The Life and Times of Manzi and Maui

Maui's loose!

2012-02-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

I forgot to close Maui’s cage this morning. I was able to see on the camera. I have been locking them away from the food, so they are more encouraged to eat together. This morning neither of the birds was interested in their food, so I left the dishes in front of their cages with them locked up (or so I thought). A few minutes ago I checked their cages and saw that Maui’s was open. I am sure she will go down and eat her food to her crop’s content, and she will probably antagonize Manzi, as she has been doing whenever he is in his cage. Poor Manzi. Maybe he’ll have a bad day today.
Since taking away the eggs, Maui has stopped being overly aggressive, which is Manzi’s cue to try and re-assert dominance. Yesterday he did two fly-by, dive bombs at Maui. She is always ready for him and isn’t caught off guard. I’m not sure the food technique is working. It took a couple days to get them hungry enough to eat together, then over the weekend since I was gone quite a bit I fed them in their cages, so I have not been very effective in implementing this strategy. I am losing my discipline.

Please send me an email if you're interested in access to the online camera. Also, remember not to leave it open all day (as was done by my sister: see previous post's comments).

Success at last

2012-02-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

I have a replacement camera and it is up and running! I will only leave it running during the day, and while I am on vacation, and other times I forget to turn it off.

If using internet explorer, it has sound as well. The site to access the camera is:
http://manziworld.hopto.org:8150

Once there, you will need to log in. To get log in information, please send me an email at adele (dot) thompson7 (at) gmail (dot) com.

An update on the birds:
I took Maui's eggs away from her yesterday. She was very distraught about it and searched for over an hour digging around in her cage looking for the eggs. This morning, she tried to stuff a large toy ball underneath her body. The toy was one of these, that has a bell in the middle. It is nearly the size of her body.

I began feeding the birds together again on the ground. I started last night. Manzi refused to eat on the ground and went without his dinner. I thought he would be more hungry in the morning, but he ran around all morning getting into trouble while Maui chowed away. Anyway, but this evening he finally humbled himself enough to eat off a plate on the ground, next to Maui. Hopefully this will get them to be more tolerable of each other.

Tomorrow night I will check my email and send out the user name and password to the the camera. Be mindful of the bandwidth and don't leave it on constantly in the background.

Thank you,

Adele

Utter failure

2012-01-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

The camera was defective. This is my second defective camera. It was a different company this time, but same camera (it is supposed to be really good). The company will replace it, hopefully with a working one.

Maui hasn't lain any more eggs since the last post.

More Eggs!!!

2012-01-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

Maui’s egg laying is beginning to worry me. She is now on her 22^th egg and I can feel that she has a 23^st on the way. I did not take her last one away as I thought that maybe if she sits on them she will stop laying. The problem with that is that when she has an egg to protect, she does too good of a job. She won’t let Manzi get anywhere close to her cage area. Just to show him who is boss, she ran to his cage and chased him out. Manzi wasn’t quite fast enough, so Maui caught his wing with her foot and began biting at him. I heard the scurrying followed by really loud shrieks from Manzi, so I quickly put an end to that. Manzi stays as far away from her as possible now and keeps an eye on her in case she decides to teach him any more lessons.

Yesterday, a friend who usually comes over about once per week, stopped by. Maui usually follows this friend around, but doesn’t threaten or allow any scratching. It is as though she is still deciding whether to make friend or foe. Anyway, yesterday when the friend was over, Maui left her egg and stayed on top of her cage the entire time. She didn’t follow the friend around, but she didn’t sit on her egg either. I thought maybe she gave up on the egg, but as soon as the friend left she was back to sitting on the egg. It seems she is very sensitive to visitors. I noticed this before, but I didn’t think she would be like this with someone who comes over on a regular basis.

I am not sure what to do about Maui’s nesting. As soon as I let her out of her cage, she goes for the cabinet (well, while not sitting on eggs) and digs around, nesting, for hours until she is hungry. After a quick snack, she runs back to the cabinet. If I keep the cabinet closed, she’ll chew on it trying to open it up. If I block off the cabinet, she’ll find somewhere else. She desperately wants to nest, sit on an egg and raise it, but just as desperately she wants to keep Manzi away from her. She doesn’t realize that Manzi, or any male African grey, is a must in the procreation arena. To stop her from nesting, I can keep Maui locked up in her cage, but I really don’t like this option. I’m still not sure what to do about this dilemma.

I got a new camera and tomorrow am going to have it set up. Hopefully it will be on the web shortly after that.

Vacation again

2011-12-27T18:04:00.000-08:00

I went away for Christmas weekend. Maui had an egg in her cage when I came back. She's laid two in the past week. She is not following the twice/year laying cycle and this is her third cycle for the year. Maybe me giving up on kicking her out of the cupboard made her think she won and was ready to raise some babies. She's in the cupboard right now tidying up the place. Thanks to her, I have to wash every pot before use. It could be worse.

I realize I haven't taken photos of them in a while. I need to do a photo shoot. My parent's house has a wall with photos of all their grandchildren. Seeing that I have no human children, my mother offered to put up photos of her reptilian grandchildren. I need to think of a good scene. Maybe some snow, presents...

Any ideas?

Together in Harmony

2011-12-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

Well, not quite. Maui is used to Hercules and doesn't bother him anymore. Hercules doesn't pay any attention to Maui, but he does tuck in when Manzi comes up to him. Manzi is still very interested in Hercules.

Cage update: The company is sending out two new panels for the cage (the doors were made incorrectly and they rubbed when opened) at no cost to me. They said it is too expensive to ship the old ones back, so I can just keep them. They are really large, so maybe I can figure out something to do with them.

My internet is up and flying so I also bought a camera on ebay. Unfortunately the camera was sent with the wrong charger and instead of getting the correct one, the guy wants me to send it back (foregoing the risk of me plugging in the wrong charger and blowing the thing). I have a computer expert on my side though, so I have no concerns. Once I get this sorted, I should have a new camera soon.

I am paying a neighborhood kid to clean the cages. I started with one kid and am on to the second (scheduling conflicts). This one is amazing. She does a very thorough job and works quickly. I may never have to scrub my cages again. It is like all the benefits of owning an animal without any drawbacks. Neighbor kids are great!

Manzi and Maui have been doing better. They haven't had any skirmishes in quite a while. No preening or anything, but no aggression. Maui still bites at Manzi's feet whenever he lands on her cage, but that is normal and Manzi is smart enough to land far away from her and to leave when she gets anywhere close. Manzi has gone to the ground a couple of times and watched Maui. I haven't seen him do that before and was wondering what he is doing. It appears that he is just observing her, maybe trying to figure out what it is that she is doing. Manzi has never really taken an interest in Maui before. He usually either shows aggression or completely ignores her. Anyway, I should be getting the new cage part soon and can then continue the experiment of getting them to like each other (or at least tolerate each other).

An Egg from Maui

2011-11-23T18:51:00.000-08:00

All of Maui's digging around in the cabinet was not for nothing. She laid an egg. She has only laid one so far. The first two times she laid five, but the third time she only laid four (maybe it was three). She might lay some more. This egg cracked as she laid it too high up, so she didn't even attempt to sit on it.

I put Hercules (the tortoise) in the kitchen while I am away at work as he has more room. The first day I put him there while I was getting ready for work. Maui had immediately ran over to the cabinet to dig around. Hercules happened to walk towards her cabinet. Maui was not happy. She came out all fluffed up. When it didn't deter Hercules' slow walk towards the cabinet, she began making some bluff charges. That didn't shake Hercules either. Then Maui reached out to touch him and he tucked into his shell. That quick movement was enough to startle Maui and she ran away. Hercules wasn't in his shell for more than a few seconds and he passed right by the cabinet. When I returned home that evening Maui didn't pay Hercules any attention.

Hercules is really liking the extra space. He now has the entire kitchen/dining/entry/bathroom room area, which is 20 times the size of his indoor pen. Within a day I noticed he regained his appetite.

I am working on my high-speed internet. I'll have it next week and hopefully a camera will follow that before long, with online streaming of the birds.

Trouble, as usual

2011-11-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

Maui has been trying to find nesting sites around my apartment. Finally she began entering my kitchen island and digging around in the back. I usually remove her right away as my pots are on that bottom shelf. I also tried keeping the doors shut, but that resulted in bite marks on the outside as she tried to open them. In addition, she doesn't like the lining I put on that shelf and immediately began to remove it. Her love for that nesting spot resulted in her immediately going there as soon as I would let her out of her cage. It got so bad that I would have to remove her 6+ times within an hour of getting home from work.
After a couple weeks, I gave up and let her have that nesting spot. I put some newspapers in there to hopefully keep her from getting into other trouble. It has now been a couple of weeks and luckily she is still interested in that area. She began chewing part of the shelf, but I just adjusted a couple of pots and since she has been back to chewing the paper. I hope that shelf keeps her interest for as long as possible. Maui is such a determined bird. Manzi will go after something, but he gives up within a few days to up to a week. Not Maui.

Manzi has been super active lately. I don't know what has gotten into him, but he is flying like crazy for the last two weeks. He does laps and laps around my place. Sometimes diving at Maui, but more often going on the fridge to toss items off, landing on the counter, going into my closet to chew on clothes, etc. His ability to move around my apartment is amazing. He is an expert agility flier and can get through doorways, fly blindly around corners, hover while deciding where to go, etc. I am trying to recall train him again to get him ready for next Spring. Hopefully with this agility he'll be perfectly fine outside. There are bald eagles, but as long as he can see them I'm sure he'll be able to out-maneuver them.

Back to two cages

2011-09-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Manzi and Maui were in the large cage for two days without problems. After work on Monday they began to fight. I was home sick on Tuesday and they fought all day long. I finally separated them Tuesday evening. I have a new plan. I will keep them separate for a week and then start again.

One reason for their fighting became evident Tuesday evening, when Maui laid an egg. Last night she laid another egg (she's up to two, three more to go). She has been very defensive over her eggs. I am taking them away from her.

I am also going to continue to give Maui first feeding/petting/etc. to show that she is the dominant bird. I still give Manzi as much attention, just after Maui first receives attention. Hopefully after a week of this they will get along better when reintroduced.

Another minor tuffle

2011-09-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

Maui ran into the bathroom. I chased after her and Manzi after the both of us. When I turned on the light, Manzi launched himself at Maui. He jumped back quickly and then she went after him. I grabbed him by his tail and pulled him back to separate the two. I thought he would bite me, but surprisingly he didn't seem to mind. There were a few feathers on the ground, but despite how close they were fighting, no one got any bites. I imagine puffing up is a good protection against beaks. I would have known if either of them got bit as they are both babies and would scream to let me know of their pain.

Tomorrow I am bringing in the large cage on the patio and the birds will begin their lifelong companionship in the same cage. I have only seen the two fight when I am in close proximity to them. Otherwise, they entertain each other and whistle to each other. It is only when I am around that they seem to fight over their relationship with me. I have recently begun a new technique to help make them both more comfortable with their positions. Maui has asserted her dominance over Manzi the last few months and Manzi have given way, for the most part. She goes after Manzi when I am around to put him in his place. I heard, from my old neighbor (the behaviorist), the if I give her attention first, feed her first, scratch her first at every interaction, that she will not feel the need to continue asserting her dominance over Manzi. I cannot neglect Manzi and immediately need to follow the attention I give Maui, with attention for Manzi. It might be a bit stressful for Manzi at first, but then he will not get hurt or attacked by Maui.

On the plus side, they will have a huge cage to play in all day and companionship while I am away.

I realize the webcam was a big failure. I found a much nicer webcam (that can be controlled by users, which is really cool), but now my internet connection is limiting. It is ridiculously slow. I am working on upgrading that. Once done, I will set up the new webcam and hopefully post it to this site or something like that so it can be easily accessed by others (including myself while at work).

Neighbor's cat

2011-09-01T18:43:00.000-07:00

The neighbors have a cat that looks out from his patio and meows at Manzi and Maui in the outdoor cage. The cat will sit and meow for a good deal of time. A couple days ago, I heard him come out while my birds were outside and he began meowing at them. After just a few minutes, Maui began to meow back. She did such a perfect imitation of his many different meows. It drove the cat crazy and it meowed all the more. The whole scene was quite funny.

Manzi and Maui can now imitate all of the local wild birds, the neighbor's cat, the police sirens and the whistles of all my neighbors who get suckered into giving the birds attention.

I think the birds will be disappointed come winter and they have to stay indoors all day.

Update on the webcam: I only get it set up a couple times per week. Unfortunately, the weather here is unpredictable with frequent storms (in which case I must keep the birds in for the day if there will be storms at any point during my workday). In addition, my webcam is of very poor quality. I will buy a much better one, as soon as I find one I like. I plan on using it every day, even while they are indoors during the winter. I haven't quite yet setup an easy system. Hopefully that will come along soon.

WEBCAM!!!

2011-08-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

I now have a webcam for Manzi and Maui. I can share it with anyone interested. You must first go to www.gotocamera.com and make an account. Then, send me your email (that you logged with the camera site) and I will share the camera with you. I was so scared to leave them on the patio in the big cage during the day, but now I can check on them all day long. They seem to be happy out there as they usually don't want to come back in. The only time both have eagerly stepped up on my hand was when I waited till after sunset and it began getting dark. Otherwise, Maui tries to push my hand away and Manzi runs. I end up grabbing the feet of both to drag them inside.

