A few Alex questions

[natty1986]

Hi,

I have just stumbled upon this site.
I have a 10month old naughty Alex boy named Ollivar. Now Ollie hates hands for some reason, and no matter how hard i try he still wants to tear my hands apart. I got him at 5 months and was handraised, however he was let out into an avairy before i got him. It kills me to not be able to pat him and scratch his head. He has gotten so much better than he was. I used to not be able to touch him at all, now i can snuggle my face into him, kiss him, blow rasberries on him. But those hands of mine must be kept away.

Now Ollie is an idiot down to a tee. Every morning he wakes me up- on time blowing me kisses, saying good morning, hello, muttering, and ofcourse there is that wretched wolf whistle. He has also picked up swear words from somewhere. I will use them once in a blue moon but the other morning i heard him say quite a few times to f off! I was appauled. These babies are just like real children and will choose to say the words they are not meant to.

Ollie spends his day out and about on his outside cage- this is under a pergola. He likes to bash magpies up, speak to the ducks, and when he gets the chance he likes to chase a pidgeon (i tell him he can do alot better than a pidgeon). At night time he comes inside to his indoor cage and sleeps on top of it once he has spent the night on my shoulder.

Boy does this boy whine if he doesnt get attention. You cant shut him up, 'ohhh' 'ohhh' 'kiss kiss' 'ohh'. So ofcourse he gets his own way! He also insists that your meals are meant for him, and will go to great lengths to try to get some of your tucker! He loves soy milk off the spoon- is this bad for him? And his favourite treat is sultanas.
I am glad to know however that he prefers the chunk of wood to any purchased bird toy. I am thinking of giving him a trade as he can turn a rectangular shaped piece of wood into a cylinder! Clever boy- more like Mum look how sharp and strong my beak is.

On thing that irritates me is his bowel movements. Has anyone had success at training their alex to not poo on you?

Since i love these guys so much i really would like another one...however i need to know from someone who has done this before. I know i will have to introduce them slowly, and give Ollie the most attention. Will it work to have two alex's? I would hate to think that Ollie would want to kill it. Will it affect his personality?
Also with breeding handraised & tame alex's, do they go feral when they have a birdy partner and grow to dislike their human?

Sorry guys, i know i blabber on about my boy but i love him. But if you could answer Q's about hands- do all alex's have this problem. Also about poop training & breeding- do they go feral. That would be great

Thanks, natalie

[Jane]

Hi Natalie and welcome to Aussiebirds, I hope you enjoy yourself here and we'll all try and help the best we can. Quite a few members here keep Alex's and will give better replies than me (I'm sure Tracey, Jules and Petiel will be along later to help) but from what I've learnt here they are not always the most touchy feely birds.

[vankarhi]

hello there Natalie. I own two Alex's a girl named Shrekie (she is 3 years old and I originally bought her for my eldest son as a house warming present but she turned out to be a girl ...... not a boy and she screams too much........so she now resides with me). She is a lovely girl apart from her screaming and loves me. She was handraised by the breeder (same breeder I got my eclectus from) and I am going to get her a boyfriend, but they will be going into an avairy. I have no doubt that I will still be able to handle Shrekie except maybe when she has babies.

I also own a almost 12 month (actually it is his birthday today........HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAKODA) male alex named Takoda. He is my boy and I raised him from 4.5 weeks old. Petiel (Pauline) bred him. He is lovely and talks now too (so does Shrekie). Unfortuneately the alex's do not like to be patted much. I am lucky though as Takoda does tolerate me giving him a bit of a scratch and a rub around his head area. Shrekie actually let me give her a good head rub the other day (but she is very hormonal at the moment too). Normally these birds are more than happy to just sit on your shoulder and preen your hair and nibble on your neck and cheeks. Takoda likes to lick me too........he was doing it last night. Quite cute actually. He also likes to kiss but he sticks his tongue in (yuuk).

They are not like a cockatoo who loves to be patted 24/7. Once you accept they love you in a different way then you will be well on your way to just enjoying him for who he is and accept his different ways of showing his affection.

My eclectus is the same too. They are not pair bonding birds ............ like the cockatoos are and they do not really preen each other very much either........unlike cockatoos who love to be preened and do pair bond to each other. (I am not an expert but this is what I have read). I have owned sulfer crested 'toos and a galah and cockatiels and the alex's and ekkies have different personalities and are not quite as demanding in our time as the 'too type birds.

As for poop training. I did teach my ekkie to poop on command. It isn't hard but don't get upset if he doesn't do it all the time. Accidents still happen. I just kept saying "yuuk, yuuk, do a yuuk" every time skye (ekkie) did a poop. After quite a few months she did it on command........naturally I got all excited and told hubby to come in and watch the new trick. LOL

I am sort of doing the same to Takoda but it doesn't really bother me .......... so I am only half hearted in my attempt at training him this.

Good luck and post some pics for us to admire your birdie too. ;D

[vankarhi]

as for hands...........one of my first alex's Rani (girl) who I handraised from 6 weeks also didn't like hands. She was fine as long as she didn't see my hands (or anyone elses hands). I don't know why this is, but because they don't normally like to be patted anyway, I never really tried to pat her and just accepted she didn't like hands. The two I have now don't really have a problem with hands, but they also don't mind a bit of 'loving".......and I mean a bit. LOL They step up onto my hands no problems either. Every now and then though, they do pretend to have a go at my hands, it doesn't bother me and I just put my hand under them anyway.

[Phill]

Hi and welcome to Aussie Bird's. As for your Alex question's i have no idea as i don't own one but Tracey has given you some good info.

[silvercloud]

Tracey has said pretty much what I was gonna say. Just enjoy him as he is. He sounds pretty smoochy for an alex so jest enjoy the face snuggles. He sounds like a real character. They're fantastic birds hey, I've only had my boy Earl for 4 months, he's about 9 months old and is still a bit wary. He was supposedly handreared which I think he was but he wasn't handled much other than for feeding so he's a lil wary of hands too but as long as there's food in them he doesn't mind them too much LOL

[natty1986]

Thanks guys!
Its so great to have found people that have a love for birds that i have! Yesterday i rang a breeder up and ordered a girl! Im very excited. I should have her in about 8 weeks!
Oh Tracey- isnt the tonguing disgusting? Ha! I love it too i think it is very cute. Im going to try your poop training, it doesnt really bother me too much, but he tends to be on my shoulder whenever i am at home, so i just now have a few 'poopy' shirts.
Does anyone own a lutino alex? My breeder has some and im dying to go have a look at them, however i do think that i will still prefer the natural green.

Ok guys how do we post pics? I am completely confused about how to do it!

[silvercloud]

Petiel has a lutino.

Register an account with photobucket. www.photobucket.com upload the pics you want then copy the img code and paste it into your post here. Hope that helps.

[natty1986]

heres my Ollivar

[Phill]

Aww his gorgeous!

[silvercloud]

I just love those big red beaks. What a sweetie.

[vankarhi]

he looks like Takoda. I guess they would be similar as they are similar in age. Lovely looking bird.

There is a breeder in Brisbane who has a couple of lutino alex girls and a split male. They are lovely looking birds too.