Has any or all my posts about Walter made anyone want to go out and buy a bird?

@tinamarie1974 Just think of the cost benefits of a bird like Walter. He cost $ 1,000 and if you amortize that over his 25 year life, it is $ 40 a year and decreasing every year. We spend about $ 120 a year for a claw and wing trim and wellness check. No grieving over dead pets-he will outlive you. And minimal outlay for bird food since he will eat what you eat. Want a dog instead-no problem-teach him to bark like a dog like Walter does. The list goes on and on.

@Felton10 all very valid points, but you just can’t cuddle up on the couch or go for q good walk with a bird

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974 Same here, I like my fuzzy cuddle buddy. But I do love hearing about Walter’s escapades and idiosyncrasies - he’s a real character. And handsome!

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 When Walter wants to be petted (right behind his eyes on his ear holes), he climbs down and starts banging on my computer and I pick him up and pet him. If I don’t pet him long enough he refuses to get off my hand and sometimes tries to bite me.

As far as taking him for a walk, sometimes toyed with the idea of putting him in his travel cage and putting that in the garden wagon and taking him for a walk. Lots of people meet and socialize when walking their dogs and I’ll bet I would get a lot of attention if I walked Walter.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974 Oh, yes - that would be a great way to meet your neighbors!

@Felton10 @Kyeh do they make harnesses for birds? You could put him on a leash and walk him!!

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 I bought one for him which allows him to fly-he wouldn’t let me put it on him.

@Felton10 @Kyeh well shoot, that would have been super cute

/giphy bird on a leash

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 It was sort of complicated to put on going under his wings which I don’t think he liked.

@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974

I’ll bet I would get a lot of attention if I walked Walter.

As kids we got a LOT of attention when we took our pet skunk for a walk.

“Ooh, what an interesting cat. Aaaaaahhhhhhh! That’s not a cat!”

@blaineg @Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
A school camp I ran had a descented albino skunk. Kid (and teacher) reaction to that was “interesting” once they realized that little triangular body was a skunk.

@blaineg @Felton10 @Kyeh you had a pet skunk???

@blaineg @Felton10 @tinamarie1974 One of my jr. high teachers had a pet skunk - he brought it to school the last day of class.
How was it having a skunk for a pet - was it affectionate? Did it play like a cat or dog would?

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974

Be careful what you assume- our umbrella cockatoo Brandy loved to cuddle up with either of us- some days she preferred one or the other, for no apparent reason- she’d curl up on my chest under a blanket murmuring quietly, unless a pinfeather got tweaked by accident while we were scruffling her feathers, then she’d make a louder cry.

We kept her flight feathers clipped so she couldn’t fly into things [ceiling fans, woodstove] and get hurt, so she could and did go for walks with us, hiding under SWMBO’s hair or inside my collar if she was startled by or afraid of something [like big birbs flying overhead].

The other thing not to assume is that a parrot or other hookbill [like macaws or cockatoos] will outlive its owners. They do have very long lifespans on average, but things can happen- in our case, one of her eggs [yes she laid some periodically after she went though her versions of adolescence- nippy phases, and puberty- nothing physically obvious, she just settled down a little except periodically doing some mating behaviors…] got stuck in her pelvis, so she got septic and being a prey animal, she “knew” to hide her illness, so that by the time we realized she was ill, she was too sick to survive.

We got her when she was 3 years old having been hand-raised from hatching onward so that she thought she was human, or that we were just weird birbs. She died at 13 years old, which was waaaay too soon and waaay too painful for something that was so engaging, bright, and loveable. We still mourn her loss over a decade later.

The only thing that my dogs are better for than Brandy was, is hugging- we have always had big dogs, and their presence helped us cope with her loss.

I’m verklempt again writing this… but those feelings are too close to the surface presently because our cat got killed on Saturday, by the dog we adopted 3 years ago, after fostering him, when no one else wanted him.

Sorry to thread jack, but thanks for the therapy…

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Oh, and he’s also the only reason we never re-homed another birb- [ferret, snake, rabbit, puppy, etc.] we knew he’d be likely to kill anything less able to defend itself than another adult dog- though he’s not really aggressive except for being in constant hunting dog mode.

@PhysAssist sorry for your losses.