Not performing

2011-08-11T19:27:00.001-07:00

Manzi and Maui have become the attraction of the apartments. I am right above one of the entrances, so while out on the patio, Manzi and Maui whistle at everyone walking by. Oftentimes, I can hear kids or even adults talking to them from the ground (I'm on the second level). Today, two young boys spent a good 45 minutes talking and whistling to the birds. I went out on the patio for a bit and told the boys several phrases that Manzi and Maui can say, in an attempt to get the parrots to talk. Manzi and Maui were determined to whistle and pretend that they have no idea what I am bragging about. I went back inside to resume working. After a long time, the boys left. Within two minutes of them leaving, Manzi and Maui proceeded to go through every phrase that the boys were begging them to say. I couldn't help but laugh. Birds sure can be stubborn sometimes.

They sure are loving the attention they get on the patio. At first, I didn't hear much from them and they would go completely quiet as soon as someone came near. Now, Manzi and Maui whistle loud as soon as they see someone to get their attention. It works and often the person will come over and whistle with them for a while. Now I have two big show offs.

By the way, if you look at the pictures from the previous post, you should see Hercules (the tortoise) on the ground near the cage.

All settled into new cage.

2011-08-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

Manzi and Maui have been enjoying their time in the new cage. Maui has made it her job to remove all bark from the branches. Luckily they are completely safe so she is free to remove away.

I started out by putting them for a few hours at a time in the new cage. They were pretty intimidated at first, but now are climbing around and having fun.

Something scary happened while taking these photos. Maui decided to get Manzi. He was minding his own business, climbing around and watching me, when she climbed down towards him. She reached out towards him faster than he could protect himself and bite his beak/head. He immediately let out a piercing scream that lasted a few seconds. Maui let go and he ran to the other side of the cage and has been staying out of her way every since. I got really scared as I could only see his head in her mouth. They were moving so fast I couldn't tell what was going on. I thought maybe she got his eye or something. Luckily, he just had a small scratch on his cheek. I have seen Maui take out big chunks of skin, so I know she can do a lot more damage. Maybe she was just warning him. By the next day, I couldn't even see the mark on Manzi. He's had much worse damage from getting into fights with his toys.

I thought about not putting them out together, but that would only reinforce them not getting along. They have been outside most of the day today and hopefully will not have anymore scary episodes.

The interesting thing, after looking through the photos I had taken, I noticed I had the photo of Manzi in Maui's mouth. Here is from far away.
This is zoomed in.

Here is the post-bite trauma. Poor thing.

Here are some other photos of them in their cage. The wind blew all the newspapers into a mess. I am going to forget trying to use newspapers and just do the scrub & clean method.

I have a new plan with them. I will keep putting them out in this cage and when the winter comes, bring this inside as their winter cage, while putting their cages away for the winter. Then when summer comes, hopefully I can bring this big cage back outside and only bring out Manzi's cage for their inside cage. Then I can possibly get rid of Maui's cage and they will live happily together (I might be dreaming).

Cage Arrived

2011-07-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

The cage arrived last Saturday and a friend came over today to help set it up. It is pretty huge. I haven't got it all decorated, but I do have lots of huge branches to put inside. I am also going to make a plexiglass wind-break.

I'm leaving for a week, but when I get back, I'll get to work on that.

Adele at home

2011-06-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

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).

Winners

2011-05-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

There was a tie for first place, with two people getting perfect scores (I have plenty of feathers to reward both winners). Unfortunately, second and third place contestants are not winners. I can send Madeline a feather though as she appreciates it.
1. Rachael and Deda
2. Steph (you only missed one)
3. Misa

I was going to rank the last four people, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I can only say that Lynette got last place, but I'm sure she still tried her best (you're welcome Lynette:).

To me, the birds are quite easy to tell apart, but that is not the case for everyone. Here are a few tips. Maui has the leg band on her right leg while Manzi's is on the left. Maui has lighter feathers. She also has the eye spots making both her pupils look odd shapes. Maui has much more feathers around her neck and her tail is quite a bit wider. Picture 5 is funny because you can actually see Maui on an egg if you look closely (click on the picture to blow it up) between her foot and her body.

I moved the shower perch to my glass door yesterday. I put both birds on it and they only lasted a few seconds. Maui is quite nervous on it. She is fine in the bathroom, but there is just too much going on outside and she is on too small of a perch. Manzi does just fine, but with both they are not a good combination. Maui's fear are highly contagious to Manzi and he thinks there is something that he should be terrified of as well. Once I take Maui off, Manzi is just fine again and sees it is just the fun outdoors. Hopefully Maui calms down on the perch.

Contest with Grand Prize

2011-04-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

Quick funny story:
I often scold Manzi in the morning when he begins to get into trouble by saying, "Manzi, stop it!" A few days ago I was eating my cereal when Manzi decided to get into my kitchen cabinets. I stood up to scold him and Maui beat me to it shouting out, "Manzi, stop it!" in a perfect imitation of my voice. That was the first time she had ever said that. I couldn't help but laugh.

Let the Contest begin:
Identify the picture as either Manzi or Maui. If both birds are in the photo, then state the order from left to right (Manzi, Maui or Maui, Manzi). In submission of your results, put the photo number and then your answer (120. Manzi. 121. Maui, Manzi. 122...). Now for the part that some people told me is weird: The winner of the contest will get two bright red, beautiful tail feathers mailed to them!

Just post your answer in the comments. I will delete your answers after I review them and then I will post the final scores in one week.

Number of players (so far): 8

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Preening!

2011-04-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

There was a break through. Manzi began to preen Maui. Not all out, but he did preen a few of her feathers. Maui was so patient with him as she held her head down for a full 5 minutes. I was a bit worried. Manzi first reached over, puffed up and pupils dilated (showing aggression) and pulled out a beakful of feathers. For some reason Maui didn’t scream and instead kept her head down. Manzi’s feathers depuffed and his eyes de-dilated and he then gently grabbed a feather and pulled it through his beak (in a preening manner). He did that a few more times and then they both got distracted as I moved. Anyway, it was a beautiful thing and I have real hope for these two.

Aviary news: I have decided to build them an aviary. It will not be very big, but still much bigger than either of their cages. I will put it on my patio so they can hang outside with Hercules during the day. I am still deciding on the dimensions, as I would like to be able to wheel it inside in case of a storm. That would mean it needs to get through my sliding glass door. I think I will make it 76" tall, 60" wide and 36" deep. I calculated the living space and that would make it 3 times the volume of Manzi's cage. I will make it out of steel and then also get it powder coated so it won't rust very easily at all. I am estimating the cost to be about $700 (I have to buy a spot welder). Luckily, I made a friend here in Minnesota who is extremely handy and will help in the construction. The estimated time frame is 2 months. Thursday I am going to buy the steel rods. I am going to weld it together out of 120 steel rods spaced at 1".

I am still working on the design. I want to make a wind shelter. I was thinking of using plexiglass so they could still see out, but it is very pricey and would probably cost an extra $100 (I was told it is $130 for a 4' x 8' piece). Maybe I'll do a metal wind shelter. I was thinking of making a shade for them too, but that can be out of material, although they might just chew it up. If anyone has ideas/comments please post them so I can incorporate them (if of redeeming value).

Eggs, eggs and more eggs (and a bit of a shower)

2011-03-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

I will start with the shower. After being accustomed to the gladiator perch, I moved them to the shower perch, which is only about a foot long. Maui has continued to be the dominant one. She is harrassing Manzi the entire time they are on the perch. She reaches out to touch him and gently grabs his beak. He has taken to holding his head away from her so she struggles to reach his beak. She is pretty persistent and will get right next to him. Manzi isn't sure what to do with her. He still likes his shower though and does not want to leave the perch.

Now on for the fun/exciting/possibly scary news. Maui is laying eggs again. She laid two on the floor of her cage and a third from a perch. The third (well, it was laid second) cracked, but two are in good condition and tucked nicely beneath her.

One of the eggs (the third one laid), has a small crack similar to one of last year's eggs.

It might be due to her homemaking skills. She has strategically shredded every bit of newspaper and cardboard within reach and then even more strategically pushed them out of her "nest" so she can rest cleanly on solid metal. I'm not sure I am really following her strategy. I also question her nest building strategies. I give her boxes to shred. Since Maui has been in breeding mode, her strategy to nestitize a box begins with the bottom. She immediately enters the box and removes the floor. Once that is complete, she will work her way up the sides. Mind you, cardboard boxes are not the most sound structures. Once they have the bottom completely removed they begin to loose their well known stability. That stability is even more questionable when the sides began to be compromised. Within a couple of days (sometimes they last up to three if they are very thick cardboard) they collapse. It is pretty funny because Maui will try and pick the top up and scoot underneath it, but then it is resting solely on her and she doesn't stay still enough for that to last for long.
I let Maui keep two eggs as she is just so cute sitting on them. She is eating and drinking just fine so I'm not worried. She does not mind me reaching my hand in her nest and feeling the two eggs. I have taken her out a couple of times, but it isn't voluntary and she will completely collapse in my hand so I have to scoop her up by her body.
When someone came over, after the first egg was lain, she was upset by it. I was surprised as she is usually so good with company. Anyway, she left her egg and went on top of her cage. That was the first time she left her egg (it had only been 24 hours). After an hour or so she went back into her nest and pushed her egg out halfway across the cage. Then she left her nest again. If she does breed, that is good to note not to let visitors around as I wouldn't want her do that to a fertilized egg.

Lastly, I looked up AI (not artificial intelligence, the other one) to see if that would be possibility because I heard that one parent can raise chicks just fine by themselves. It looks way too complicated and I can imagine Manzi getting pretty ticked off being a test dummy. I work with poultry specialists, but they work with chickens who do not commonly need AI. I need a specialists with parrots. Any volunteers?

Maui encroaching

2011-03-20T14:36:00.001-07:00

It has been nearly a week since Manzi and Maui are perching together. It is funny. Maui now is nearly at the halfway point on the perch while Manzi is at the very edge. Maui starts at the edge, but slowly gets closer and closer to Manzi. He will walk over to her to harass her a bit and then run back surprised that not only does she not back down, but she seems to enjoy his attention.
Manzi still seems very perplexed. He is no longer showing much aggression, but he does still fluff up at Maui. Either way, it doesn't work.
Soon I hope to take them on the shower perch together. That perch is much smaller, but they seem to be just fine. No more jousting or anything like the first couple of times they were stuck together. They do bite beaks, but much more respectfully. At first they had lunged at each other and gotten quite worked up (as you can see in the photo below). This gives me a lot of hope for being able to cage them together. The only problem with that is that Manzi's cage would be better than Maui's cage as it is so much larger, but there is probably no way that Manzi would allow Maui to enter his cage.
Maybe I can get an even larger cage that they can both enjoy. I had thought about sectioning off part of the living area for them, but that might be too much work, be too expensive and cause too much damage to my rented apartment.

Gladiator!!!

2011-03-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today I enforced their getting along by putting them together on a perch. They did better than I thought they would as after a while, they just hung out together without any threatening.

Here is right after I put them together. They were both a bit unsure of the situation.
I like this photo of Maui acting shy while Manzi keeps a close eye on her.

If you notice, before Manzi tries anything, he keeps his eye on me checking to make sure he's not going to get into trouble and that it's okay. Here they are just beginning to test the waters.
They did connect beaks several times (they're not kissing). Luckily, their beaks are hard and no damage was done.

Before they became too docile, I did snap some photos of them sorting things out. It wasn't until I looked through the film that I realized I had a gem.

I think this turned out to be good. The birds dealt with each other and were not entirely aggressive towards each other. I am less than an arm's length away from them, but hopefully they will be well adjusted to their time together and can eventually go in an aviary together.

Face off

2011-03-09T17:50:00.000-08:00

Manzi has continued chasing Maui around. A few days ago Maui was on the ground and Manzi began to chase her. She ran just a foot before turning around and facing him. They were within a few inches of each other, just staring when Manzi turned away. He is all talk. That happened a couple more times and then he stopped chasing her.

Maui is fully into nesting behavior again. She is working diligently to make a nest and I wouldn't be surprised if I began to see eggs again. Spring is coming.

I gave them a new seed mix today before leaving to work. Manzi ate most of his, while much to my pleasure, Maui had eaten only half, throwing the other half out of her food dish. She has an amazing ability to throw as pieces were at least three feet away. As soon as I let Manzi out of his cage he ran to the ground and ate up the feed Maui tossed. Manzi must have been paying attention.

As a side note, I notice a difference in the speed at which the bird's eyes adjust to the light after being taken out in the morning. Manzi's eyes adjust nearly instantly, while Maui's stay dilated for much longer (about three times as long). As such, she doesn't see her cage well enough to step onto it right when I bring her out and she doesn't step down until I touch her to it and she feels it. I can see her eyes really dilated and as soon as the pupils shrink down again she begins to wander around. I wonder if that has to do with her age.

Fire Alarm

2011-02-28T19:25:00.000-08:00

I had a friend over from Davis. Anyway, she thought I need to take more photos with Manzi. I did not get Maui in the photo shoot. Here is one of the photos.

