Adele at home

Last week I got very sick and stayed home the entire week. I think the birds were very happy and Manzi has been much better again. On Monday I was hit bad with being sick and stayed in bed all day. I didn't let them out nearly the entire day except an hour when I was on the couch laying down. The birds have been very well behaved. So Tuesday I was also in bed most of the day, but I left their cages open and they pretty much stayed on their cages.
I remember the first two years that I had Manzi, I was able to leave him out while I went to check the mail, get water, etc. Then Manzi learned that he could get into trouble while I was away and began to take advantage of it. For some reason, Manzi is back to staying nicely on his cage while I run out for quick errands. I'm not sure how long this will last, but it is nice. I was able to leave him out nearly the entire day on Tuesday and the rest of the week as I spent most of the time in bed. He did wander into my room twice the whole time wondering what was going on. Maui was not quite so well behaved. She will try over and over to get to what ever spot appears of nest quality. I put her back about five times before I finally lock her in her cage. After a while, I will let her out again and about 50% of the time she will try right away to go to the spot again.
A wonderful thing about African Greys are their inherent ability to be in tune with human emotions. I'm sure this is attributed to their strong "flock" sense and their dependency on each other for survival. Anyway, when I am sick, both birds (but especially Manzi since he is so strongly bonded with me) are more quiet, more affectionate and less demanding. It is really nice and makes me love them all the more.

Good news, the giant cage is coming tomorrow. I found volunteers to help me carry it upstairs and into my apartment (370 lbs) and more volunteers to help set it up. The bad news is that I have friends coming to town this weekend and next weekend I will be in a conference, so I won't have time to set it up for two weeks. At least I will appreciate it's weight and grandeur. I am excited to get it set up and stick the two critters inside. I'm sure it will help with their bonding (i.e. learning not to kill each other).

Manzi biting my poor foot

Manzi bit me on my foot again this morning, really hard. I need to work with him as that is a terrible habit. I don’t think animals are really good or bad. I think they behave in certain manners due to training and/or genetic design. I need to figure out how to untrain Manzi from thinking that biting feet is a good idea. I was in the bathroom at the time he bit me, in front of the mirror. When I go in the bathroom in the morning, to brush my teeth and do my hair, he always comes in and puffs up at me getting defensive. I usually have shoes on at this time, so he cannot hurt my feet. If I leave the bathroom, he will stay in there for a short while, but will usually come out after a few minutes. It is like he wants attention, but then he gets very defensive when I am in the bathroom with him. I was putting him on the shower perch where he can see me get ready, but he can fly again and usually flies to the ground to run around and bite things (shower curtain, cabinets, rugs).

Maybe I can start feeding him a small breakfast in the bathroom on the sink in order to keep him occupied while I am getting ready. I could just keep him locked in his cage, but he is locked in his cage so much as it is with me working full time. I might start hiding pellets in pieces of newspaper again and then in the morning putting some in the bathroom to give him something to do.

I think Manzi has been suffering with Maui taking a chunk of my attention and with me working full time.

By the way, Maui has not had any more seizures. There was a bad lightning and thunder storm the other night while she was sitting on my lap. She flinched the first few times that she saw the lightning and/or heard the thunder, but then she was fine.

Seizure

Maui had a seizure on Monday, but now she is doing fine. It was terrible to see as I was holding her at the time. It lasted about two minutes total and took her another five or so to recover. I called a vet and found out that it is not that unusual. I had just taken Maui outside for the first time and she began to get very fearful. Next thing I knew, she began to twitch. She did small twitches at first and gradually increased to out of control convulsing with her head flopped off to the side and her eyes closed. Her body went limp. I tried to shield her from the environment and I held her close. After another minute she stopped and was just laying in my hands for another few minutes. Then she was able to stand up and within another five minutes or so she began to chat away. It scared the living daylights out of me as I would be devastated if she just died or something. Anyway, she seems just fine and is running around like normal, chatting away. Hopefully it was just a onetime thing where she was overwhelmed by going outside for the first time this year. I am watching her very carefully.

I ordered the large cage rather than attempted to build an aviary. It turns out to cost about the same price, but with much, much less work. The aviary won't be too big as it is really the largest cage I could find that would fit through my sliding glass door. It is 64" x 36" x 72". It is much larger than either of their current cages. I will keep it out on the patio during the summer and it can fit in the spot of their two cages during the winter. It back ordered and won't be available for a while (mid-July). I already collected lots of branches to go inside. I still need to build the plexiglass wind break area for them as it does spontaneously get windy.

I have greatly neglected this blog and would like to offer my apologies. I will be better in the future (this is so open ended. Does it mean forever, or just at one point in time? I can only offer this deal as it is easily fulfilled given the latter definition).