@PhysAssist sorry for your loss. It is always hard to lose a fur baby

@PhysAssist Oh my gosh that is horrible that it was your dog killed your cat. That makes it so much harder than it already is. I am so sorry. And yes, our creatures can mean so much to us that we can morn them years later when reminded, in sometimes unexpected ways, of them. Just like with humans.

@Felton10 @PhysAssist @tinamarie1974 Oh, that’s really sad, I’m sorry!

@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Thanks, we miss her so much.

@Kidsandliz
It’s very hard not to blame him or ourselves.

But it was so sudden and random- he had escaped rarely in the past, but she had so many hidey-holes scattered all around our house, that he had never before gotten anywhere near her.

These were in addition to her heated "kitty cabana " on our porch, inside which she could easily have defended herself, but somehow he caught her outside, and in the blink of an eye, it was over.

@tinamarie1974
Thanks so much!

@RiotDemon
Thanks lots!

@PhysAssist That is just so sad.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Well I agree with the cuddling up, having a bird sit on my shoulder didn’t give “me” the warm fuzzies! But… My guy Sunny Doddle used to sit on my shoulder for a 1.5 mile walk to my mom’s house. He’d hunker up under my bush of curls and just enjoy the ride!

@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974

you had a pet skunk???

We had a pet nearly everything when we were kids. A few dogs, many cats (a few of them were real weirdos), parakeets, a dwarf parrot, hamsters, gerbils, a chinchilla, a caiman (South American alligator), countless snakes, frogs, salamanders, etc. that we caught ourselves, boas & pythons, land hermit crabs, and a wide variety of tropical & marine fish and assorted tank denizens (including lion fish & piranha). I’m sure I missed some.

Not all at once, but I’ve got a lot of brothers & sisters, and we had a variety of interests. The only pet request I can remember being denied was for a third dog, on the grounds that Dad didn’t want another dog for him to take care of.

@blaineg @Felton10 @Kyeh that is fantastic. You must of had a fun childhood!

@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 The skunk wasn’t really like a dog or cat, though he was cat sized. He was a very curious critter, always investigating things. Very much a unique personality. He could be affectionate when he wanted to be, but he wasn’t really cuddly. His fur was coarse & wiry. He was de-scented, of course, but there was some residual musky odor at times, which was stronger when he was agitated.

@Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Yes, we had a lot of fun as kids. Sometimes I wonder how Mom survived all of us and all of our critters.

@blaineg @Felton10 @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 That is sure a wide range of creatures. We only had growing up (only in comparison LOL) cats, turtles, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pig, tadpoles and frogs, school fish for a month, ant farm, and various temporary, until caught by parents, various creatures such as lizards and salamanders, baby snake, chipmunk (put in the old hamster cage, caught it in a net as is ran out from under the back porch step), lightening bugs, and probably a few other things I have forgotten about.

@PhysAssist @tinamarie1974 Sorry for both your losses.

The bird I had before Walter flew away Used to take him out for walks and never had a problem and then one day he just took off and that was it. Got Walter less than a week later.

All three of the parakeets we had showed no signs of being sick and the all of a sudden went to the bottom of the cage and died like a day later, so I know birds can exhibit exhibit very few symptoms before the end comes.

Walter as been pretty healthy with two exceptions where I had to rush him to the vets. Noticed blood dripping from his beak one time and he had broken a major blood vessel in his beak. Dtr had to cauterize it to stop the bleeding. Another time he broke one of this blood feathers and was bleeding as he walked around. Both very traumatic as both times thought something was really wrong-blood does that.

@Felton10 @PhysAssist that is so scary. Similar to when a dog breaks off a toenail, looks like a crime scene. They will bleed out until you stop it.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Brandy had a couple of “blood feathers” break, and a few times they started to bleed because she picked at them. She was a bit of a feather picker when we got her, which was part of how we got her.

The lady we bought her from had hand fed/raised her since shortly after she hatched, which part of why she was such a cool kiddo. Unfortunately, when the lady’s kid grew up enough to go off to school, the lady also went back to school.
Brandy went from being in a busy place with near-constant drama and activity and companionship to being alone for long periods [this was between her 2nd and 3rd years of life], so she was bored and lonely, and she started to pick at her own feathers. Luckily, for Brandy, the lady’s vet told her what was wrong, and for Brandy’s sake, she decided to sell her- looking for a person or couple who would be home bodies, and be w/ her constantly.