Maui did something interesting this morning. She was preening and a tail feather came out. She then grabbed the tail feather in her foot and used it to scratch her head. She did that for about 10 minutes until I pressed record on the video camera. At that point she dropped the feather and refused to pick it up again when I handed it to her.
When I first got Maui, she didn't know how to properly use her preening gland. It is a gland which makes oils to keep their feathers conditioned and water proof. She would move her head towards the gland, but not make contact, nor would she spread the oil around. Just last week she finally started using her preening gland. She must have watched Manzi and picked it up. Maybe now her feathers will begin to darken to Manzi's color.

Manzi and Maui went through a stage a couple of weeks ago of fighting a lot, but they are doing better again. Manzi has been harassing Maui, but not so bad. Sometimes when she is on the ground, Manzi will chase her around. She usually flies back up to her cage when this happens. I was pretty ticked at Manzi a couple weeks ago. I was making some beaded earrings. He was playing on his cage when he decided to go to the ground. That was fine, but I didn't realize Maui was already on the ground. Next thing I heard her shriek terribly afraid. I jumped up and realized that Maui was on the ground cornered by the cabinets, but charging at Manzi. Manzi backed down as Maui stood her ground. She was fine, but the worst part was that when I jumped up, startled, I accidentally tipped over my container of beads spilling hundreds of them on the carpet. That took a while to fix.

Lastly, on Friday I was not happy with the birds. I came home and they were making the incredibly loud shriek over and over all evening. I had to move (I am about 10' closer to the sky, but the exact same longitude and latitude), so I had a couple people over that were complaining that their ears were hurting. I didn't know why the birds were making that noise, until a neighbor came over wondering how the birds dealt with the fire alarm that went off that day. I found out it was going off for 1/2 hour before it finally got shut off. I found out that it happened a couple of months before too, about the time they first started making that noise. Their cages are right below the alarm. That is why they were making that noise. Hopefully it goes away. They have already been making it less since Friday, but it takes about six months for them to drop a noise.

License plates arrived!!!!

2011-02-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

Isn't he darling?

The plates just came today. When I become a two-car household, my second car will have Maui. I am so excited to have moved to a state that still has Manzi's name available on license plates.

New Trick

2011-02-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

I decided to get back into trick training with Manzi. It has been a while. I have been doing some maintenance, but no real training. Also, I abandoned his play stand in Davis so he has not known what to do when I ask him to play dead (previously he would fall backward on his playstand perch and hang upside down). His new trick is copying off Michael's Kili. It is playing dead on the ground. I point the gun, and am wanting Manzi to fall over onto his back. He is putting his foot up for me to roll him over on his back as soon as I point the gun. The first couple of times he whined protests while I put him on his back, but then he saw that he got a treat out of the deal and stopped complaining. Hopefully we'll have this trick down in a few days.

Maui got scared today and circled around. She missed the landing on her cage and circled again. By then she was tired and landed on Manzi's cage. He was on his cage too and flew at her. She shrieked pretty loud and Manzi backed off. I was there in an instant, but hesitated separating them as it seemed they knew enough to give each other space. I am still torn between wanting to keep them safe by not letting them have a chance at biting each other, and allowing them to work out their own differences. I have heard they probably won't really hurt each other, but the possibility is there.

Earlier this evening Manzi was under Maui's cage, scavenging. Maui got a bit irritated when she saw him so she went to the bottom of her cage, just above where Manzi was. Then she began to drop pieces of newspaper shreds on him. Manzi was pretty upset. He fluffed up and threatened her. Maui grew tired of that and finally went back up to her perch, allowing Manzi to continue scavenging in peace.

Sleeping in the closet

2011-02-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

I have been having trouble with Manzi and Maui. I wake them up around 7am every day while I am getting ready for work. The trouble is on the weekends if I stay up late. They patiently wait all the way until 8am in the morning before wondering what is going on. Then they lose their patience and begin to call, whistle, scream, talk and basically enjoy the morning. I thought that is all and fine as I should not be sleeping in, but they wait until 8am because it doesn't get light until then. What happens when it gets light before 6am? Then I came up with the closet plan. I set their travel cages back up and converted them into their sleeping cages.
The first day they were ticked and were screaming for a long time. I set up a night light in the closet. I strategically picked the closet of my second room so it has to go through quite a few walls before I hear them. The second night they were better, but still protested. The third night I turned off their night light when I heard them protest. I gave them an almond each time I put them to bed too. It has been about five nights now and they hope right into their sleeping cages. I think they have happily adjusted and they do not scream at all when I put them in, or in the morning before I take them out.

I took a nap a few days ago when I wasn't feeling well. I heard the birds chatting away. Manzi screamed and it was quickly followed by Maui saying, "Knock it off!" She had such a stern voice and said it crystal clear. It took me a moment to realize it was her as I thought maybe someone outside was telling my birds that. I haven't heard her use that in a while. Manzi cycles through phrases, but Maui seems to retain everything and bring them up spontaneously.

Lastly, I ordered my Manzi license plate. He is going to be famous.

Very funny note:
Someone asked, "how does one convert a travel cage to a sleeping cage?"
The reply by coworker, "remove the car and add a closet."

Maui punking Manzi

2011-01-25T19:52:00.000-08:00

Maui has done a couple of things to punk Manzi lately. Here is the first situation:
Manzi has been doing a very high pitch screech. I finally got fed up with him one day and scolded him right after a scream and flicked some water on him (my hands were wet from washing dishes). Manzi got very quiet for a moment and then screamed again. I repeated scolding him again and flicking some more water at him. Manzi got quiet again and this time instead of turning around to keep washing the dishes, I watched him. A second later I heard Maui do the same scream. It was as if she was thinking to herself, "So that noise brings about punishment to Manzi, hahaha! I can do that." As an ending note, I do not agree with getting mad and punishing Manzi in such a way and realize that this was a lapse in judgement and in patience.

Yesterday Manzi was running around getting into so much trouble. I finally stuck him back in his cage for a rest. Maui proceeded to stand on top of her cage and got within an inch on Manzi's cage. He got close to her from inside his cage and would fluff up at her, but she didn't get intimidated. She knew he could not come out and go after her so she just stayed there whistling away.

Maui gets in moods where she can be pretty feisty towards Manzi and has little patience with him. Besides that, they haven't had any scuffles lately. Manzi has continued on the path to cuteness with others and has not even threatened anyone lately. He is now enjoying the attention and scratches of others. I am almost ready to let my guard down, but I really don't want anyone to get a chunk taken out of their hands.

World of Numbers

2011-01-13T12:01:00.001-08:00

Being that I live in a world of numbers I found this comic incredibly amusing:

Yesterday something pretty amazing happened. A neighbor stopped by with his wife. They wanted to see my birds. The guy walked right up to Manzi and picked him up. Then he tried to pet Manzi's head. I nearly panicked as I don't want a bitten, bloody finger on my hands. The neighbor told me not to worry. Sure enough, Manzi did not bite him. He did grab his finger and tried to push him away. The neighbor still insisted and even touched Manzi's wings out of curiosity. The entire time Manzi would just try and push his hand away, or even put his head down allowing himself to get scratched. When the neighbor was finished (after about 10 minutes) he tried to put Manzi back on his cage. Usually at this point Manzi will jump off very quickly. Instead, Manzi held on tight not wanting to go back to his cage, preferring to be held by the stranger. I was amazed that Manzi took so well to this guy. Manzi is getting better and better with people. Maui does not bite me, but she has bitten others very hard. I also do not know her as well as Manzi. So, even though Manzi tends to be worse behaved, I do trust him a lot more with others as I can tell if he is going to bite or not. I was worried at first with this neighbor, but then I realized that they were both okay. He had absolutely no fear of Manzi. Manzi was a bit nervous at first, but then enjoyed the attention. I feel so good after my baby is friendly and doesn't act in a way that could incite a lawsuit.

Neglect

2011-01-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

Manzi is telling me that he is neglected. He cannot gain any lift in flying, but he can jump and get quite far, so he still "flies" all the time. Either way, he often comes up to me and looks up at me wanted to get picked up. I usually pick him up. This morning, I was making my lunch for the day and Manzi was looking up at me with puppy dog eyes begging to be picked up. I no longer allow him on my shoulder and I was using my hands, so I just ignored him. After about 4 minutes of this, the little rascal jumped at my bare feet and bit my toe quite hard, then he ran/flapped to his cage. It was like he got fed up of being ignored and thought to himself, "I'll teach her." Anyway, he didn't make me bleed or anything, but it hurt and he did have bad intentions. As such, I need to make sure that either give him attention, or stop him from begging. It was like I was unintentionally teasing him or something. Manzi struggled with my brother around and really did not like him. Hopefully this is just some residual anger and he will calm down soon enough.
I really need to figure out a play stand soon so he can hang out with me in the living room. Maybe I can just put newspapers under his flight stand and use that. It will get messy, but I clean an awful lot. I was thinking of putting both Grey's on the flight stand and just put something in between each time one tries to go after the other. Then they will learn that they have to deal with each other (or they will just continually try to threaten each other). That is just an idea.

Forgot to Lock her up

2011-01-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

I came home last night and Maui was on top of her cage and her cage door was open. I must have forgotten to lock her up when I left. I am so glad it wasn't Manzi who was out. I looked around the house and didn't see any signs of her wandering around, not even droppings. I am not sure I believe that she was sitting quietly on her cage all day either.
This morning, Manzi got into trouble as I was getting ready, so I locked him up while I went into my room to change. I heard Manzi and Maui threatening each other (they make a noise most comparable to the "whooo" from an owl to threaten each other; I'm not sure who taught who that noise, but it has turned into their threatening noise and I can be sure that when I hear it, one or both Greys are fluffed up either at each other, or at another person). I went to look at what was going on and to my surprise, I saw Maui on top of Manzi's cage. Manzi was climbing, but staying a safe distance as she will bite his feet (they both quickly figured out that they can bite each other's feet to do harm). I put a piece of cardboard between the bars of the cage to keep Manzi from biting Maui's feet and pulled her off the cage. Usually Maui is not the aggressor. Anyway, I was wondering if this happened yesterday while she was out all day.

Busy, busy, busy

2011-01-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

Before we left Davis, the birds were in small cages in an empty living room. Manzi is out roaming around while Maui is hanging out inside. Here is a picture of their tiny travel cages (they are the largest ones that would still fit in my car, and a tight fit is was).

Here they are stuffed into my Prius, where they stayed with me and my brother Jason for nearly four days. Manzi stayed behind me.
While Maui stayed behind my brother.

They were so happy to be done with the car ride and temporary housing. They are very happy to be settled in. I am still working on teaching them not to stand on the carpet, but they are learning quickly. I abandoned Manzi's play stand in CA, and am looking for a new one. I retrained Manzi to go to the bathroom on his cage, but that is way messier than on the newspapers on his play stand.

My brother Albert arrived here for the holidays. He is staying just under two weeks. It turns out that my brother is not Manzi's favorite (or second favorite) person in the world. While I was at work, he decided to let Manzi out of his cage. He gave Manzi a walnut and then he began to sweep. Manzi ate a bit, but was then distracted by his sweeping. My brother thought Manzi was done with his walnut and picked it up. Manzi, upset by this, launched an attack on his bare feet. Here is the foot injury he sustained:

After I arrived home, my brother decided to pick up Manzi with his hand. I warned against it, but he said he wasn't scared. Now, he is scared:

Finally, I was able to get shots of Manzi's new technique. He hides under his cage and then waits to ambush my brother. Here is my brother taking a look at Manzi. Manzi is just beginning a charge. A few seconds later my brother was standing on the chair that you see in the back ground.

Lastly, this Christmas was wonderful and for the first time, I bought my very own Christmas tree.

Scared together

2010-12-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

There is no uniting force quite like a good scare. We endured a terrible snow storm this past weekend. The birds were happy that I was home and they were able to stay out all day long on Saturday and Sunday. They were both minding their own business on top of their cages when a snow blower went by to clear the sidewalks. It scared both Manzi and Maui. Maui took off, circled around and landed on Manzi's cage about 6 inches from him. The only other time she touched his cage he went beserk and tried to attack her. This time, both were scared and paying attention to the snow blower that they forgot how close they were to each other. Within a minute I took Maui off Manzi's cage and put her back on her own. It was nice to see them getting better and better with each other.
Yesterday they were both running around on the ground together and didn't threaten each other. Previously, Maui was always running around on the ground while Manzi stayed above ground flying from one chair to another, occasionally stopping on the heater, refridgerator, his cage, Maui's cage, his playstand or anything else that looked like it had potential for troublemaking. Manzi is getting better at flying, but still goes down more than anything. Due to that, he is also running around on the ground. I was worried as that could create conflicts, but they don't threaten each other and give each other a 6 inch safety zone.

Finally settled in (well, kinda)

2010-12-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

Manzi and Maui are back in the original cages. They were so excited to see the movers bring them in. Too bad they are so comfortable in my place as they are running around the ground like crazy. Manzi has many feathers clipped, but he jumps with all his might and flaps like crazy and can still make pretty good distance, although he drops at a 45 degree angle once he starts going down. The bird's cages are over linoleum, so I won't have to worry about them making a mess, except that they are so intrigued by the carpet and keep wanting to run onto it. I need a new play stand to set up so that they can go to that and stay off the carpet. Manzi wants to stay near me, so I have taken to working in the kitchen on my laptop with him sitting on the arm of the chair begging for scratches whenever my hand gets too close. Maui on the other hand is scoping out the place already trying to find a good nesting site. Currently, she thinks that the cabinet by the stove is a good option, but I am doing my best to shoo her away from there. I think I will just give her a box for a week or so, so that she leaves the cabinets alone.

