Pics & Info on Great Bills

[GreatBillMom]

Hi to all! I had a few requests for pics and info, so here ya go! I have 2, DNA'd Males. They are supposed to have a hatch date of April '07, so they are almost a year old. My vet agrees that they are very young, so this may be correct. Their names are Ben & Jerry. Also, they are supposed to be siblings. Their personalities are very different. Ben, who's wings were mutilated at the shop that had them, is very shy and generally looks disgruntled. Jerry, on the other hand, is very outgoing and a total hoot. These parrots are said to be not as friendly as other species. I have very little to compare them too, as these are my first. My husband has 2 Quakers that are crazy!!! They bite, they make lot's and lot's of noise, they are incredibly messy, we love them anyway. My GB's do not bite, have never even attempted to. They can be loud, but not often. Mostly they make the neatest MMM MMM MMM sound in various octaves and pitches. They now mimic me, when I say "I Love You" they mimic the syllables and Ben has said it a few times. When I say "Night-night" at bedtime, they both say "MMM-MMM" using the same tone and sounds that I do. SOMEONE in the birdroom said "Hello" last week, and I know I heard it! So did my dogs, they went running for the front door. I don't think it was our Quakers, Gus & Jenny. As far as touchability, it's very hard to get Jerry NOT to touch you. He is all over me and never wants to be put down. I do not rub them up or anything, but I kiss their beaks 100 times a day and stroke them gently. They really don't seem to mind. I think they are amazing. They are extremely gentle. I may be in for a surprise when they reach sexual maturity around the age of 5-6, but I will deal with it. They shred tons of wood, love all of their toys and are not very picky eaters. I feed them human food every day. Fruits, vegetables, rice and potatoes. Lot's of nuts, they like pecans, walnuts and almonds the best. I always have a bowl of seed in their cage, they are the fondest of safflower. I have tried them on sprouts a few times, but that's the only food they have ever actually thrown at me. They didn't eat it the first time, so I tried again a few days later. Jerry always immediately runs to his bowl to see what's to eat and when he saw sprouts, he started scooping and tossing. Very Quickly I might add, sorta like he was pissed and not having it. Maybe I'll try again in a few months....LOL! I am not a fan of Pellets. My vet tried to push them on me. The way I see it, is pellets don't grow, therefore, they didn't eat them in Indonesia. I may not have their diet balanced down to some exact science, but food is the joy of life and who or what wants to eat the same crap day in day out? Man always knows better than nature, though, right? I try hard to keep a huge balanced variety in their bowls and if they only live 40 happy years versus 75-100 perfectly balanced bored ones...... Anyway, I love these birds more than I can say! They are fun and loveable. I'm not sure why they are not popular in the pet trade. They also love to take showers. To me, they couldn't be better FIDS!!!!

[birdsnreps]

WOW they are so vibrant and gorgeous!! do male great billed parrots get a ring around their neck when they mature?? what do their tails look like?

[hugs28]

Wow they are georgous, where did you get those. I cannot believe how beautiful the are. Nice pics.

[GreatBillMom]

Their tails? Don't really know...LOL! Mine have a few green/yellow feathers, but they break them when they are babies because they are so clumsy!! I'll tell you in a few years! I got them at a bird store. I am still angry when I think of it, but if they weren't there, I wouldn't have them. They looked terrible, they had never had a bath and were being fed some nasty, low quality plain seed. The employees knew absolutely nothing about them, but just kept saying they had never seen one before and that they don't bite. I went home and looked them up on the web and turned around and went and got them. These aren't the easiest starter birds, but I was determined to be a good mom and now I feel a lot more confident. I have tried to network a lot. I'm a dog groomer and never even thought I liked birds, but these 2 stole my heart.

[jeangaut]

Your boys are just stunning!!! I'd keep trying the sprouts on them though, or at least do an overnight mix where the seeds are soaked 12-16 hours and not sprouted all the way (you can't do that with the sprout mixes with beans in them, they have to sprout fully to be edible). My overnight mix I get from Nature's Choice Essentials has rye, wheat, quinoa, lentils, spelt, kamut, millet, sunflower seed, radish seed, popcorn, black rice, short grain brown rice, buckwheat, pumpkin seeds, and flax seeds. My Eclectus love safflower seed too, but I try to limit it to treats, it seems that and sunflower are the two main seeds birds get 'addicted' to, and it's never sold unhulled, so it isn't in sprout mixes.

Did you join the Tanygnathus Society? June Dinger who runs the society can help you out a lot with information on Great Billeds, I'm curious what breeder let their babies wind up in a lousy pet shop, especially two males...the males are in more demand for breeding, and the gene pool in this country is still pretty low. I have actually never seen a Great Billed in person yet, but I've read a lot about them!!!

I think you lucked out and got two really cool parrots, keep us posted on them! I have heard over and over than they have a lot in common with Eclectus (I have two male Eclectus), so I'd recommend reading Eclectus information such as the Land of Vos website to supplement what you can find out about Great Billeds in particular. My two Ekkie males are very different temperment-wise too, my Pilot is a quiet, loving bird and my Donald is very possessive, hormonal and moody. I have heard like Eclectus, females tend to be more dominant than the males, but unlike the Eclectus, there is not that huge dissimilarity in appearance...males may have larger beaks, but aren't colored differently.

I think the person asking about their tails and if they get rings around the neck was noticing the similarity in their appearance to Alexandarine Parakeets, where the males have a ring and the females don't, and they have long, narrow, Asiatic parakeet tails. All three genera (Tanygnathus, Eclectus and Psittacula) are supposedly somewhat related, and you can see it in behaviors and temperments as well. I notice it in the way they all talk...they often 'practice' and 'talk in loops', where the same words and sounds get repeated over and over and then they go onto something else and repeat that over and over, while my greys seem to be more like jazz musicians and every word or sound is followed by something different.

I agree about avoiding pellets with them...but make sure the rest of their diet stays really healthy, and keep working on getting them to like sprouts!!!

[jeangaut]

Here's a link to the Tangnathus Society's photo gallery...you can see the length of Great Billed's tails on there (and photos of the closely related Muller's Parrots and Phillipine Blue Napes as well). Their tails are a bit longer than Eclectus, but not as long as the Psittacula species.

Photo Gallery

[jeangaut]

Also I have been enjoying a blog about a woman named Cathi who has bred Tanys, and has just moved to Pennsylvania. Here's her summary of the three species.

MyBabyParrots.com

[cashmerekiddy]

absolutely stunning birds - enjoy them

[Courtzrocks]

They are gorgeous..they look and sound so much like alexandrines...except brighter coloured and bigger. Matches doesnt like to be touched but she loved being on me. She's a nut. They are so cute!

[alarmingparrots]

Wow, those are so pretty!
I love their colors.
Give them a scritch for me.