 George is trying to pick him up to eat, but he's biting him. Maybe this has to do with yesterday. Hello, my fellow Snippers. My name is Marlene McCohen and welcome to my channel. Today is day three with Merlin the African Grey. I just uncovered him and now I'm going to get him out of the cage. I just want to say this real quick. I'm hoping that you are seeing the educational value in these videos. Sometimes I feel like when you guys see my family in a video, you miss some very important points that I'm making. And you think that if I just sit down and talk, that's the only thing that's educational. But it's not. We have talked about nesting behavior, light therapy, engaging in not caging birds, birds first day homes. We've done bird rescues. All this is very important stuff. So hopefully you guys are wise enough to see what's going on here. So here we go. Let's get Merlin out. Merlin, do you want to step up? Okay. So because I didn't go right away to get him to step up, he probably wants to come out on his own. So I have to kind of trick him. Sorry, my camera's still broken. Okay, step up and give him a stepping down grounds. There we go. Did you see that? Because if I would have just opened the cage and let him climb to the top, I would have lost my chance of holding him, which is very important. Now I know some of you will be dealing with very aggressive birds or birds that you can't handle just yet. And in that case it would be very important. Look, he's showing me where he wants to go. So let's follow his body language. He obviously wants to check the fridge. So perhaps this will be the day for him to see what's going on. I'm going to put him right here because remember he liked it. That's right. Okay, Sandy. Okay, you can come in. All right. Remove all things that you don't want birds to chew. I haven't seen Merlin chew anything, but that doesn't mean he won't. You know what I mean? They all get into stuff eventually. So a lot of times you guys write me and say, how do I get my bird to stop chewing things? And it's like, well, you just kind of got to adjust yourself. There's also this no chew spray you can use, but I don't really use it. I'm going to try it again and let you guys know what I think though. All right, so here's Merlin. I'm going to open the fridge. Remember I told you guys his little apple sauces at the bottom here? His baby food. Look at his reaction. Okay, so he knows that these things are down here. And once he sees them, Merlin, do you want to go down there and see anything? That's pretty chun right now. So this is legitimately day three. I've been able to document these things. Usually when I get a bird, like when I got Nellie and Monty, I wasn't able to get the content out as fast as I filmed it. So I filmed a video on quarantine, on their cages, on everything. And I never actually got it out to you guys because I prefer to spend my time with the birds and making sure they are engaged and not caged. And editing takes a long time. So if you guys want to help me get videos out faster, check out my Patreon. That's basically what it is for so I could get content to you faster. I have an amazing person helping me edit right now and I want to be able to keep him. And that's how I'm able to get all this out to you today. So Merlin's here and he's chilling. Anyway, okay, let's go look at who we have here today. Hanging off. Remember yesterday these guys bit me. All right, Nellie. Just want to reiterate, literally bit my neck. I found the perfect shirt to wear today. Guys, look at these scars. I mean, they're not scars yet, but yeah. Are you naughty? Yeah. For those of you who didn't see my video yesterday, Nellie and Monty were both on my shoulder and Jersey climbed up. This wasn't in the video, but you saw the aftermath. I actually wasn't expecting to have them both on my shoulders for very long. I was just trying to transport them and Jersey came up real quick and that made them jealous of each other, of Jersey, angry at me. And so it was like a bite fest. I also have bites right on my fingers. So like it's not always going to be perfect with birds. That's part of the reason that it's taken me so long to re-home them because I really have to be the person that figures it all out. At this point I'd have to investigate. I'd have to say to myself, okay, they bit me under these conditions. I'd have to let the people know maybe they'd want to be careful if they have kids. Maybe if they have other birds, the bird's going to be jealous. But maybe they need to have other birds to understand what it is to have birds like this and still love them no matter what, even if they do bite. You know, that's also very important. So all these things have to be taken into consideration. That's why it takes me a long time to decide before re-homing, especially with this case with these two. Come here, Nellie. They are did good. You stepped up from my shoulder. You did good. You're a good girl. And you can't be mad at them forever because guys really... I wasn't kidding when I said the little guys bite the worst, truthfully. I mean, I know I got some big bites from birds but it was kind of like expected. Hi, are you two hanging out? What are you doing? What are you doing, mama's baby? Jersey, you got a little snack? Where's all my birds? And then Cody's in his little tent and Vinnie flew as soon as he got out. Rocky's up there chilling. Rocky, you want to come down and say hi? Come on, baby. Hi, mama's baby. Say hello. Yes, baby. Proud bird. Vinnie? What are you doing up there? Yeah? Hi, Vinnie. Vinnie did this and Rocky did some too. These are the kind of things you have to be aware of that birds can accomplish before you get them. A lot of people