Update to my challenge

Well, it didn't work out too well. I successfully stopped him/her from going under the hutch. And, I made new hidey holes for him. But, he had no interest in them just yet and my female lovebird found them first which started a fight between Oreo and Peaches. So, the hidey holes went bye byes.

Back to the drawing board.

One thing I know is, I have to keep them from fighting so all potential nesting sites must go. Which means my kitchen curtains must go. Even though Oreo is clipped, he is getting some flight feathers back so he is able to make it to the kitchen window.

I think I took on too much when I brought Peaches home.

I liked the dynamics of my flock before. We were happy. Why did I have to have Peaches? She has literally rearranged my whole entire flock and my house. Poor Peanut is so confused! He is in hormone overdrive all the time. My poor baby. I don't know what to do for him. Maybe I should consider rehoming Peaches??? :o( I don't even want to think about that because when an animal comes to live with us, this is their final home.

Hmm, what to do what to do????

A challenge

I love challenges! Especially the ones that have to deal with behavior in my children and in my birds. Today's challenge is to keep my lovebirds off the floor! My blue masked lovebird is finding that underneath my hutch in my kitchen is a neat place to hide. I've gotten some really good advice. The only thing is, he sneaks underneath there. He won't go under while we are watching him. He looks around to make sure no one is watching, but then if he even thinks we're going to be watching, he waits until we are busy. Even if we peek around the corner, he knows we're still watching!

So, I need to find a safe place for him to play that is out of the way. Just putting up a hideaway to make as his new clubhouse isn't going to work. He'll want it to be hidden... And, to make this challenge even harder; he is clipped but regaining some of his flight feathers. Even though, it is still hard for him to get to where he wants to go.

Where to put this hidey-hole? Nothing like rearranging your house for birds!! My house has gone to the birds LOL At least they let me have my favorite chair, the TV, and my coffee. I'm happy.

Routine

A routine is what I need. Hubby has the cutest routine for the Suns. Each morning, before he gets them up, he has all their food ready. He has a certain amount of walnuts and pistacchios that he gives each and a certain amount of cereal pieces sitting on the counter ready for them. Spoiled birds get cereal while my guys get yucky veggies and pasta! LOL

Back to hubby; He goes and gets the Suns from the bird room, hurriedly brings them into the living room so that Gibby can go potty. Gibby will not potty in his night time cage either.

Then it is kisses from daddy, (I stay away, I do not want a lip piercing), and cereal pieces. Once they've each had a piece of cereal, he puts in their food bowl and puts the rest of the cereal pieces in their treat bowl.

Not to worry, their cereal is organic good for you shredded wheat stuff that is expensive but since it is for the birds.... Not to mention it is not being sold in any of our local stores anymore. Hubby buys it when he takes our daughter grocery shopping when he takes her back to college in a neighboring city.

In the meantime, I am either eating my breakfast or doing some housework when Peanut gets up. We have no special morning routine... We have our special evening routine, but that isn't enough...

Our morning routine is Peanut flying to my head, climbing down on to my shoulder, and gacking for whatever body part he can find. If there are no body parts, he gacks on my shirt... :o( See, hormones.

So, yes a better routine is what I need...

I found me!

I literally lost myself; got a new computer and never got my stuff off of the old one. Seems like a difficult job, time consuming, so I have been procrastinating about doing it. Some day. Maybe :o)

Soooo....what is new?

Not much with me except hubby got laid off and I am done doing daycare but not by my decision. I am still watching my nephew, however my mom and I are sharing him, sort of. She watches him in the morning, and then I watch him in the afternoon.

This allows me to get my house back in order and I am loving it! Mom asked me how on earth I can find stuff to do for 4 hours!? LOL When my 4 hours are up, I am not done with my work so I can easily fill up that time. Mom says she gets bored. I say what she needs are some birds LOL

So, with the new schedule, it means changes in our lives. Especially for the birds. Well, at least for 2 of them...Peanut and Baby Joey. Oh, and Oreo because we are having some issues with him. I swear he is either part beaver or part termite. He is determined to eat our entire house!

He actually chewed through an electrical wire that goes to our phone! We had to get new phones, but that was the least of our worry of course. He could have killed himself. It happened on hubby's watch heeheehee

Anyway, it is very apparent that he needs more chewing opportunities, even though he has a lot, he needs MORE!

That is easy enough to fix. Next is Baby Joey. He is a lineolated parakeet and I really don't know much about them. They aren't all that popular, yet so there isn't much info out there about linnies.

What I did read is totally opposite of what I do with Baby Joey. Urrrrrchhhhhhhhhhhh go the brakes. Reverse and totally revamp my ideas about him.

Number 1 thing to do is to bring him out into the living room during the day. See, Baby Joey lived in the bird room during the day with 1 lovebird, 3 budgies and 2 cockatiels. According to the Lineolated Parakeet Society's webpage, linnies should not be living with budgies because linnies are so calm and quiet and it would stress them out too much. Uhoh. Mistake number 1.

And, then I read that linnies like to have a clean living environment so they should not live with dusty birds such as cockatiels. Oops, mistake number 2.

But, someone forgot to tell this to Joey. He flock calls a lot when he is out in the living room. He loves his budgie buddies.

But, (again), he is not as aggressive, strick that, he is not aggressive when given a break from the budgies. He was biting, a lot. Linnies are not aggressive by nature so this was not something to take lightly.

He was biting me a lot, and now since he has been in the living room, he has bitten me a total of 2 times.

Next is to move his sleep cage into my bedroom but since a clean environment is important to linnies (and I know it is important to Joey since he doesn't poop in his sleep cage), I need to clean my bedroom! LOL

Next item of business is Peanut, my problem child. *sigh* Gosh, I don't know where to start with him. He is in hormone overdrive and I really feel it is my fault because I have been lax in making sure he has lots to do :o( We've even stopped doing step up and he has been a booger about getting off of me when I need him to. He runs from one side of my shoulder to the other, down my back, up my head. Oy! It makes me not want to get him out of the bird room/cage.

But, item number catrillion and fifteen... impliment (implement??? sp??) some discipline in this house regarding the monster, errr I mean the Peeps ;o)

How am I going to do that? Lots of praise, lots of consistency, lots of patience, lots of play time, lots of things to do, and a routine.

I want to try to forgo a wing clip if I can... I will update my progress as I go :o)