I feel bad that I work 8 hours/day and leave them locked up during that time. I let them out for 45 minutes in the morning when I am getting ready (although it would only take 20 minutes if they weren't out as I chase them around, etc.) and then from 5-10pm in the evening before going to bed. Still that nothing compared to when they were in Davis and were out from 7am till 10pm.

New adventures are always filled with new challenges. I will post pictures probably later today.

Minnesota

2010-12-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

So, last night was our final destination. We're in Minnesota. Manzi and Maui are doing great. They struggled these past few weeks, but are already much better. There cages won't be coming till this weekend and so they are still in their travel cages, but they are probably thinking this is their new life (which is kinda sad). They do get out of their cages from 5-10pm when I am home in the evening. They are already running around the apartment like madmen trying to wreck havoc. The drive was very hard on both of them and at stops they did not want to get out of their cages (or at least they would not leave the top of them). Within a day of being at the hotel, they began to wander around again and today they began wandering around the apartment. Manzi and Maui have not been showing any aggression towards each other. Both have gone on each other's cage without any problems too. Tomorrow I will start feeding them together again and see how that goes. I am very tired tonight and will post pictures and probably a video this weekend. The move has been hard on me too and I have neglected this blog. Hopefully I'll be back to regular postings soon.

Baseball

2010-11-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

It seems that Maui knows a thing or two about baseball. She's sung this song twice now (just watch the beginning to hear the six notes in the tune):

I couldn't find the tune anywhere else in a short clip and I sold my piano so I couldn't play it. Anyway, after singing, "da da da dun da daaaaa" she says, "Goal!"
She does not sing this frequently enough for me to even try catching it on camera.

Manzi is doing very well. I still haven't clipped more than 3 feathers on each wing, and he hasn't gone back to much flying. He will fly from his cage to me and back, but that is about it. Now he sits with me most of the day while I am working on my computer. It seems the secret to having a well behaved bird is to take away their main method of transportation. As easy as it makes caring for Manzi, I hate it. He is so much more full of life when he is zipping around my place like a maniac.

Eating Slowly

2010-10-29T14:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I gave both Manzi and Maui a whole almond (courtesy of Maui's previous owner). Manzi can finish an almond in about a minute. Maui on the other hand is very slow. She takes close to 10 minutes. She chews on each piece of shell she breaks off and then finally gets to the center.
So, they were both on their cage eating and by the time Manzi had finished his almond, Maui hadn't even gotten to the seed part. She was still busy chewing away on the shell. I was looking closely and it appears that she might even be consuming bits of the shell. Usually when Manzi is finished he tosses the almond aside, but he was watching Maui closely. He didn't want to be finished while she still had something to eat. So, he began chewing up the shell too, copying her. Next thing I know, they were both chewing the shells into little tiny bits. It still took Manzi only half the time it took Maui. Eventually he didn't have anything else to chew so he flew back to me, but not after first staring hopefully/jealously at Maui. Maui fluffed up at him as if to tell him, "Don't you dare!"
It reminded me of how some kids eat something really fast and then stare at those who still have their dessert in front of them slowly savoring every bite.

Both birds are back to eating together on the floor again. It has been going well. Every time Manzi looks up at Maui, she puffs up at him while backing away. Manzi then resumes eating after which Maui does the same. The bowls are 12" apart.

Health and more eggs

2010-10-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

Good news. There were only good bacteria found in the culture of Maui, meaning that she doesn't have any kind of infection after all. Also, both her and Manzi stopped doing the choking behavior. Maui must have had some kind of injury or something in her esophagus that is now healed. A piece of food could have scratched it, making swallowing difficult or she could have had an abscess. Either way, she is looking much better and is eating just fine.

Maui laid a fifth egg. This one also had a much better shell than the first ones. It cracked though as she laid it in her cage from her food dish. She has not had a nest since I banned her from it last week. I thought that would stop her from laying eggs. I heard that they lay 4-5 eggs and then stop. Hopefully that means she is now done laying eggs. Her weight is still looking good. It is not back up to what it was before (495g) but is it higher than her low that she's been the other day. Today I am going to cook some eggs for her and Manzi. Hopefully that will replenish the nutrients she used to produce the egg. The only thing I am not going to feed her is the shell, but she has a cuttle bone which should help with the calcium.

Fourth Egg

2010-10-22T10:02:00.001-07:00

Here's Maui's fourth egg. It was laid in her new "nest" which is a box that she claimed for herself. It is the first egg that is whole, although there is a slight crack in the egg. The shell is much stronger, but that might be due to the cuttle bone that I put in her cage. She has eaten a lot of the cuttlebone already.

Here is a picture of Maui in her nest. The box is so small that she struggles to turn around in it. In the picture she is puffed up, making her take up the entire box.

I think Maui will be a great mom. She spent most of yesterday sitting contently on the egg. In the evening I took her out. She didn't want to come out and wouldn't step up, so I just scooped her up. Luckily, she is as loving as ever to me and is not threatened by me taking her away from her egg.

On the scale, she weighed only 466g. Yesterday she was 495g. I was concerned as Maui was more interested in sitting on her egg than she was in eating. I gave her a lot of food and locked her in her cage for the rest of the evening. This morning I put a zip-tie on her nest doors so she couldn't go back in. When I let her out, she went straight past her food without eating to check on her nest. She was very upset that the doors were not opening. She tried for an hour to get in and then came looking for me. She went back to her cage and finally had a big breakfast. Her weight is now at 474g.

I feel bad for her as she is awfully concerned about her nest. I put her egg in the fridge. I cannot bring myself to eat it. I will probably toss it out in a couple of days, but after I show Maui's previous owner as he was interested in seeing its size.

I clipped up to three feathers now on each side of Manzi's wings. He can fly from one point to another, but he has lost nearly all of his maneuvering ability. He cannot fly straight up from the ground, nor can he fly straight down to the ground from on top of his cage. Manzi seems to know it too because he is just sitting on a chair next to me instead of getting into trouble. Poor guy. Hopefully he won't be too down to have just been hobbled. I would certainly be down if someone temporarily disabled my legs.

Clipping Manzi

2010-10-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

I have decided to clip Manzi for my upcoming trip to Minnesota. It is a long drive and when I get there I will have to stay with Manzi and Maui in a motel for at least a few days. I don't want Manzi crashing into any windows or even worse, getting out during the drive and getting lost in a completely unknown area. Despite that, clipping him is extremely hard (emotionally for both of us). He loves flying around and I hate to take that away from him. He is going to be so sad and lose his sparkle by having to walk every where. It nearly makes me tear up just thinking about it.
I will clip him very slowly just clipping one feather on each side per day. So far, I have clipped two on each side. He can still fly, but he is definitely exerting quite a bit more effort than before. Since my move is a month away, hopefully not too much after the move he'll be flighted again enjoying the new place.

Visit with Veterinarian

2010-10-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Maui did great with the veterinarian. She really liked the veterinarian and stayed on her arm for most of the visit and even did a bit of chatting. I didn't give her breakfast but she still didn't eat at the vet's office. Luckily, the vet could see her behavior in the video I brought. She didn't think an x-ray would help and instead suggested starting off with either a culture and/or blood work. I went for the culture. She'll call me in a day or two if she finds any bacteria. If it is not an infection, then the vet thinks the next option is a florescent scope. I called my vet neighbor and he agreed with the plan. The scope is substantially more expensive and invasive as Maui will have to be put under anesthetics. Right now Maui is happily eating in her cage.

Update on behavior: Since I've been back, Maui and Manzi are not doing well together. At feeding time, Manzi has attacked Maui two times. I separated them right away both times. Manzi has been showing a lot of aggression again. Maybe because they were without me for a week and now want to fight for my attention again. Either way, I am going to separate their bowls to six feet and slowly work from there.

Maui and vet

2010-10-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

Maui laid a third egg. I do not have a photo of this one. I didn't see it right away when I got back and only noticed it the next day. After looking at it closely, I saw it was already molding so I threw it away. The shell is still no where near the thickness of a chicken's egg's shell. I don't know how thick they usually are.

I have a vet appointment for Maui on Wednesday about the choking behavior. Hopefully I can get some x-rays and figure out what her problem is.

Today Manzi and Maui had what might have been a scuffle. It was really hard to tell. After eating, Manzi began approaching Maui. They were both puffed up with their heads down. They kept touching beaks and pushing each other backwards. Finally, Manzi suddenly launched himself on top of Maui. It was so fast that it was kinda hard to see what was happening. I scolded Manzi and went towards him immediately and after only a fraction of a second he was flying away. I checked both of them and neither had any detectable injuries. I'm not sure if Manzi was attacking her or trying to mate with her. I don't know if Maui was sure either. I talked with my behaviorist friend about it and he said that often times, young parrots are not good at courtship and will try mating aggressively at first until they learn that you have to "woo." I am really worried about having a serious injury so I don't want to just let them "work things out." I will film them tomorrow as I'm sure they will interact again. Hopefully, that will allow me to re-watch what happened so I can take a closer look at the behaviors.

Home again

2010-10-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

I came home yesterday. Manzi was happy to see me, but awfully grouchy for having been stuck in his cage for a week. He did laps and laps around my living area. Maui was let out and she acted just like normal. They had plenty of food in their dishes, so I'm not sure how they will resume eating together on the floor. I dumped their food dishes last night so hopefully they are plenty hungry to eat together without fighting. I'll post a picture of it later.

Maui's health

2010-10-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, a vet/neighbor came over to look at Maui's choking behavior. It is definitely getting worse and now she does it the entire time she eats. He gave me a few ideas of what the problem might be: scar tissue build up in her esophagus resulting from previous injury, an abscess or some other current injury. She also has slightly labored breathing when she puts her head down to get scratched, which would be connected as the esophagus is right next to the trachea. My neighbor doesn't think it is serious, but he does think I should get her x-rayed to get a diagnosis. He said in all likelihood there is nothing that can be done, but it would be better to know what I am dealing with. I am on vacation this coming week while my roommate watches the birds. Maui's weight is just fine and her lungs sound fine under a stethoscope, so it is not urgent, but I called my avian vet and will take her in as soon as I get back.

The neighbor was very impressed with how Manzi and Maui's relationship is coming along. He thinks that Maui will be the dominant one before long and Manzi seems to be handling it very well. I am still doing the feeding routine (although they won't be eating together this coming week) and now there bowls are within a foot of each other. They have also had more interactions with each other that don't result in fights. I thought Manzi would totally dominate Maui, and although she started off very timid, she is now dominant and even chases Manzi away. Luckily, Manzi is figuring this out and is even showing signs of submission towards Maui. Before long they'll have this all worked out.

Second Egg

2010-10-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

This morning I found a second egg in Maui's cage. The shell was stronger than the first, but it was cracked at the bottom of the cage. Unlike with the first egg, her vent was looking totally normal and not all gross/bloody.
Today, I put the dishes at 18 inches (I measure from the midpoint of each dish) and they showed no aggression. When Manzi finishes first, he will go harrass Maui, if I am not paying attention. Usually as soon as he finishes I pick him up and take away his dish, while Maui runs off to her nest when she finishes.

Feeding update

2010-10-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

I was gone on Sunday and didn't get a chance to "feed" my babies together and instead over loaded them in their dishes so they wouldn't go hungry. The result of that was that this morning they were not interested in eating. I left them a bit of food during the day, but not a full meal. This evening, they were both hungry enough to eat together, although not for long. After a couple of minutes Manzi was already finished. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll be back on schedule. Also, I finally found a limit in distance. I started them about six feet apart (shown in picture below) and kept moving them closer. Today I measured the distance and it was two feet and Manzi began to puff up. He wasn't puffed the entire time, but whenever Maui looked at him he would puff up. Due to that, I am going to leave them at this distance for an extra day to see how it goes. The idea is to decrease as much aggressive displays (and acts) as possible. If Manzi keeps threatening her, then I will increase the distance again until they both see that by being together they get food.

Feeding Scheme

2010-10-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

A new feeding scheme has been implemented over the past four days at my place. I am putting their food dishes (identical ones) on the floor twice a day and having them eat together. At first, I put the dishes over six feet apart, but am moving them closer and closer together every day. This morning, they were only 3.5 feet apart. This is very good because when eating Maui does not puff up and threaten Manzi. Manzi is struggling dealing with her because she is nearly always puffed up at him. Manzi is much better and doesn't threaten Maui much anymore, only when I leave him out and put Maui back. Then he taunts her from the outside of her cage, knowing she is locked in and can't get him.

The first day feeding them on the floor:

After two days their food dishes are already much closer:

Last night something really funny happened. When I feed them on the floor, as soon as either bird leaves their dish, I take it away and they have to go back about their business and leave the other one alone. Anyway, Maui usually takes much longer to eat than Manzi so Manzi almost always gets his dish taken away first. Last night, I was about to take Manzi's dish away, when he changed his mind (after seeing Maui still eating) and decided he wanted to keep eating. Maui then did the same thing, she started to walk away, but then also decided to keep eating. I kept putting more pellets in their dishes. By the time they finished, both had eaten more than I've ever seen before. I could feel their crops completely full of pellets. An hour later when I put them to bed, both still had very full crops. Neither wanted the other to "get more" food so it was like they were daring the other to stop first.
As expected, they both ate very small breakfasts.