think it's going to get easy but if you don't want things like this in your house, want some nice breakfast? You'll come down and look. Oh my god, do you want to hear your song? Come bird, you'll go you'll sniff so good. Sometimes birds. Number one, and I steal dogs and I do everything I can in this house. And now Merlin's here and Merlin is stealing. Easy to get Jersey to get excited like that. Sometimes it's like a fluff call but what happens is I know she's going to do it so I'll kind of play into it and if it's nighttime and she's a little cranky then what I'll do is sing a song and turn it into a dance or a game. So that's how I use their little tantrums to their advantage to have fun especially with Jersey because I don't want her to have any more anxiety about anything so I really want to make her feel like her tantrum and her call is kind of like a flockmate including themselves with her which is what she's kind of missing. So birds get loud when people get loud and also a lot of you guys don't know this but a lot of times birds tend to take to women because women have higher voices and birds like that so it kind of matches their own flock calls closer than men's voices. Don't get me wrong there's a lot of men that are incredible with birds. I mean just look at Rocky and George like Rocky just loves him and Rocky by the way loves whispering so on the other hand with Rocky you want to be like he loves that. Rocky is not too into loud noises if Jersey screams or any of the other birds scream Rocky says Marla and I go what and he goes come here he wants me to like take care of the birds he's really funny and smart like that but back to Merlin Merlin's just been chilling here now including himself you're gonna get the breath boost how I love you okay I'm gonna open the fridge again and I have this feeling that he associates George with food and when George is at the fridge that's when he responds what are you yeah you're talking already look your stuff is down there do you want to go get it you want to get it stretchy stretchy get ready for breakfast I really wanted to show you guys because my lens broken it's taking so long for a new one to come if I just switch the camera like it goes off and it's having a hard time focusing so I'm sorry if any of this is unfocused but I just want you to see like how he flies down and goes for it he might associate it with George though but I think he's on the move now well then I'm gonna make my tea another thing I want to tell you guys which is really important and I know I mentioned it in a previous video on Merlin we're on day three but I probably should mention this every single video is about quarantine you guys know I'm really big on quarantine with birds obviously Nellie and Monty they got super quarantined because I'd never seen them previously so quarantine is generally about birds being sick you don't want them to give anything to the current birds you have so when you get a baby bird they've generally been in a place with a lot of other baby birds you don't know what the bird has very important to quarantine your bird when you bring your bird home same with if you bring a bird home from anywhere else that there's a lot of birds and you've never seen this bird before you don't know what the bird has now in Leo's case Lou who had him at birds plus is specialized in quarantine he also was vet checked and I also saw Leo months before he ended up in my house so because of that that kind of essentially is his quarantine so with Leo and with Merlin we're kind of in the same situation now Merlin has been vet checked so that's important for you guys to know and he's cleared of anything so that's one thing to keep in mind I'm still not going to be putting him out in the aviary anytime soon I wouldn't do that anyway because I want to see like how he integrates with my birds very important he has to get to know them first before he can go outside with them he has a designated stand right now for himself but I don't mind him being out and about with my birds in this situation Nelly and Monty were not out and about at all I did actually have vet records from them I know the vet that they went to they checked out fine but I hadn't personally seen them previously because keep in mind quarantine is so that you know a bird doesn't have anything but how do you know usually if a bird has any kind of illness they're gonna show signs within a month most of the time they're going to die so if you've seen a bird six months and then you see the bird six months later and they haven't come in contact with so many other birds or haven't had any changes and they have a vet check up then generally they're good I don't want to increase any kind of paranoia so that's why I'm just telling you guys things how they are but we will take precautions he's got his own spots and stuff like that you guys have to do what's right for you if you want to quarantine every single bird that comes into your house like I think you should like you should always take the best precautions in this case I know how serious Parrot's first is he is gonna be pretty much quarantine his cage isn't even in this room so it's gonna be out there for a month and he's not gonna be on the same stance but he is going to be included because I want him to be included right away Nelly and Monty had each other and then they got separated and then now they're so much better that they're in here with everybody else okay guys while I was making an Instagram video for you Jersey just inserted herself over here she always goes to greet the new bird they haven't really had an official meet up the problem here is that they're not on the same level I'm here so you can be next to