Since SWMBO is disabled and home mostly all day most days, and we are DINKs [double-income, no kids], it was pretty close to perfect, so her budding habit got kinda nipped in the bud.

As to blood feathers, they are a stage that occurs when new feathers grow in, and since birbs be tiny, they can bleed out from them in next to no time, if the bleeding doesn’t get stopped .

We quickly learned to grab the damaged feathers at the base using a small hemostat [needle-nose pliers would also work], and then just pull it straight out using a pretty stiff tug. QED- problem over.

How ever did Walter’s beak get injured like that? That had to be horrific…

Thanks for sharing!

@PhysAssist @tinamarie1974 Was told birds have very little blood and bleeding is a serious issue with them. Walter likes to use his beak as kind of a testing and sounding thing-banging it against things he encounters that are new or strange. Assumed he banged too hard checking something out. I drove like a madman to the vets with him.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Same- blood loss was always an emergency situation- fortunately that same things that work to stop bleeding in humans work for hookbills- pressure, styptics, and cautery, but the best and quickest was always pulling the feather completely out- then the hole [follicle] would close up immediately and the bleeding was over.

We were always concerned about how much torque she could and would apply to her beak, especially when she was having a tantrum, but in that at least we were lucky never to had to deal with a beak injury.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Oh, and learn from our experience- if you ever decide to adopt a parrot/cockatoo/macaw, [It’s not such a big problem usually with smaller species] buy a reliably sexed birb, and make sure that it’s a male- because egg-binding isn’t an issue for males.

@PhysAssist @tinamarie1974 We had no idea what sex Walter was when he got him. The vet said the only way to determine the sex was with a DNA test which cost $ 50. Told her to tell me if the cost came down. About a year later she said the cost was down to $ 45 so I said do it-came back as a male which was good as I didn’t want to change his name.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Lucky sonuvagun youse are…
We’d likely still have our kiddo if only…

OTOH, we’d not have been able to change her name no how anyway- she had imprinted on that one, and talked to herself all the time, using it.

We’re not too picky about matching names to sex w/ pets- my lil brother’s female boxer-dobe mix was named Mighty Manfred, shortened to Phred, in homage to 2 different comics that he loved…

Any takers on guessing which ones?

@eggsterminate With my first set of cats a crow came down the chimney and got in the house (chimney had no flue). I came home to find one cat had him gently by the wing and was being dragged maybe 4 or 5 inches above the floor. Bird was bigger than the cats. The other cat was watching. I managed to grab the cat holding on and freed the bird. Checked the bird and fortunately not a mark on him. Cats were being careful. Put the bird outside and he flew off. I’d imagine he was careful around cats in the future LOL. Cats spent the next couple of weeks sitting and staring at the fire place waiting for their next toy to arrive.

@stolicat i had a budgie in high school that also lived a good long life. Died when my parents watched The Birds. They felt bad about that.

@unksol they have everything at the Thrifty Acres!

@ybmuG realistically… Probably would have had to kill it. If it had A broken wing.

/youtube everybody loves raymond bird kill

@ybmuG I was looking for the one where ray picks up a bird that hit the window and deborah mother just snaps it’s neck “oh we’ll take care of it” all sweet… Snap “what did you think I meant”

@cinoclav Conures ain’t real birbs… just noise boxes with feathers.

@cinoclav @PhysAssist Can confirm.

@AuntMean67 But you don’t get to cuddle them, pet them, play with them, love them and have them love you back…just reading about them. You are missing a lot (grin).

@AuntMean67 Mess what mess?? Oh-that mess-well that is what you get when you don’t keep the bird in the cage at all.

And if you don’t want to be bothered cleaning up the mess, just don’t do it and wait for the cleaning people to do it,

@AuntMean67 @Felton10 The cleaning people? Would that the kids? In this household that would be the perfect hard manual labor punishment that the kid would get if I had to drive something 8 miles to school that she forgot. She owed me twice the time in hard manual labor. I made sure to pick the things she hated the most - cleaning the toilet (when she chose chores from the list she chose cleaning everything in the bathroom she used except the toilet), cat dirt boxes, cleaning the microwave, washing the car, cleaning out the fridge…

@Felton10 My slaves left home years ago. And I didn’t kid myself, my spouse would have told them to leave it for me. The only pets I allowed through the years were fish (long gone because who took care of them while working 48 hours a week?), a bullfrog (delicious with garlic butter one new years eve) and my current pets…daddy long legs. THOSE I’ll take care of.