An Egg

2010-09-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last night Maui laid an egg. Now I know for sure that she is a female. I was thinking of retesting both her and Manzi with a DNA test. She was tired today and napping, but besides that she seems to be in fine health. Her vent appears to be stretched out and gunky (I will only post a photo upon request; I have one, but am not sure if anyone is really interested). I do have pictures of the egg. Here it is on the bottom of her cage:

To help know the size, I placed it next to a quarter for comparison:
The shell was cracked, but it had fallen to the grate when it was laid. My roommate, who works with avian nutrition, examined it and thinks the shell is much too thin. I am not expecting Maui to raise an unfertilized egg, but in the future it will probably be necessary to supplement with calcium. Maui only lost about 10 grams after laying the egg (I weigh her about every other day). I couldn't weigh the egg as some liquid already leaked out of it. I did cut off Maui's access to her nesting site in the bottom shelf of my cabinets. Hopefully Maui will not lay any more eggs until she and Manzi are having connubial relations.

Maui playing in water dish

2010-09-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

I saw Maui bathing in her small water dish, making such a mess. I had forgotten about the big ceramic dog water dish I had bought for Manzi that he never used. I put it in Maui's cage and in less than a minute she was waddling around inside it. Here is a video of it:

I had to leave, but when I came back she had made a mess of the dish. For some reason she thought it nice to tear the newspaper in her cage into strips and put them inside the dish too. She made newspaper soup.

A new addition

2010-09-17T09:49:00.001-07:00

It looks like I'll be keeping Maui after all. I will wait to change the blog name until I am safely in Minnesota with both birds. I am not leaving till the end of November and if Manzi starts plucking before then or if things go terribly for some reason or another, then I probably won't be taking Maui with me, but that would be shame. She is just a doll. Manzi is also getting better every day. Maui is starting to assert herself a little more, so that might be helping.

Usually every morning as soon as Maui leaves her cage, Manzi goes inside, plays with her toys, drinks her water and finishes off any food crumbs she left in her dish. When I first open their cages, Maui usually just leaves to go check on her nest, giving Manzi the opening he needs. Anyway, yesterday Maui got a bit fed up. When I opened their cages, Manzi came over to Maui's cage, but instead of leaving, she went up on top as if to say, "Keep out!" Manzi was unsure what to do, so he went to his play stand and waited. After about 20 minutes Maui was done guarding her cage and went to check on her nest. As soon as her feet touched the floor Manzi was in her cage. It was pretty funny. Manzi is realizing more and more that he can't just push her around. That is good because he is backing off and it makes me feel more secure in letting them out together. Since the previous scuffle (posted a few days ago) there have not even been close calls. Manzi has also been reverting back to being his sweet self. He was getting pretty unhappy for a while because of Maui, but these past couple of days he is back to being loving and content.

Breeding displays

2010-09-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a bit scary. Maui was minding her own business tending to her nest. Manzi was very curious and finally decided to take a look. Next thing I knew, Maui threatened him and he attacked. Luckily, it lasted a fraction of a second before I scolded Manzi and he flew off. Neither of them were hurt, but Manzi was very distraught and I was scared. I put them both back in their cages to let them "think" about what they did. Then, for the next hour, Maui exhibited mating displays towards Manzi. Their cages are just a few inches apart (they can't reach each other though), so Maui stayed as close to Manzi as possible, while he continued to puff up trying to threaten her. I'm very surprised that Maui kept at it for an entire hour and still Manzi did not take the bait.

Today they are just fine again and are both out together. Hopefully there won't be more "scary" moments. I have been taking both Manzi and Maui out on walks using the leg leash. I still haven't made a second one. Once I do that, I will take them out together and maybe then they will be so preoccupied with outdoors that they won't think about not liking each other.

Also, I have finally got Maui to lay on her back in my hand. I will take a picture of that soon, but it is kinda hard when I am by myself.

It's me, not the bird

2010-09-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

So, when I saw how well behaved Maui was compared with Manzi, of course I assumed that it had nothing to do with the owner and instead was purely genetics and age :) ! Manzi isn't really badly behaved, he is just very energetic, while Maui just stood in one spot most of the day. Now things have changed dramatically. Maui is getting more and more active every day. Today, she was in and out of her cage all day long, frequently going to her nest site to put it in order.
I opened the doors to her nest site (the bottom shelf of kitchen cabinets) so I could see inside. Now the rest of the egg carton is completely shredded and Maui has gone to work on the back of the cabinet. She has somehow gotten a hold of it and is chewing through the back (which unfortunately is getting in the way of her nest site's Feng Shui). Luckily the cabinet did not come with the apartment and I plan on tossing it when I leave.

Also, as I was quietly working, Maui was making quite a bit of noise. I looked over and she managed to get most of the water from her dish out onto the floor surrounding her cage in a weak attempt at taking a bath. The only part of her that ended up wet were her feet. I have heard of Greys doing this, but Manzi gets regular baths and has never tried to take any in his water dish. Anyway so it isn't genetics and something I am doing is making these birds highly energetic. Actually, I switched Maui to a healthier diet of pellets and fresh food so that might have something to do with it.

On a more positive note, they seem to be dealing with each other more effectively. I now leave them both out all day. They don't interact, but they do a good job of avoiding each other. I also did a training session and put them each on a chair 6" apart. Manzi did not threaten her even once and stayed very focused on me the entire time. After that, I put Manzi back and worked on target training Maui. She already figured it out, but is much slower at moving than Manzi so it takes her a lot longer to get over to the target.

I forgot to mention, Maui has now taken three flights all by herself. She is getting very confident at flying and will readily fly to her cage from my hand across the room. The flights she took by herself were only about 1-2 feet, but that is still a huge improvement over nothing. She is obviously realizing that she can fly and is now learning control.

Lastly, I will not be going to France and instead will go to Minnesota in late November. I'm not sure how I will bring Manzi out there (maybe we'll fly), but I'll decide soon enough.

Some videos

2010-09-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Maui does some pretty strange behaviors. Yesterday was a new one. After giving her some parsley, she acted as if she were choking. She did this for about an hour. It really worried me, so I felt her neck and couldn't feel any lump, even though it looked like she had a lump on the left side of her neck. Also, this morning she is just fine.

Also, she does a nervous tick. She will do this for hours at a time! She definitely did it more when I first got her and she was very nervous. She does it more in the evening and/or when something makes her nervous. She looks as though she is scratching her head/neck, but upon closer inspection she is not actually touching her foot to her head.

Also here is a video of typical mating displays.

By the way, two days ago I had a vet and behaviorist come look at her because she was wheezing for an extended period. He said that she looks very healthy and maybe it was the stress of moving. She doesn't wheeze anymore and she may have just been copying a wheezing noise like Manzi did a while back.

Lastly, here is a video of the two:

Here is a funny story:
I asked the behaviorist about something Manzi always does when I am working on my laptop on the desk. I put Manzi on a chair next to me while I work on my laptop. After a minute or so, Manzi gets bored and will jump to the table and bite items, wanting attention. I put him back and remove the item. Even if I remove everything, he will still jump to the table and then try biting my computer. The advice was that I should put him in a small cage next to me every time he jumps to the table and then after a few minutes, let him out and put him back on the chair and reward him for staying there, so he learns that he can either be in the cage, on the chair or elsewhere, but not on the table.

So as soon as he left I put the method to work. I stuck Manzi on the chair next to me. Sure enough, within a few seconds Manzi was on the table. I put him in the small cage and he was pretty upset about it. After three minutes I let him out and put him back on the chair. Within just a few seconds he was back on the table. I right away put him back in the small cage. He was furious this time biting crazily at it. I let him out a couple of minutes later. I praised him pretty quickly after being on the chair for a few seconds because I didn't think he'd last long. Within 30 seconds he was back on the table. I put him in the cage again and he was madder than ever. After letting him back on the chair, he decided this was no fun and flew back to his cage to play with his toys there.

Out for a walk

2010-09-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I took Maui for a walk. She was so distracted with digging a nest that she didn't even notice me clip the leash to her bracelet. We were out for an hour and she loved it, chatting the entire time. My wrist didn't love it though. Manzi, although always trying to go on my shoulder, will hang on to my fingers and hand. Maui kept crawling part way up my wrist, where she no longer had a good grip. Because of that, she was slipping quite a bit, which led to my wrist getting all kinds of scratches. Despite that, it was a great experience and Maui really enjoyed it.

Manzi also had a nice day yesterday. He was much better behaved than he has been for the last week. He didn't try to fly or bite at Maui even once. Hopefully this means their settling in, but as a scientist I am hesitant to say one day is a total change in direction.

Right now, I am back at Maui's real home to check in on the other birds left here. Maui is taring up some newspaper I gave her, the cockatiels keep trying to land on my head and Sydney, the cockatoo, has been pretty quite just hanging out ontop of her cage. Hopefully I can get some work done here.

Pictures

2010-09-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

Today, Maui went to the ground, walked up to me and clearly said, "Water." I'm not sure why, as she had a lot of water in her cage. Then she walked around my apartment for an hour exploring. I had the brilliant idea to put newspaper on top of the grate to make cleaning her cage easier. It works well with Manzi. There is a problem with the idea. Maui finds great amusement in shredding the newspaper to lots of little pieces. I have heard of parrots doing that, but Manzi never has been very interested. Sometimes he did tare up the newspaper, but only the first couple of times. Anyway, I keep putting newspaper on the grate of Maui's cage because she does spend a good deal of time playing with it and she seems to enjoy that. Plus, I have plenty of paper for her to shred.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Manzi and Maui:

Here they are both eating their treats on a perch/chair. Anytime Maui even turns her head towards Manzi, he puffs up at her. Still, he is eating an almond so they both eat as quickly as possible. Manzi is on the right and Maui on the left. You can see his right wing and top of back beginning to puff up at her.

Although it isn't as obvious from the front, their wings and back are greatly different in color. Maui is much lighter than Manzi and he looks so dark compared with her.

Here is their set up. Maui has a white cage while Manzi's is dark gray.
Here is Maui on top of her cage eating a slice of pluot (plum and something else that now escapes my mind). Maui will eat anything and seems to eat so much more than Manzi, although she is less active and weighs just 10 grams more than him.

They're both flying

2010-08-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

Just not together nor at anywhere the same level! Today Maui got spooked at took off flying. She did a full lap around my living/kitchen area, but couldn't make a second 180 degree turn, nor was she able to stop, so my sliding glass door helped her. She wasn't going very fast when she crashed into it, but I still checked her over for injuries. She was just fine. Manzi flying full speed would probably hurt himself, but Maui looks more like a helicopter barely staying in the air. She is getting better at flying by leaps and bounds though. I have been making her fly from my hand to any destination (such as back to her cage, to the ground, etc.) whenever she wants to move. Maui was so nervous at first and had a few mishaps, but now she is pretty confident at flying back to her cage from my hand (I only hold my hand 2 feet away) and will even start flapping before I get her very close. She has been flapping more and more every day. She made her first 180 degree turn on Saturday, but has since made a few more. Maui is always acting as if she will fly and seems to really try, but she needs her confidence built up. I was worried that her crash today would stop her, but she flew readily enough later in the day.

I took Manzi out flying on Sunday. He didn't do so well. He flew several laps around the park, but was making his panic noises that he makes when birds are chasing him. I didn't see anything chasing him though. Eventually, he flew out of sight and didn't circle back. I got on my bike, but found him just on the other side of my apartment building. Right when he saw me, he tried flying down to me, but was so high up in the tree that he just went right past me. He then took off even much farther going way out of sight and I almost began to worry. Luckily, after 30 seconds he circled back, with a hummingbird hot on his tail. After a few spins, he landed on the roof nearby. After resting for a few minutes he flew down. He was very hot. I took him back to the park, but he didn't want to fly anymore. I put him in his favorite tree and he played there for about 20 minutes before he flew back to me (I was sitting nearby on a park bench). He didn't fly anymore after that, so I took him in. I was surprised how fast hummingbirds can fly. I have seen them harass Manzi before when he is hanging out in a tree, but never chasing him while flying.

Lastly, Manzi and Maui are still not friends. I have been feeding them treats on the same perch. They eat their treats and then I separate them before any trouble starts. Manzi is still not very happy about Maui's presence. On the other hand, she is totally relaxed and has wandered around the apartment a couple of times today. She doesn't get into trouble, nor feel the need to destroy anything she comes into contact with, like Manzi. I wonder if there is a calm gene? j/k

Maui better, Manzi worse

2010-08-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

So, Manzi is not very happy with the new arrangement. At first he seemed to like Maui. Then he wasn't so fond and now he is treating it close to all out war. When I take Maui out of her cage, Manzi goes inside and eats her left over food and then plays with her toys. He gets so jealous of her when I scratch her head or hold her. Today, when she was nicely eating, Manzi went over to harass her. I shut her cage so he couldn't go inside. Instead, for the next 20 minutes he was climbing around the outside, but moving her toys (as they are attached to the cage bars) and also trying to grab her. Maui was attempting to eat in peace, but she was paranoid about what Manzi was doing. Sometimes she would reach out to him and he would bite at her beak, but luckily they can't hurt each others beaks. Finally, after twenty minutes of being harassed, Maui had a light bulb moment. It was funny because I could see the thought process in her head. She saw Manzi climbing around and then looked at his feet (as his beak would just bite at her). She watched his feet for a minute and then she bit at him. Manzi squealed and quickly jumped off her cage. He didn't sustain any real injuries, but it really surprised him. Since then, he has left Maui alone. Maybe now he realizes he isn't the only one who can do damage. Later tonight Manzi has been very energetic wanting attention. I gave it to him for a couple of hours and then put him up for the night.

