This is the story of Manzi and Maui, my Congo African Grey parrots. Eventually, Manzi is going to become a famous flighted parrot, so check out his blog. I tell about day to day activities, continual trick training and about the quest to become a free flighted parrot. Maui is the newest addition and I also tell about their acclimation to each other and techniques to improve their relationship.
I think Manzi is officially starting to miss Adele. Why do I think this? For the past three days or so- every morning as I'm brushing my teeth and he hears that I'm awake, I hear Manzi calling from his cage, "Adele, Adele."
He must feel disappointed when he sees me instead of her!
I decided to clean the Azul's and Manzi's cages today- scrub their droppings off their cages, etc. I knew that Manzi wouldn't be to happy with me poking around his safe place. I tried to be nice by giving him a treat and opening the top of his cage before I started the cleaning process. I was hoping that he would be distracted with his treat and just ignore what I was doing. No such luck! As soon as he saw the sponge that I was using to clean his cage with- he was too curious to even eat his treat! I couldn't believe it. The whole time he was poofing and trying to get at the sponge. Since he was not interested in his treat, I brought out the water bottle hoping that the threat of being sprayed with water would make him stop trying to get the sponge. No such luck it made things worse. He started saying, "Watch it Man" over and over again. Finally I gave up and decided that cleaning half of his cage was good enough.
Then I started to clean Azul's cage and had it open while I was scrubbing the bottom- she immediatly took advantage of the cage being open and flew onto Manzi's cage. We don't let Azul climb on Manzi's cage anymore. Manzi no longer has any tolerance for Azul. He immediatly tried to bite her through the bars. Luckily I was close enought to pull Azul off of Manzi's cage.
On another note, Manzi got to see Cesar on Thursday. He hasn't seen Adele or Cesar for over a month now. I really thought that Manzi would be happy to see Cesar. I was wrong. He just poofed and only let his head get scratched. I guess he's not that lonly yet!
I found out that James (Aida´s husband) has taken over the feeding duties to get Manzi to behave better around him. James told me that when Manzi threatens him (by puffing up, etc.) while he is feeding him, then he just doesn´t give Manzi his food right away. It has been working great because now Manzi sees James as a good thing and realizes that his threatening gestures don´t get him what he wants. I also heard that Manzi is being much better around their son. Manzi still continues to be let out, but he needs constant supervision while out because he still gets into trouble (biting the blinds, etc.).
By the way, here in Brazil I saw a flock of Amazons the other day. I wish I had my camera (it is coming in 12 days). The Amazons were so loud and they were very playful; tumbling and hanging upside-down from branches. I will post pictures when possible.
Here's what Aida had to say about how Manzi acts with men versus women: "Manzi is so much nicer to me than he is to James. When I'm around he behaves and is so much nicer. When James is close to his cage or home alone- he totally acts up. Around me he doesn't say any bad words- but around James he says the bad word and laughs, James thinks he is doing it purposefully. At first I didn't believe it but now I'm starting to wonder..."
About the bad word, I didn't teach it to him and it is in another language (I'll let you guess which one).
I talked with Aida a couple days ago and she said that Manzi is doing very well. The first four days, Manzi was ignoring them and waiting for me to return, but she said he finally started calling to them and trying to get their attention. So, she has been able to let Manzi out of his cage and he returns when she tells him, "Go home" (with the encouragement of a treat).
Once, when Aida was cooking, Manzi went into the kitchen to see what she was doing. Aida was able to pick him up without a treat and hold him for a while. Usually, Manzi loves to hang out with me while I am cooking, probably because of the commotion (pots and pans, new ingredients, many utensils, etc.). I was very relieved to hear that Manzi is getting time out of his cage and that he is handling the new bosses quite well.