him right there now you're equal okay yeah did you like Parrot? George is trying to pick him up to eat but he's biting him maybe this has to do with yesterday yesterday you gave him the same food right here so maybe he thinks that he's not gonna get it if you don't put it in his bowl right here I'm gonna give him his bowl I want everyone else to understand that sometimes a bird can bite because they are afraid that the same thing is not gonna happen the way it happened yesterday I'm putting him a little bowl here today he's gonna get confirmation and then tomorrow we'll do it a different way were you hungry? you mad? he's like yeah I just want to let you guys know because you might be asking what we're making the birds I don't know if we covered this yesterday George made them a rice and egg mix egg is really good for birds especially small birds like Finchie who is just loving on this and for those of you also wondering Finchie has a bigger cage I'm just waiting to get him a new nest and they don't have one in and I want to start his cage off really clean you might also wonder why didn't have a big cage this whole time because Finchie don't forget had a female and they as soon as we got them they were laying eggs literally on top of babies and I couldn't like interfere with the process and move anything you feel like Merlin's mad at you today? yeah I think he's mad because I woke him up and he was used to us both waking him up okay so that's one thing you guys gotta realize birds can be mad and you have to figure out what they did you can't just say oh my god the bird bit me he doesn't like me I'm not gonna work with him or I'm just gonna leave him in the cage he's trying to tell us something and we have to figure out what it is I think that when he bit him right now it was honestly because he wanted his he was scared he hasn't been here long enough to be confirmed that he's gonna be getting food every day and he's extremely food driven bird so I think he bit George because yesterday he got his food like this so today he wanted his food like this later on when he's more comfortable and he starts to recognize that no one's gonna deprive them of anything here then we can you know change things around a bit because I'm all about routine for figuring out what you've done wrong or why a bird is biting or screaming but I'm also about changing things up so that they can adapt well and not get very upset if things are different that's important too because you might need to go out of town you might need to work you might need to move with your birds obviously but just these things are important okay so we just discovered that Merlin likes carrots guys feeding birds is really good bonding it really builds trust a lot of you ask me how do I get my bird to eat as vegetables sometimes it's just about the vegetables you have in the house I'm still finding out new things that Mini likes and it seems like he's like when it seemed like he didn't like any vegetables or any foods besides his seeds and certain crackers you know then I learned he likes rice and it's important to know where your bird comes from a lot of the West African parrots love grains and grains are very important to them because that's what they can find in the wild rather than fruits just depends so do some research on where your birds are from that might help you find a diet that they like do you want to step up? was honestly a little hesitant because he kind of bit Jordan he we have learned that he will bite the hand that he's on I got to get him in the cage I'll tell you why in a second I'm gonna back him up in there because he doesn't like going in there no oh I failed I failed because I had the camera in one hand by the way this body language right here is it's okay buddy I'm not putting it inside the cage okay as long as you stay here you're good you stay right here okay kiss good bird we're gonna try to put something in his bowl so that he goes in so let me just show you guys what I would have done birds tend to step up to things rather than step back so to trick Merlin I would have backed him up into his cage put him behind this this is what I did before and then he would have stepped up to it there's always a risk that he's gonna bite you when just for trying right yeah for whatever reason he's too scared to be in there he's afraid that he's gonna be in there a while I don't know okay guys so the reason we're trying to get Merlin in the cage is because we have to leave the house abruptly I got an email from a fellow sniffer that has come upon hard times and asked me if I could take her bird until she finds a place so it's odd timing because we just got Merlin and I'm gonna go see about that now if that video is not out yet then I hope you guys are looking forward to that video if it is out I'll put the link below or up here so you guys could see it but basically I'm gonna end this video now so this third day has been an educational morning with Merlin I hope you learned a lot today and I hope you guys realize that I don't just need to be sitting down on a couch for you to learn things it's very important for you to see how things happen he's looking at what's in there but he's probably very smart he's probably not gonna go down in there for fear that he's gonna get locked in the cage I love making you guys content if you want to check out my patreon and follow it you don't have to be a member to follow it you could just go check it out if you guys want any special shout outs or surprise shout outs for anyone check out cameo and also check out my amazon link where I made some lists of awesome things that I buy for my birds I love you guys so so much I guess we'll see how this turns out bye