@AuntMean67 that is the one thing with cats. You can set them up with clean litter boxes, fill their water fountains or bowls, throw down a bunch of food and they will be fine.

They will miss you and be clingy when you come back but they don’t technically need you for a week

@AuntMean67 @Kidsandliz Kids went bye-bye many years ago and since we live 1,000 miles away we only see them when we go up to visit or when we pay for their plane tickets down. No-the people we hire and pay to clean the house on a bi-weekly basis.

@AuntMean67 @unksol Or ignore you for a while if you’re gone too long - we had someone come by and feed one of our cats when we went on a long trip one summer. When we got back, our cat acted very indifferent to us for about a week - I guess he was miffed!

@AuntMean67 @Kyeh I may or may not have talked to them through the security cams last time. Is been a few years

More just to get them in range and check on them

@AuntMean67 @Kyeh yeah but you let a stranger feed em. It was confused

@AuntMean67 @unksol Maybe so.

@blaineg Well we could minimize the mess Walter makes by keeping him in the cage, but since that is not our thing, we take the bad with the good. Never thought it was a good idea to keep the birds caged up. I wouldn’t want to spend my life locked up in a cage and I assume neither does he.

The first set of parakeets we got-released them into the basement right after I brought them home. Took me three hours to catch them that first night.

@blaineg @Felton10 does he spend any time in the cage at all? Just curious

@blaineg @tinamarie1974 at night and when we are out of the house we lock him in. He goes in for food and sometimes when I am not in the room, he’ll go in there and stay. Other times he will climb down and go looking for us. Most of the time he will just perch on top of the cage or play with his toys on top of the cage.

We take him out in the morning and put him on his play gym in the great room and just as soon as I put him on there he does his business-almost like taking a dog out for a walk in the morning, Put his dish with his breakfast and there he stays until around noon.

@blaineg @Felton10 @tinamarie1974 So I guess birds, or at least Walter, are creatures of habit too?

@blaineg @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 More so than you can ever guess. He makes the same unique sound every time I put food in front of him.

The vet told me that African Geys like Walter are big feather pickers-that over 50% of the Greys she sees have picked their feathers either because of being bored or an inadequate diet. Walter has never picked his feathers. Must be doing something right.

@blaineg @Felton10 @Kidsandliz you must be a good birdie parent

@blaineg @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 I try to be. My wife says I’m a better parent to Walter than I was to our son and daughter.

@blaineg @Felton10 @Kidsandliz @tinamarie1974 Well, Walter gets the benefit of the experience you got practicing on them!

@blaineg @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 Maybe-although I think my experience with my previous birds helped Walter. The one I had before Walter flew away as I used to take him outside. So never took Walter outside except in either in his cage or in the lanai.

In our last house, he flew into the pool twice and I was getting ready to jump in to save him, but he kept flapping his wings like a duck trying to take off so I just waited until he got to the side of the pool to fish him out. Must have had an impact upon him as every time I took him near the pool after that, he used to fly away when I got near the pool.

@ironcheftoni As I said birds pull their feathers out of boredom or improper diets, but change of owner, cage, or location can trigger feather picking also. Problem is once the do it, even if they reason for doing it is taken away, they still might continue to do it out of habit.

My brother has a bird who has been picking her feathers for over 15 years. Just when they grow back, she starts to pick them again.

And BTW-getting another bird is not always recommended. They say do not do it for my type of bird.

@Lynnerizer Hootie is a great name for a dove.

@Lynnerizer I was talking about cockatiels with a coworker the other day and she asked, “do they make diapers for birds?” Birdless but having done some bird-related research over the years, I responded, “Yes! But I don’t think the birds like them very much.” She looked them up and then giggled for a couple of minutes. I assume both your pseudo-mother-in-law and Angel the Cockatiel would be resistant to the idea, but maybe?