On another note, Maui is really relaxing here. She is now coming out of her cage all on her own. I can take her out at any time and she never tries to bite me. She is also loving getting scratches. She sat on my lap for 40 minutes enjoying getting her head scratched. She is a sweet heart. I am glad that she is becoming more and more confident and feels comfortable walking around on the ground and leaving her cage. She is even playing with her toys. I am working at improving her flight skills. Right now they are close to zero, so anything at this point would be an improvement. She can fly upwards and do a slight, uncontrolled turn and she is quite good at hitting stationery objects at low speeds to minimize impact. I have her fly the last foot back to her cage and to the ground. Maui is so nervous about flying, but she is always holding her wings out as if she wants to fly, but doesn't have the courage to do so. Hopefully she will gain confidence in that area. She also needs to develop some muscle mass. This weekend I will begin trying to teach her a trick. I'm not sure what I should teach her first. Maybe I'll start with target training.

Lastly, both Greys are now copying each other. It is funny because when I first got Maui, I couldn't tell their whistles apart, but it was easy to tell their words apart. Now, that is getting more difficult as both of them can say words in the same tone as the other.

Maui

2010-08-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

She had a rough night last night. She panicked when I turned off the lights. I ended up leaving the hall light on and today I talked with her owner and found out that he keeps a nightlight on for the birds. I will leave the hallway light on again tonight and tomorrow will get a nightlight.

Today I took her in the shower with me and she loved the water. I didn't completely soak her, but she did get quite a bit of splashes. She didn't come out of her cage on her own, so to get her in the shower I had to reach into her cage and hope she didn't bite me. She was being a sweet heart and talked the entire time.

Later, I gave both her and Manzi walnuts. Manzi cracked his right away, but Maui couldn't get hers open. Right away she went to her water and dropped it in hoping that it would soften it up. She waited 10 seconds or so and tried cracking it again. She did this about 5 times before I finally took it back and cracked the shell. I didn't completely crush the shell, just made some cracks on the outside. Anyway, Maui took it back from me and immediately dropped it back into her water. This time when she took it out, she was able to open it (due to the cracks made by me). The funny thing is, she probably thinks all her water soaking is what finally worked!

Maui still hasn't come out of the cage on her own, even though I leave the door open all day. Once I heard her climbing around. I looked over and she was halfway out of the door, but as soon as she saw me, she immediately went back inside. She is very shy, but she loves getting her head scratched. Hopefully she'll relax more and more every day. Manzi was showing some jealousy today, but after taking him for a walk by himself this afternoon he was much better and not so naughty.

Just a side note: Both of Maui's eyes are a bit strange. Her right eye has a black fleck near the bottom and her left eye has an unusually shaped pupil. I haven't seen many African Greys, so I have no idea how common this is or if it affects her vision. Maui clearly is not blind and uses both of her eyes. Anyway, here are some photos of her eyes.

Her left eye:

Her right eye:

Maui's here

2010-08-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

She is adorable! I will post a video as soon as I get her a bit more relaxed. When Maui came today, she was terrified of being in a new place and hearing hawks calling outside. It took her a while to relax and about an hour before she started making noises. Within a few hours, she began talking away. She has quite the repertoire and can imitate both a female and a male person. Her and Manzi spent all afternoon chatting back and forth with each other. Maui didn't come out of her cage, but she did eat some food and put her head down to let me scratch it. She hasn't threatened me at all and has been very sweet. She let Manzi also scratch her head for a bit. He didn't do a very good job, but he'll learn.

I just covered Manzi, but since his cage is right next to Maui's, she got very scared of the cover being tossed over his cage. I need to find something to cover her cage too which will hopefully make her feel more comfortable. I hope we all get some sleep tonight and that no one wakes up too early in the morning.

Three Week Slumber Party

2010-08-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Maui will be staying with Manzi and me for three weeks starting this Sunday while her owner is away. I already made a spot for her near Manzi's cage.

Right now Manzi is trying to seduce my deodorant and keeps trying to put his head down in front of it encouraging the deodorant to scratch him. His attempts are not working on it as it seems more content to remain the inanimate object of Manzi's affection. Maybe Maui will be more receptive?

I will post a video clip when I get the two together (referring to Manzi and Maui, not Manzi and the deodorant).

Flying again

2010-08-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

I took Manzi out flying yesterday. He did really well. The wind was around 14 mph, but it didn't phase him. Manzi is still working on regaining his flight skills. He has also continued missing some of his landings. I haven't been able to take him out regularly though like last year.

He had a grand time.

Manzi and Maui

2010-08-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

So Manzi saw his new girlfriend again today. At first they just said hi through the cage. Manzi is trying to touch Maui and while she is puffed up at him in a semi threatening manner, she is lowering her head begging for a scratch (which I give her right after this picture is taken).
For the following pictures, Manzi is on the right and Maui on the left, bu in the first picture Maui is on the right inside her cage. Manzi is quite a bit darker than Maui for unknown reasons.

Next, they were allowed to touch away from the cage.

Manzi was trying so hard to get to the perch with Maui, but as soon as I put him on the perch, he stayed at the very far edge away from Maui and she did the same.

Maui was being a sweetheart and kept asking for Manzi to scratch her while he was being quite upfront just walking up to her reaching at her with his beak. Here, he is looking at her feet and she is trying to stay back wondering what he is doing.

After a while, they both began to preen and relax. As you can see, Manzi is on one foot getting comfortable.

All in all, I would say it was a huge success today. I was hoping that they would put up with each other, but they really like each other already. When I went to take Manzi from the perch, he kept putting his head down trying to avoid getting picked up because he wanted to stay on the perch with Maui. Also, Maui was quite chatty and it seems they were both trying to impress each other.

Flying Today

2010-07-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today I took Manzi out flying. He flew for about 30 minutes. He is getting better and better each time. It was a bit windy, but he did fine. He still is struggling to stop when going very fast, but he just circles around again, or he lands in a low tree and then flies down to me.

When Manzi was flying (towards the end), a small hawk passed by. It was about the same size of Manzi and flew very low to the ground. All of the birds were giving warning calls and it just passed on by. I'm not sure what type of hawk or falcon it was, but it paid Manzi no attention. I didn't want to take any chances though so I called Manzi down and we called it quits for the day.

A huge success

2010-07-23T00:34:00.000-07:00

Manzi did so well on his car seat today. At first, I put him on and started backing out. He flew to my shoulder right away. I then let him stay on my hand for five minutes while I held it over the car seat. After that, I put him back on the seat and he stayed there the remainder of the drive. Manzi was a bit leery of visiting other parrots. It was his first time ever seeing another African Grey. At first, the Grey, Maui, puffed up at Manzi and tried to threaten him. He was scared, but after a while stopped paying attention to her. After 40 minutes, Maui began to put her head down indicating she wanted Manzi to scratch her. He did reach out towards her, but I was afraid of either of them getting hurt, so I held him back. Anyway, it seems that she liked Manzi and me both after a while. I think they will get along just fine.

Quick funny story: While I was outside with Manzi and Hercules, my neighbor stopped by to talk. She is moving away and gave me her new phone number. I put it in my phone and then called her to save the number. As soon as I put the phone up to my ear, Manzi stated, "Hello." It made my neighbor and me laugh as I wasn't really calling anyone. He just thinks that every time the phone goes to my ear, I need to say, "Hello."

Out of Town

2010-07-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

I have been at a conference in Denver for the past week (it was a last minute decision). I will get home on Monday. A guy is taking care of Manzi (not the one who will take care of him while I am in France) and it is going very well. Manzi is now learning that there are nice guys around. Manzi is being let out for a hour every day and is not fly at the guy or harassing him at all. In fact, the guy finds Manzi humorous and loves seeing his antics. They are getting along great. This coming week I will probably take Manzi to the person who will watch him while I am in France. There are other parrots there, so I would like to see how they get along. To date, Manzi has seen one other macaw and a parakeet. He was scared to death of the Macaw, but after a few visits he stopped being afraid. He was scared at first of the parakeet, followed by curiosity, followed by annoyance. He has never seen another african grey, so this will be the first time.

Home Found

2010-07-06T09:05:00.001-07:00

It has been over a week since I posted how worried I was about finding Manzi a nice home while I am away in France. My luck has taken a great turn for the better since then. I just happened to be talking to my neighbor about it when he phoned his friend who also has parrots. On Sunday the friend came over and he is a perfect match for the job. He was able to hold Manzi and after having Manzi for five minutes, when I asked for Manzi to step up, Manzi refused because he wanted to stay with the guy. I took Manzi anyway, but I was very happy to see that Manzi was comfortable with him. Usually, Manzi will step to someone and then hold his foot out for me to pick him back up. In addition, this guy is the nicest person ever. He has a power washer too which will make cleaning Manzi's cage easy and he has a van to transport the cage. The situation seems ideal.

This Wednesday I will bring Manzi to his house just to look around and to introduce him to the other parrots. The guy has a female african grey, so I am thinking Manzi might be liking her. I will get to use the car seat finally and for the first time, Manzi will see another African Grey. He's never seen one since I've owned him, so hopefully he will know that it is his own species.

By the way, I will use the "man's" name as soon as I get approval. I forgot to ask last time I spoke with him.

Car Seat

2010-06-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Here is Manzi's new car seat. I have to bribe him with an almond to get him to stay on it. He is not afraid of it and within five minutes of me making it, he was standing on it. I haven't tried it out with him in the car. It buckles nicely into the seat and I would put newspapers or a towel under him and that way he doesn't have to be locked up in his small travel cage for long car rides. People have expressed concern over Manzi flying around inside the car. Often, I would let him out of his travel cage and he would hang out on top, but would go to the bathroom off the side, which is very inconvenient. I am not worried about him flying around and if he does, I can easily attach his leg leash so he has to stay on the perch. Even if a cage is large and a perch is small, he would prefer to be out on a perch any day over being in a cage.
About someone to watch Manzi: Yesterday I got a great lead from my neighbor. I will check it out later this week and see if it is a match.

Completely off topic

2010-06-25T09:47:00.001-07:00

The other day I was having a conversation with two friends, both of whom had two young children. One friend had to have her mom watch her kids for a week. This led to a discussion of the convenience of having parents around to watch their grandchildren, but also of the fact that the grandchildren always need to be re-trained upon returning home.
Why do grandparents do that to their children's children? Revenge? Wanting to be a favorite? A question asked was, "When do they go from thinking 'the child needs to eat his dinner before getting ice cream' to 'let's give him ice cream and dinner at the same time and let him decide what he prefers?'" I found this extraordinarily funny. It is true that before we become grandparents, we can have some common sense about children. I wonder why all grandparents behave in the same way. It makes me think that I might not escape the loss of reasoning. Maybe instead it is all a conspiracy theory to make their children pay for the suffering they caused.
Another child I know used to throw bad temper tantrums. The child's grandmother would watch her for a week at a time. Once, when the child, mother and grandmother were all together, the child threw a temper tantrum. To this, the grandmother exclaimed, "She never behaves that way with me!" There was certainly a reason for this. The grandmother gave the child everything she could possibly want, so there was never a reason to throw a tantrum. It seemed like for every week that she watched the child, another week was needed to re-train the child.

Morale of this story: Think of how much problems your children give you. Write them down and remember them. Then when they have children of their own, conveniently throw out any logic reasoning and your grandchildren will adore you.

Manzi flying

2010-06-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

I did end up taking Manzi outside again, but didn't have someone to film. Manzi finally began doing tricks in the air again. He used to do tricks all the time, such as dives, quick turns, etc. But since I've been taking him out this year, he has done none of that and instead is just flying in large circles making clumsy landings. His flight skills are coming back rapidly and he is going to be an expert acrobatic soon.

I haven't taken Manzi out since Monday afternoon and am not sure when I can take him out again. I have been getting more and more sick. Hopefully I feel better soon so we can enjoy the outdoors.

Leaving again

2010-06-21T09:43:00.001-07:00

As of right now, I plan on leaving to France for six months starting at the end of August. I am very worried about Manzi. Four people have told me they will watch Manzi as a "last resort." Well, one of the four actually said, "last, last resort." He is quite the handful as he can be loud, demanding, moody, messy and once in your care, you can never leave anywhere for more than a couple of days unless you find someone to take care of him while you're gone. On a positive note, usually within a couple weeks of me being gone, he transfers all of his love for me to the new caretaker (in the case of a couple, he has transferred his love to the wife and his anger to the husband). Manzi can be loud, but he is not nearly as loud as many other parrots and at night, once he is covered he is quite until he is uncovered in the morning.

Anyway, I am not sure what to do. All of the people who will watch him as a last resort, are not willing to take Manzi out of his cage due to their fear of him. I doubt Manzi would do well being locked up for six months. I was hoping to find someone so excited about watching Manzi that they think I am doing them the favor by choosing them. I am willing to pay. The problem with paying is that if they really don't like Manzi, only an exorbitant amount of money would be worth the trouble. And if they really do like Manzi, then the money is really of little importance.

