perhaps I'm over thinking it P:
 
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Got jardy home! She chirped a bit while she ate few almonds and some of her food. Hasn't touched her water bowl yet.

The first place I put her down was her food area (figured that was the best place to introduce first) and now she's just sitting on the platform between her bowls. I figure this is normal for a bird in a new home? To sit somewhere 'secure' I guess you could call it.

She is making.... oh i dont' know how to describe it at all. It's kind of a... the closest I could call it that even makes any remote sense is kind of like a.... 'birdy purr'???? it's like a deep... vibratey..... chirp...... ???? and every time i get out my phone to record it she stops (go figure LOL) but she moves between her food bowl and the platform and is scratching and preening and such. just hasn't moved to explore the rest of her cage aside from a quick climb from one end to the other along the bars (law).

:)

my cat of course is absolutely absorbed, staring at her, but she knows once i snap my fingers and tell her no, or gently poke her she settles down a bit from her tail twitching to just laying down staring at Jardy -facepalm- but the second I leave the room she has to climb on my desk and get right up in the birds face so I have to move her butt out any time i leave my room (whether to go to the bathroom or get a drink) cus I don't trust her. 2 years and she still tries to smoosh her face against my gecko tanks so I think this will be a thing that wont go away hahah. Oh well. I was prepared to deal with this anyways, so not a shocker.
 
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First night went ok. I did buy a cover for the cage but when I attempted to cover her up for the night she flipped (cover was moved slowly btw) so I gave up on that. I opened the cage door to see if she had hurt herself, seemed fine but she quickly shimmied up the wall and glomped herself onto my hand. I pet her head a bit which she didn't seem to mind at all and then she turned herself around and climbed my shirt to my shoulder, I was like "Oh great.... not sure if this is something I should be allowing so soon" but she just sat herself down. Pooped on me (which I proceeded to easily clean up with my trusty 'poop-off' spray and from there she kind of played with my hair and then climbed herself atop my head @_@. Couldn't help but snap a picture first before I took her off. She easily stepped up for me off my head and went back into her cage.

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So then I just figured I'd turn the lights off and hop in bed well, the second the light went off she flipped out. So that left me goin' well, the hell am I suppose to do now? I don't have a lamp to leave on for her. Then an idea hit me and I went downstairs to steal the nightlight from the hallway and plopped it in. Turned the light off and tada, she seemed at ease.


Morning was quiet, she ate. I kept waking up (at 4am, then 6am, and finally 7:40am and i couldn't get back to sleep) cus I was worried about her. Still hasn't left her food area. She's chirped a bit, etc. but she seemed to want out whenever I get up where her first interest is climbing atop the cage rather than attention from me, but there isn't anything to do atop her cage other than just sit there. I haven't constructed her playstand yet and probably won't be able to get to it for another week or so.

I don't know if I should let her out or no? To me I feel she should first get used to the inside of the cage, and once she starts exploring it and seemed comfortable moving around, then let her out. Let me know your thoughts on this guys.
 
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She's started sittin on her rope perch now. god the petstore had her spoiled. She likes to dictate when she should get attention, and although I dont mind ignoring the noise, I don't want it to drive my dad crazy so I've been giving her attention when she's not releasing loud ear-piercers. She's slowly catching on what is and isn't acceptable now.

Got the morning wake-up cal at 7am. I can easily deal with the noise, doesn't bother me int he least bit but 7am for dad prob isn't ideal so I'm going to introduce the cover again more slowly so that I can at least buy an 8am wake-up call (hopefully) which is perfectly fine. On days off anyways. LOL on work days dad has to wake up at 7am anyways (im up at 6am usually) so not a big deal on those days.

She's a bit moody though and when she's out, whether cage top or my shoulder (upon my own intro) she sometimes attempts to bite and growl while she does it so I've been telling her "no bite" and putting her back in her cage when i get her on my hand again.


P: Hopefully I'm doing things right heh...
 
She sounds great. I'll have to update my post on my new addition, things are going great with him too!
 
I do think they are a lot more noisey than you read about though, they make noises similar to an African Grey. Mine frequently whistles and beeps quote loudly but it's quite pleasant, not screechy or ear piercing.
 
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she's actually relatively quiet except when she wants something, and those are pretty loud

She'll scream first thing in the morning because she wants out, and that is not acceptable. So, she needs to learn that she's not always going to be let out in the morning because most of the time I have work.

I need to talk to dad too because he'll come into my room if I leave before him when she starts screaming and talk to her and that's not going to help at all. She also really likes him, so if she thinks screaming will get his attention then we're in for a huge mess.

And i need to tell him to stop picking her up, because she never wants off him which means I have to step in to get her off and thats when she REALLY tries to bite me. Already got me pretty good. So he's just making more problems than I need right now.


It always gets worse before it gets better right? -sigh- The petstore spoiled her.... a LOT more than I originally thought
 
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