@Felton10 aawww. No sudsy wash down?

@tinamarie1974 No- just plain water

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
On our vet’s instructions [He was an avian specialist who took care of all the birbs in the 3 city zoos in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, NY.] we shampooed her periodically using Johnson’s No More Tears Baby Shampoo. She didn’t really mind it, especially because she got cuddled in a warmed towel afterwards [also after some light blow drying].

@PhysAssist @tinamarie1974 Not sure how good that would work with Walter especially because the vet uses a towel to grab Walter when they clip his wings and dremel (yes dremel) his claws.

@Felton10 @tinamarie1974
Same- except we did that ourselves, unless we were at the vet’s office for a check up. She hated the way the Dremel sounded when we tried it, so we went back to using small dog nail scissors.

We always felt bad while doing her nail hygiene because of her squawking and screaming, but she only seemed to blame the indignity on the towels and not us. so she would be fine and happily tired afterwards.

@Felton10
He looks like he’s really enjoying it!

@Felton10 @Kyeh I love that last picture, Walter looks so at peace

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 He’s gotten used to it and I think not only tolerates it now, but likes it. Can tell when he need or wants a shower as he goes into his water dish right after I put clean cold water in it. For some reason he likes cold water for his shower.

@Limewater Every African Grey parrot’s owner knows about Alex. He is the gold standard for what parrots can learn. We actually made a contribution to Dr Irene P’s Alex Foundation.

We came to the conclusion that Walter is either lazy, stubborn or has a learning disability.

@Felton10 Yeah, I figured he was probably pretty well-known among grey parrot fans. As a parrot-ignorant this was the first I had heard of him.

@Limewater Well my postings and pics about Walter have either convinced people to stay far away from birds as pets as possible or made them more interested in getting one. But everything you read says that it should not be a spur of the moment decision to buy one. They require a lot of attention and effort-much different than other pets.

They suggest you start out with parakeets which is what we did.

@Felton10 @Limewater
For me though, although keets and other small birbs are easier to care for, and somewhat interesting, I never thought that they were a good step toward coping with a bigger hookbill. Reading and talking with other owners, getting on social media forums for hookbill owners, and getting hands-on with them whenever and wherever you can helped us more.

Oh, and IDK about your experiences with Walter, but even the happiest, friendliest, well-raised birbs get all of the same hormonal moods and can get bitey and destructive at times. Nothing serious ever happened, but she could easily have caused serious bite wounds if she had ever wanted to- after all, she could crack nuts and destroy wood effortlessly with her beak.

Hell, just having her walk around or perch on us could and did cause scratches and pinpricks- which she then wanted to pick at if they were left uncovered.

On a lighter note, it was hilarious to see a little 500-gram birb waddling around on the floor chasing and harassing my M-I-L, who was chicken of her.

Brandy loved my F-I-L though, except that she always tried to take his watch off.

@Limewater @PhysAssist Oh yes Walter can and still does bite very hard and can draw blood if the bite is with the tip of his beak. He has bitten my wife on her nose and on her hand one time where blood was dripping down to the floor.

Probably not the best thing to teach a bird, but from the beginning I used to kiss him on the beak saying “Give me a kiss”. So now when I say that or his head gets near my face he will thrust his beak out and make a clicking sound as my lips touch his beak. Hopefully after 25 years, that habit is ingrained in him and nothing bad will happen.

I think everyone who is interesting in owning a bird should start small and work their way up.

@Felton10 @Limewater
Again, same- we both have various and sundry scars from the minor injuries she caused when she was in her adolescent bitey phase.

We did the kiss thing too, and she never seemed to take advantage of our trust in that way. She wasn’t really very sneaky, except when she wanted to pull off a scab, or steal an earring- then she was too slick.

In the 5 or 6 years before we lost her, she had mellowed out considerably as regards biting and acting out much, and unless you were a blond female with a squeaky voice, she wouldn’t go out of her way to bother you.

But my niece and S-I-L, who fit the above description were also in the chase and harass group w/ my M-I-L.

@Felton10 poor guy

@tinamarie1974 He really doesn’t mind. Catching him with the towel is the biggest issue, but he just seems to take out any frustration by biting the towel. And he doesn’t hold grudges as he’ll get right on the vets hand after it is all over.