If any has recommendations or offers, please comment.

Next item on the list:
Manzi is doing great flying outdoors. He is still very rusty with his flight skills, but he is getting better very quickly. I will take Manzi outdoors again today. Maybe I can even make a short video.

Hercules is doing great. After being back only a week, his weight has jumped up. I have been taking him out to the park to get some exercise and he is loving it.

Hercules found

2010-06-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hercules was found!!!

My neighbor called and said he saw Hercules walking in the grass about a few hundred feet from where I had last seen him. Now he is safely back in his yard enclosure (10' by 6'). I will still take him out every day, but I am going to try a new method. Besides trying not to take my eyes off him, someone suggested taping a helium balloon to his back while he is out to make it easy to spot him.

It is just in time as I was about to print out another 100 color flyers to post later on today.

Lost Hercules (tortoise)

2010-06-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I lost Hercules. I like to take him to the huge grassy area in our apartments when it gets warm to let him run around. While outside for an hour, I decided to bring Manzi out too and let him fly around. Manzi did great and was staying quite close to me the entire time. But after Manzi being out for 5 minutes, I had forgotten to check on Hercules and by that time, I couldn't find him. A few neighbors were out with me and they helped me search the nearby bushes for two hours. Later that afternoon some friends came over and helped me look for another two hours. He can move quite quickly and steadily, which allows him to cover a large area in not too much time.

So far, I have posted 165 flyers. A big problem is that on three sides the apartments are surrounded by fields of trees and scrubs. If he gets into those fields, he will be impossible to find. I have also called the SPCA, the police department, local vets and animal rescues. I have posted ads on Craigslist and on a couple of "lost pet" websites. I hope I find him. I am very worried that he will get run over by a car.

Also, since there are so many people in our apartment area, I am thinking that maybe somebody already found him and picked him up. If so, I just need to find that person. I put so many signs up around the apartments that it will be impossible for someone to not see a sign.

A neighbor suggested a scent dog. That would be great because they would be able to follow his trail, but unfortunately I could not find any that were available. I called the sheriff to ask them and they suppressed a laugh. Having a scent dog would be very nice right now.

My neighbors and friends are great since they've spent so much time helping me search for him and putting up flyers with me. Hopefully it works in helping Hercules get back home.

Free Flying Again!!!!

2010-06-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

And he's off!!!

Today was Manzi's 2010 debut. He was so excited to fly outside again. He did a few recalls and then took off in big circles stretching his wings. Manzi's first few landings were pretty bad due to landing on weak branches or just missing completely. He didn't fly as fast as normal nor did he do very many acrobatics, but he did play in the trees. Also, Manzi did about 5 recalls before I finally took him in. We're going to go again tomorrow. Hopefully we'll see the same success.

Cookies and Manzi

2010-05-31T17:19:00.000-07:00

I realized that making cookies and African Grey Parrots do not mix. Today, I spent a good deal of the morning rolling balls of cookie dough. Due to Manzi's inability to control himself, he spent a good deal of the morning locked up in his cage. This time he didn't get a greasy hand print like last time, but he did make off with an uncooked ball of cookie dough. Luckily, I got it back before it could completely ruin his appetite. (For those who are concerned, I did not bake that cookie and it ended up in the trash)

I found a nice park in Woodland to fly Manzi and since today is a holiday it would have been the perfect time. Unfortunately, it has been cloudy all day with a chance of sporadic showers. If Manzi does get stuck outside, I don't want there to be a chance of rain. Hopefully we can have better luck tomorrow.

His indoor flight training has been going great. I am still recalling Manzi with both arms down (using a vocal command) and when he gets close, I raise an arm for him to land. He is very confident in this and with his T-stand so hopefully that will work to his benefit when we go outside.

Red tail or Swainson

2010-05-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning there were two different types of hawks in my living room. Both a Red Tail hawk and a Swainson's hawk. There wasn't actually the real thing, just an excellent imitation of their calls. Manzi picked up both of their calls just recently. The Red Tail's have been around lately calling out a lot this past week. Then, two days ago a pair of Swainson's were flying high above our apartments for 10 minutes or so calling out the entire time. Instead of just learning one call, Manzi decided to learn both at roughly the same time. I don't know if imitating the hawk call will be challenging for other hawks keeping them away, or if it is more akin to him learning, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty."

The Juggled African Grey

2010-05-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

I have been working with Manzi for the past week to get him to let me toss him while on his back. We are getting pretty good at this. I am not the most coordinated tosser in the world so I need some practice and Manzi sometimes moves and wiggles a bit making it more difficult, but it is really fun.

As requested, here is the training process to get to this point:
1. Get him to lie on his back on my hand (this was done a long time ago)
a) Have him perch on one hand while you cover his back with the other hand.
b) Slightly tip him backwards and immediately reward him
c) Tip him more and more each time and over a few days he was fine being tipped all the way backwards.
d) Un-do his feet from you finger after tipping him back so he is no longer holding on and just laying in your hand on his back.
2. Put him on his back in your hand and slightly move your hand up and down, then flip him back over and reward him.
3. Increase the speed of the up down movement (wait until the second training session) until he is actually gaining air. Manzi kinda flipped out the first time he gained air, but after a couple of times he realized he wasn't getting hurt and he was getting a treat.
4. Move him from one hand to the other, without tossing him. This is so he is comfortable with you changing hands while he is lying on his back.
5. Begin to toss him from one hand to the other, increasing the height of the tosses over 4-5 training sessions.

Since I am using both hands, I couldn't really use a clicker. I think a clicker would be really helpful in this, so if you have someone around who is willing to help, have them handle the clicker for you. In this scenario, you want to begin clicking very early (right after putting him on his back or right after moving him up and down once) at the beginning of this process. That way, since it is so new, you're not going to be asking for much and they get rewarded and are excited to do the training. After a couple of sessions, begin taking longer and longer to click, that way they will let you toss them a few times back and forth before trying to flip back over and look for the reward.

Wheezing

2010-05-14T20:29:00.000-07:00

I have been hearing Manzi wheezing a few times over the past two days. A parrot will act normal until they are very sick, at which time it is often too late to treat them with much success. My experience in working with animal health gives me a small amount of confidence that I have a slight advantage in detecting subtle differences, but I am still vigilant.
Anyway, after hearing Manzi wheeze, I would hold him close to my ear and every once in a while he would still make the wheezing noise. I wasn't sure whether he was imitating a wheezing noise, or his breathing was actually causing the wheezing noise. Not wanting to take any chances, I brought him to a neighbor with a stethoscope.

Luckily, living in the student housing at the largest agricultural university in the U.S. means there's an awful lot of veterinarians, many of them fellow graduate students who are more than happy to answer my questions and take a look at Manzi.

At first I was holding Manzi's head while the neighbor was listening with his stethoscope, but Manzi got fed up with that. So the neighbor suggested that I put the stethoscope on Manzi's back while he listened. That worked quite well and Manzi was just fine with that. Although afterward, the stethoscope was in the neighbor's hand nearby Manzi. Manzi looked at it for a couple minutes while we were talking and then he launched himself at it in an attempt to beat it up for it being forced on his chest and back against his will.

Conclusion: Manzi has a healthy heart beat and no unusual lung sound. If I continue to hear it or it gets worse, then I can bring him back anytime, but it is probably Manzi just imitating a noise.

I hear someone home!

2010-05-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

My neighbor told me a funny event. She came over to talk to me while I was away. She heard someone talking inside so she thought it was great to have caught me while I am at home. Anyway, she said after she knocked, the talking immediately stopped. After a minute or so, she began to hear whistling and then talking again. It was about this time that she realized it was Manzi. I didn't realize that he makes me look like I have bad manners in that he makes it seem as if someone is home, just not wanting to answer the door.

Today I went for a walk with Manzi. I have been having a nail trimming war with him. He sharpens his nails just as fast as I can trim them down. He figured out that if he wedges them between the bars of his cage and his beak, he can get them razor sharp. He started doing that about a month ago and since I have had a constant layer of scabs covering my wrists. Before I trimmed his nails every two months or so, but now after trimming them, they are sharp within a week. Today he even gave me an inch long scratch that broke the skin. I have two nail trimming perches, but those seem to do nothing. I'm not sure how to handle this. Hopefully he gets tired of spending so much time sharpening his nails.

Ear Canal

2010-05-12T10:56:00.001-07:00

Last time I showered Manzi, I took some pictures so people can see what an African Grey's ear canal looks like.

Right

Left

Also, it was "Whole Earth Festival" here in Davis. That is where hippies from all over the Western US get together and celebrate on Campus. They all just sleep out on the grass, sing, dance, sell creative stuff that they've come up with and talk. Many of them have animals. I brought Manzi around this year. At first he was afraid of everything, but within 20 minutes he was making noises and occasionally saying a word or two. I also let other people hold Manzi. He was really good about stepping up to the first 10 strangers, but then he had enough and no longer wanted me to put him of their arms. At that point, it had been over an hour and was sprinkling. Manzi was also not too happy about the sprinkles. He felt the sky was attacking him and each time a drop of water fell on him he would shake his head and look up to see where it came from. That was the first time I can recall bringing him out in the rain.

Anyway, I am working on a new trick with Manzi. I did two 3 minute training sessions and will do two more today and hopefully get it recorded and posted sometime this week, if not tonight.

Long denied, but not forgotten

2010-05-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

I have been neglecting Manzi's journey on the road to fame by not posting in far too long. Currently, we are doing frequent flight indoors, but have still not flown outdoors. My nightmares of Manzi getting taken away by a hawk or eagle has me continue to make excuses of why I haven't brought him outside. Manzi is getting more and more agitated as we go on walks with beautiful weather and him being stuck on my hand by a leg leash.

Here is a funny story: Manzi always wants to be on my shoulder when I am in the kitchen. I allow him to be there for a while, but he never fails to get overly curious and began reaching to items that I have in my hand. This is especially prevalent while washing dishes. I finally got tired of him hanging from the front of my shirt trying to reach dishes, so I put a lot of soap on a dish and let him bite it. He right away grabbed it in his beak, but half a second later dropped it and shock his head as he tasted the soap. He did not learn his lesson. Within a minute he was grabbing for dishes again. I repeated the soap trick. After several times, he stopped grabbing for dishes; But, the next time I was washing dishes he did the same thing. I soaped up the dishes and gave them to him several times per day over the next week. This morning when I was washing dishes, he flew to my shoulder, but he did not try to grab the dishes. I even held up a tempting wooden spoon and he just shook his head (something he does when he doesn't want whatever it is that I am offering him). I was amazed that he finally learned that he is going to get a mouth of soap if he grabs at the dishes I am washing. Now I can happily wash dishes with him on my shoulder and not hanging down the front of my shirt grabbing at everything.

Does anyone sabotage their children's efforts in a similar way?

Manzi the terror

2010-03-16T10:24:00.001-07:00

I should count how many times I refer to Manzi as such. This morning he has been terrorizing my house. He is back to going after the bathroom trash can, with a vengeance. Luckily, I found his stuffed animal and that occupied him for a good 30 minutes, but now he is back to the trash can as I am typing this.

This morning after I was finishing a long walk, I saw a peregrine falcon almost take out a crow. Luckily for the crow, it dogged the bullet and then recruited some friends to harrass the falcon until it finally flew away. It leaves me concerned.

Also, Manzi has been extremely regurgitational. Multiple times last night and then first thing in the morning. If you already get grossed out by animal grossness, stop reading here.

When regurgitating, he usually just brings food up into his beak and then re-eats it. Every so often he will actually spit it out. He spit the food out last night, then went about his ways. A couple of minutes later he noticed the chunks of food on the ground (I had yet to clean it up) and proceeded to eat it as if he found a real treat. I myself found it disgusting. I am glad I'm not a bird, especially a female one who has to act happy to receive such a gift.

Doll

2010-03-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

Manzi got a new doll/stuffed animal recently. It has given him hours of entertainment as he is working very hard on destroying it. He has pulled the freckles off the cheeks and has dislocated the hands/paws. Since I am getting rid of a lot of belongings, Manzi is competing with Goodwill to claim my old items. If he looks really interested, and not just interested in it because he can't have it, then I will let him destroy it. Unfortunately, it often happens that just when it is no longer donatable to Goodwill, he will be completely uninterested and never want to touch the item again, even though there is still a lot of destroying left in it.

I still haven't taken Manzi to the gym. Maybe that will happen next week, or maybe not. I haven't seen many hawks by the park where Manzi used to fly, so now I need to take the leap and fly him outside again. It is still a scary proposition for me though. Manzi is overly eager. I have been taking him on walks outside again every day and he is getting more and more frustrated that he is not allowed to fly around. I wonder how well he'll fly after not being outside in so long.

Manzi and my brush

2010-03-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

Manzi just loves my brush. Due to that, I usually brush my hair when I see he is occupied and not paying attention. Otherwise, he flies to my shoulder and tries to get the brush to scratch him instead of having it wasted on my hair.

