Terrible Twos??

[Wolf]

Well, strictly for the benefit of the Parrots well being, you really do need to make some changes and I understand that they will more than likely be a pain in the ... First of all your bird will need to go on a birds light schedule which is basically up with the sun with exposure to predawn twilight and going to bed at full dark again with exposure to twilight at dusk. The wavelengths of the dusk twilight are more important than that which occurs at dawn as it is the time period that resets the birds endocrine system and biological clock.
The problem with free feeding pellets is that it provides too much protein and fat in your birds diet and this can lead to liver and kidney problems. His diet should consist of what we call gloop and fresh fruit and vegetables for breakfast and for nibbling on through the day and a limited quantity of pellets for dinner.
It appears that everything else is about as good as you can make it for him and so I think that you will just have to wait this bonding issue out. Sometimes it can take a while but with the lifestyle that you are giving him, including the changes in diet and lighting, he will eventually come around.

[GreenCheekGodric]

I'm not sure what gloop is. I've never heard of it! Could you explain?

[Wolf]

To make it easier I copied this one from one of Pajarita's posts, so this is one of her recipes;

I also feed gloop (whole cereal grains, pulses and a tiny bit of flax providing the protein in it) with raw produce for breakfast and, for dinner, a good quality seed mix for a smaller parrot than what they actually are - except for the budgies which, along with the tiels, eat a budgie mix - the larger parrots (amazons, grays, cockatoos, conures, jardine, senegals, redbellied, quaker) eat a 50/50 combination of a cockatiel mix with some striped sunflowers and a small pscittacine mix which is safflower-based plus a nut or two depending on the species itself.

[Pajarita]

Well, not much of a recipe, actually, so here goes mine (there are different ones all over the net and you can make up your own, too). Everything is cooked, which is the difference between gloop and chop (a dish that is made with raw produce):

Whole Grains 'al dente': wheat, kamut, hulled barley, oats, brown and/or black and/or red rice
Pulses: black lentils (but you can use brown, green or red - my birds love the black ones so those are the ones I use), small white beans (I don't use any other kind because this type is the lowest in the bad lectin all beans have).
Vegetables (all frozen except for the sweet potatoes that I would, sometimes, buy vacuum packed in a can): corn, peas, diced carrots, green beans (the only ones I chop smaller myself), white hominy, broccoli, blue kale, butternut squash (in cubes), sweet potatoes (in big chunks) and one more which varies, the last batch was done with Brussels sprouts but it could be artichoke hearts, palm hearts, beets, etc.

After everything is done, I add a bit of flax and sesame seeds (more sesame during molting season but more flax the rest of the year).

This, accompanied by a leafy green, a large piece of fruit (both species are mainly fruit eaters in the wild and they eat larger portions than what we would think it's what a small bird would eat), and a veggie (they are not much on veggies except for corn on the cob, tomatoes -they love the grape and cherry ones, red/yellow/orange peppers -stuff like that, kind of sweet... but they also love celery because it's a bit salty).

I mix all this together and split it into baggies with daily portions which I freeze.

[liz]

"Terrible Twos" really refers to a child always looking for something to get into, can't be trusted alone, talks back and throws tantrums. That is Myrtle. She is 4 but won't let go of the Twos. She even mocks me and slaps me on the head every time she does a fly by. Then she lands on my shoulder and tell me stuff in her little girl voice. I love her and would not try to change her.

[Pajarita]

I guess that, when it comes to children, the 'terrible twos' can mean many different things but, when it comes to parrots, it refers specifically to the time in a gray's life when the bird changes and goes from a sweet loving baby to one that rejects its human, bites and 'acts up' all the time - all problems brought on by puberty when the bird physically leaves his parents and goes out looking for a mate of its own and which usually happen when the bird is 1.5 to 2.5 years old (roughly).