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Post by siobhan on Dec 6, 2019 12:23:45 GMT -5
I was eating dinner last night and heard Freddie squawking in the birds' room -- angry, not "MAMA, HELP" squawking. So I go see what's wrong and Clyde has yanked his tail and mangled his tail feathers. I don't know why. Freddie likes Clyde's pellets but won't eat them unless he thinks he's stealing, so giving him his own helping doesn't work. He might have been in Clyde's cage helping himself. At any rate, he's fine. Nothing hurt but his feelings. Still, I informed Clyde that we are NOT going to have him assuming Jade's role of "bully" now that she has moved in with my friend Brenda. There are only Clyde and Freddie in that room. It's a big room. There are three boings, two cages, multiple dishes of food and water, curtain rods, chairs, plenty of perching available. There is NO reason Clyde should have to pick on Freddie about anything at all. Then I sat down in their room to watch a Christmas movie and Clyde was in a MOOD. So maybe Freddie didn't actually do anything but exist, because Clyde was on a chompy, grouchy, full-on Quakertude roll.
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Post by msdani1981 on Dec 6, 2019 14:54:13 GMT -5
Awwwww, poor Freddie!!
Yup, give it enough time and you learn that "Quakertude" is an actual word that should be in the dictionary. Same with "Appytude" in horses. LOL
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Post by biteybird on Dec 10, 2019 8:49:50 GMT -5
Let's face it, Quakers are not happy unless there's something to be UNhappy about (i.e., drama). If nothing's happening one of them will make something happen...
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Post by siobhan on Dec 10, 2019 11:46:08 GMT -5
The next evening, Clyde bit Freddie's foot. The dispute was apparently over the treat cup, which was parked on Clyde's cage because that was a central location when there were all those other birds there. Freddie's okay; his foot bled a little and it was sore that night, but it's fine now. I moved the treat cup to the top of Freddie's cage. Now Clyde (I hope) won't feel he owns the thing.
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Post by biteybird on Dec 10, 2019 23:19:29 GMT -5
Clyde, you naughty boy! You must have been talking to Bonnie... Sometimes she won't come out of her Happy Hut in the morning, but instead of trying to dig her out I simply slide the doors next to her food dishes up & down - hey presto, out she charges, nearly sliding down the bars in her haste to defend her dishes... Us human slaves just have to work out how to outsmart these little chickens.
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Post by siobhan on Dec 30, 2019 11:51:49 GMT -5
Now Clyde is doing the hormone thing and being a complete brat, so maybe all those other bad boy things were just a precursor to this. His behavior was so bad last night that even Rocky was shocked, and it takes a lot to shock Rocky.
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Post by biteybird on Jan 8, 2020 6:21:25 GMT -5
Ha, and going by one of your other recent posts, Rocky has gone to the dark side and joined in with the hormonal, crazy behaviour.
FYI, the cage door technique is no longer working with getting Bonnie out of her sleeping cage. She now descends to the bottom of the cage and runs around in circles doing chicken noises and chewing her feet, then I have to drop the beanie over her and roll her up like a little chicken souvlaki. Then she does those cute quaker laughing noises, as if to reinforce that she knew what I wanted all along and chose to keep me hanging.
Bugger birds.
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Post by siobhan on Jan 8, 2020 10:37:24 GMT -5
Rocky is settling down and so is Clyde. I still have to be alert for signs of impending crazy, but they're coming further apart now. I expect them both to be back to what passes for normal in a few days. Oy. Why did we all think birds in the house was a good idea, again? Someone remind me.
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Post by biteybird on Jan 10, 2020 3:30:08 GMT -5
Oy. Why did we all think birds in the house was a good idea, again? Someone remind me. Obviously we poor humans have an innate need to be treated badly and bossed around by the superior species...
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Post by siobhan on Jan 10, 2020 11:22:32 GMT -5
Last night, Clyde charged up my torso and bit me right next to my jugular vein. LOL He's trying to kill me, I tell you. He was mad that I hadn't put them to bed yet and it was a half hour past bedtime. Nobody's stopping him from going to bed any time he wants, but I have to tuck him in or he won't go. Sometimes he won't go even if I try to tuck him in. Like last night, when he sat on a boing and cussed at me for 15 minutes, including lunging, before I gave up and got a dish towel and put his feathered hiney in his cage that way. He was NOT pleased. Meanwhile, Rocky was sitting on his taxi in the hall waiting for me and shrieking abuse at me for taking too long.
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Post by biteybird on Jan 13, 2020 4:37:19 GMT -5
Geez, these birds! Bonnie starts shrieking/squawking when she wants to go to bed. When she does this I just drop the beanie over the top of her (which she is used to, so no drama) and stuff her in her sleeping cage. Actually, the most annoying thing about this routine is that she can say "Goodnight" and said it once to tell us she wanted to go to bed - never again since. The nipping/biting thing is a daily occurrence with one or both of us, but the reason is usually that she's mad we went to work and didn't return by the time she thought we should. Also, we decided to not have any more hormone implants for Bonnie - they do work, but I found out that the cartridges/cases don't disintegrate, they just stay in the bird's little body! The last one caused a big wound (it was a 12-month one, expected to last up to 8 months for a quaker, so was bigger) and we didn't want to do that do her again. I can't imagine a new case/cartridge being left in the bird every 6 months for years on end...
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Post by siobhan on Jan 13, 2020 11:33:03 GMT -5
I think we might have come out the other side, though. Clyde started getting grouchy at his usual bedtime last night, so I moved Rocky into the hall, started turning off lights, Freddie flew to his lamp, where he sleeps, and Clyde started to go into that squawking and lunging thing, but changed his mind. I held out my hand, he stepped up pretty as you please and went right to bed. Then Rocky started getting squawky and grouchy a half hour before HIS bedtime, and I put him to bed and he settled right down.
I am appalled about the cartridge thing. Poor Bonnie! I should think eventually that would cause some horrible issues. I would also think that would be worth informing you about prior to inserting it, so you could make an informed decision about whether to go forward. Yikes.
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