Shower Curtain

2010-03-01T09:40:00.000-08:00

Manzi follows me around the house all day and won't let me out of his sight. Today, while getting ready I was in the bathroom. Manzi usually hangs out on the rug or plays with the inside of toilet paper rolls. (I have something in every room for him to play with instead of getting into trouble although he often still gets into trouble) Anyway, today Manzi went for the door handle. He tried landing on it and slipped off and made it to the top of the shower curtain rod. He has rarely been up there before. He was interested in the shower curtain hooks and saw that with one swift motion he can unhook them. Within 10 seconds he had half the shower curtain hooks off with the curtain hanging down. By this point I stopped him, much to his disappointment. Sometimes I try and figure out what is going through Manzi's head. Often I come to the conclusion that he is thinking, "What can I do to cause the most amount of trouble and make Adele work hard to repair, replace or clean?"

On another note, I have been selling lots of belongings on Ebay in preparation for my big move this summer. Due to that, I have items strewn about the house in boxes ready to be shipped as soon as I have a buyer. Manzi can barely contain his curiosity. About once per an hour he goes to the ground and starts walking around. I keep a good eye on him. As he begins to eye an item, he will step closer and closer to it while continuing to glance in my direction as if asking me, "Can I please chew and destroy this?" The answer is nearly always, "No." Manzi will get close enough to touch it and then I tell him, "No," after which he will, with much disappointment, fly back to his play stand or cage.

Sickness Delay

2010-02-24T18:39:00.001-08:00

I got back from L.A. on Monday night. Manzi greeted me with regurgitated food. (He really knows how to woo a woman) Anyway, I am still sick (going on three weeks) but will hopefully be better soon. I took Manzi on a walk outside today, but didn't venture too far. I will wait to fly him in the gym until my health is improved. Today I did do indoor recalls with Manzi. This time, the first flight from me, Manzi at first headed to his cage, but changed course mid flight and landed on his perch. This was from all the way across the room. All subsequent flights were between me and the perch. I am very happy about how fast Manzi is catching on.

While outside, Manzi is so eager to fly. He holds his wings out nearly the whole time ready to take off. I did let him climb on some branches of a tree. Once I put him on he was very happy and didn't want to come off. Today Manzi has been a sweetheart. It is nice that when I am sick or down for any reason, Manzi can sense that and is much more affectionate and cuddly.

Recalls using Perch

2010-02-17T21:54:00.001-08:00

Today we did recall training again. Last time Manzi returned to the perch from four feet away. Today Manzi returned from ten feet away. Another thing I am doing is not holding out my arm when I call him. I heard that if you hold out your arm, they might be paying attention to that cue and not the voice command. Then, if they are high up in a tree and can't see your arm, they might not recall. Anyway, when I don't hold up my arm Manzi showed some hesitation at first, but now he sees that I put my hand up as soon as he gets close to me. He did fly back to his cage twice instead of the perch, but I immediately picked up up from his cage and he then flew to his perch. He is realizing that when he flies to his perch, he gets to eat the treat. Also, Manzi's motivation is very high. He is not doing any refusals and he is coming immediately when I call him. I am excited about doing outdoor flying again.

Next week we're going to fly in a gym (we found one) so that should be fun. I am leaving town for the weekend, but I will post updates again next week on the progress.

Big Show Off

2010-02-16T18:36:00.000-08:00

Today a good friend of mine, Ixchelle, came over with her four children to eat lunch and see Manzi. I warned them that Manzi might not talk for them, but in less than 10 seconds he began chatting away. He started off with a repeating "hello" a couple of times. Then he went right into laughing, saying "okay" and "I love you." It was really cute. Manzi is often very quiet with strangers, but he just loved the attention from Ixchelle and her children. He also did all of his tricks and even did his tricks on the command of some of the children. Needless to say, he was a big hit.

Update on flight training: I set up the perch and have begun indoor recall. While Manzi is accustomed to coming to me, taking the treat and then returning to his cage to eat it, he is not used to returning to the perch. He flew back to the perch when I was about four feet away, but further than that he would return to his cage to eat the treat. I am going to continue doing the recall and sending him back to the perch at a distance where I know he will make it. I am also using the words "perch" and "cage" for their respective locations.

Cuddles: Today was extraordinary in how cuddly Manzi was. He usually doesn't want scratches midday as he gets bored and would rather get into trouble. Today though, he flew to me as I was working on the computer and he napped on my arm with his beak tucked under his wing. After a while, he decided that my hands (which were busy typing on the computer) would better serve him by scratching his head. Since it was unusual, I indulged in a love fest and spent 45 minutes scratching his head. While scratching his head, he is constantly turning and moving so my fingers get just the right spot, much like a dog or cat. Manzi did get bored eventually and went back to getting into trouble. When he gets cuddly like that he is such a little darling! Completely irresistible!

Manzi attacking blue lid

2010-02-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Here is a new video of Manzi. After making it, I thought it would be funny to post in the following form.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgnQjm62_H4

Plagued by a Cat

2010-02-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, others in my apartment complex amuse themselves with feeding the feral cats. Due to this, there has been a large increase in the number of wild kittens running a muck. The kittens from the past litter are nearly full grown. One of them, I'll call him Smokey, is intent on harassing Hercules, my sulcatta tortoise. When it warms, Hercules gets full run of the garden on my patio. I am worried that Smokey might hurt poor Hercules so I chase him away any time I see him enter the patio. Today, Manzi was preening on his cage top when he let out a warning shriek and took off way too fast. He couldn't stop, but the cupboards in the kitchen helped him to do so. After a thump, he flew back up to his cage breathing very hard. Usually when this happens, I will see a tractor or some large vehicle outside the window. In this case, it was just Smokey. I chased Smokey away and Hercules, who was outside at the time, came back out of his shell.

Manzi is just fine. He is not hurt at all, he just had a scare. Right now he is back to running around on the floor wrecking havoc.

Blood and Terror

2010-02-08T08:57:00.001-08:00

First, I want to apologize for the delay in updates. Things have been hectic in my life so I haven't done as much training with Manzi.

Here is the blood story: Manzi's nails began to scratch me and that means it's time to clip them. I clipped them as usual and he was just fine with it. After about 30 minutes, he began to fly all around while I was working. He was flying and running around for a few minutes when he landed on me. I noticed that there was blood on his foot. I must have clipped his nail very close to the quick and then Manzi chewed it the rest of the way. I looked up and noticed that he spread blood all over my living area. There were little bloody footprints everywhere. It looked like a mini blood bath and I am glad no policeman randomly showed up or he might not believe my story. I looked at Manzi's nail but couldn't do anything about it and within a minute or so it stopped bleeding anyway. I was a bit concerned about the amount of blood, but Manzi seemed no worse for the wear. It took me nearly 30 minutes to clean up the blood and then sanitize my place. What a bloody mess!!! (get the pun?)

Terror: Lately Manzi has found silverware to be his mortal enemy. I'm not sure why. I think that he wants some of my food and even though I usually give him some, it is not enough so then in frustration he goes after the culprit. Over the past couple weeks I have had spoons and forks tackled, knocked to the floor and then flung around. Manzi flies out of no where at the silverware. He got my finger on accident a couple of times. When I am eating cereal it causes a big mess. Needless to say, now Manzi is locked in his cage for the duration of meals. He is still allowed to hang out with me while I cook, but once the food is ready to serve, he goes in his cage and then it is safe to take out the silverware.

Freeflight: There are still many hawks in the area, but their numbers are diminishing. I am going to resume indoor recalls either today or tomorrow and hopefully within a few weeks we can do outdoor flying again.

Manzi and Drifter

2010-01-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

My friend came over with her dog, Drifter. Her dog is a large, 80lb, champion duck hunting, English Laborador Retriever. If you notice in the pictures, he is being held by his collar. This helps prevent teeth marks in Manzi. Luckily, Drifter is one of the best behaved dogs I've seen. I would not trust other dogs to be in this close of proximity to Manzi. Manzi thought he could take on Drifter. He was biting Drifter's fur while on his back and then got distracted with a the brake on my friend's wheel chair.
I like Drifter's look that seems to say, "Do I have to put up with this?"

Also, Manzi has stopped waking me up with the alarm beeps and then the barks, but as soon as he hears me get up, he proceeds with his routine (alarm, whistle calling dogs and then barking). This goes on until I uncover him every morning.

Barking Mad

2009-12-31T18:09:00.000-08:00

I am at my sister's house again. She has a shih-tzu/poodle cross. This morning, while I was still in bed, I could hear the dog barking at Manzi. After a while, my sister got upset with her dog and brought him downstairs. Soon enough, the barking upstairs continued. At first I thought her dog, Peanut, had gone back upstairs, but then I heard him howling downstairs while the barking was going on upstairs. It seems that Manzi now has perfect mastery over barking like a little dog. Manzi has been barking all day long. I hope he forgets how to do it soon enough after we get back. There are worse noises, but I can see his barking getting annoying. I have heard of many other parrot-hound households telling stories of their African Greys barking, but since I don't have a dog I never thought I'd have a barking parrot.

Traveling

2009-12-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

We are on vacation. Manzi usually hates his travel cage. On the first leg of our journey (a three-hour drive) Manzi began to bend the bars of his travel cage. I moved a toy in front of them to divert his attention. I am going to have to get a new travel cage in the future as he has damaged his current one quite badly. Anyway, after arrival at my sister's house, Manzi immediately began imitating the sound of their house alarm beeps. It beeps every time a door opens. It was funny because my nephew, Benjamin, keep asking, "Who's here?" as he heard the door "open." My sister kept having to answer that it was just Manzi again. There was a party on the day we arrived. Manzi was so loud, but the party was louder so it wasn't a problem. There were many inquiries about him and he seemed to be a pretty big hit.

I stayed with my sister a couple days. By the time we left he was saying her name.

Now we are in L.A. Manzi did much better on the last 3.5-hour drive and just sat contentedly. I let him out of his travel cage for much of the day as he always wants to be right with me. He is being a good sport and letting others hold him. He even laid on his back in my brother's hands!

I would like to devise a better travel system for Manzi in the car. He doesn't like being in his travel cage. I think a perch of some sort would be better. One that buckles into the seat belt and then just stick newspapers underneath him. It might take some getting used to, in order for him to learn not to leave the perch. Any volunteers to build me that perch?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

New Plan and Manzi's Prank

2009-12-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday Manzi and I got another roommate. It is a very nice lady who will be staying with us for a month. She likes animals and Manzi hasn't shown any aggression towards her. Instead he is intensely curious and would love to go watch her and say hi. Anyway, she told me that she'll knock during the day because she doesn't want to barge in and startle me or Manzi. Yesterday, I was taking a nap when I heard someone knock on the door. It woke me up but I figured that it was the lady and she'll come in if I don't answer. After a couple minutes, the knocking continued and I was wondering why she didn't just come in. I scrambled to get up and go answer the door. No one was there. Then Manzi began his laughing and did the "knocking" noise once more. That is the first time I have been tricked by him making a knocking noise.

With regards to flying, I have come up with a new plan. I need to go to the desert and work with Manzi there, where there is less problems with raptors and with terrain. I'm really not sure where the closest desert is from here, but the valley is pretty desertic so maybe somewhere around there would be great. I heard that even though Manzi can always find me in the park, it is because he learned to follow my voice and not to navigate the terrain. That is why he quickly got lost in the new park. There were many people there so my voice got drowned out. In a flat terrain, he will be able to fly around, and then I can find places with added difficulties and slowly build from there.

No Fear

2009-12-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Finally, Manzi has lost all fear of the stand. Today he has flown to it several times of his own accord. Later today I will do recall training to reinforce flying between me and stand. I have been using the word "cage" to signal Manzi to fly to his cage. Now I will use "stand" and he'll figure it out soon enough.

Perch Success

2009-12-01T11:05:00.001-08:00

Today Manzi actually flew to the perch. I was only three feet away, but that is huge progress. When I had him fly to the perch from further than three feet he instead went to his cage. So, I sent him from three feet and he continued to make the landings. I will slowly increase that distance.

I am not sure if I posted the exact process used to get here. First, I let Manzi get used to the perch being in the room. After a while, I held his feet and brought him up to it. He knew I was holding his feet so he wouldn't try and fly away. Then, I released one foot and had him put it on the perch. As soon as it touched the perch, I clicked (with the clicker) and rewarded him. Once he heard the click, he would take his foot off the perch and turn to me for the reward. I kept doing this and within a few days required both feet to be on the perch for the reward.

Perch

2009-11-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I did recall training with Manzi using the perch. I would put him on his cage, call him to me, reward him and then set him on the perch to eat his reward. It worked very well. He was comfortable enough to stand on one foot while using the other to eat his treat. After doing this a few times, I had him fly to his perch (he was about 6 inches so it was more of a jump). He landed on it, but then immediately chickened out and took off. So, I went back to having him step up to the perch. Today, I did the same thing, and after he went on the perch, he walked around a bit on it biting at different parts. That is a huge improvement. Before he would not move if he was on the perch. Hopefully he will begin flying from me to the perch in no time. Maybe my week estimation was not too bad after all.

Broken Glass

2009-11-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

Last night Manzi added another broken glass to the list. I think it is his fourth. I had just gotten home from Thanksgiving holiday. Manzi was doing laps around the apartment because he had so much energy built up. I accidentally left a glass on the counter. It wasn't near the edge, but that set is so fragile and all he did was tip it over and it shattered.

I am going to work more with the perch this coming week. Manzi is still afraid of it, but he will stand on it if I give him a treat. Hopefully, by the end of this week he'll be do A-B flights between me and the perch. Realistically, he'll be standing on it longer than a couple of seconds!