Please let me know what you think.

found this group while doing a general search on his leg band hoping to find some history on him after we rescued him and found that he was actually part of this group YEARS ago.. After he was rehomed by a gentleman here that from what I can tell treated him amazingly he unfortunately went to 4 or 5 other questionable homes before he arrived with us, his forever home.

He is an amazing little guy and since being with us has really come out of his shell and just LOVES being the center of attention.

I know as with all forums these days it’s pretty slow/all but dead but for what it’s worth this place is still a plethora of education and I’ve learned a ton just reading through old posts 

Okay so my name is A.K (no, you’re not finding out my real one) and I’m thinking of buying an African Grey. Currently, I’m in Columbus, Ohio. If anyone reading this is also in the area, any good vets, breeders, bird stores, you know of? Also, is there some kind of criteria that an African Grey owner should meet? If so, what are they? I’d appreciate any help!

My name's Ben, and I live in a small town in Ca.  We've had a male Jenday Conure, Pippin, with our family since 2001.  He's a handful.  He likes to hang out on his perch and demand attention 😃  He's target trained, talks in a squeaky voice, and does a few tricks for treats.  He's also pretty phobic, and that's something we've been working on.

Before Pippin, we had a Sun Conure, Gabby, but she unfortunately became egg-bound in 2007, went into surgery, and did not make it through.

Anyway, on Monday, and after a long wait, we brought home a baby female Congo African Grey!  We named her Vim.  She is about five months old and beautiful.  She seems to be doing well, eating her veggy mix, drinking water, exploring.

I've been watching videos and reading about Greys for a long time, but now that she's here, I'm feeling a bit discouraged (for lack of a better word).  The thing is, she is very shy.  Emphatically shy.  I understand that Greys are naturally phobic, but when Pippin and Gabby came home, they both enjoyed my company right away. But Vim is different.  When I put my hand near her, she growls a bit.  Not like an angry growl, but more of a fearful one.  I have been able to give her a few treats by hand.  Yesterday, she was flapping her wings and glided off of her perch onto the carpet (she's clumsy as can be).  I picked her up, although she didn't seem to want me to, and then she let me scratch her head.  She seemed like she really liked that, and nuzzled against my shirt.  Afterward, on her perch, she let me scratch her head again, and then allowed me to put her in her cage for bedtime.  But this morning I offered her a piece of fruit, and I left my hand in place after she took it.  She dropped the fruit and bit me.  I did not react much, but I did flinch and say "Ow" because she bit me kind of hard.

I want to earn this bird's trust, and I'm fine with being patient.  I have been working next to her, talking to her calmly.  She smiles at me with her eyes, if you know what I mean, and seems comfortable (she naps, stretches, doesn't mind me walking behind her, etc.).  I have not asked her to step up because she seems scared, nor have I tried to scratch her head again.  Does that seem like the right tack to take?  Just be present around her and let her come to me in her own time?

Thanks for reading, and for any advice!

Dorian's still my little feathered entertainment unit.  He doesn't talk as much these days, simply because the house we're now in is much smaller than our previous home, and he spends almost all the time with me.  He used to use speech to lure me back downstairs to him when I was upstairs taking care of my dad.  Dad's been gone for 9 years now, but every once in a while I still hear his voice coming from Dorian.  This summer I've been taking Dorian in his travel cage out to the front porch on days when it hasn't been too hot.  He loves barking at the dogs who walk by lol.  He'll be 21 this coming November.  Hard to believe I've had him for 17 years.

I'm going to have some fun looking around and getting caught up.  Glad you're still here.

My husband [John] and I have a 20+ year old Grey named Corey.  We have shared our life with Corey for more than 18 years. When we met Corey, she was in a tropical fish store in a strip mall near Sacramento.  She was clearly a “fish out of water” in that store. The thing that sealed our fate was that she chose us; we didn’t [initially] choose her.  When I knelt beside her cage and talked to her, she bent her head for a scritch.  I knew that wasn’t typical behavior.  Based upon Corey’s eye color [she did not have the eyes of a young Grey], we figure she is now at least 20 years old.  We truly had no idea how our life would change when we decided to buy her to get her out of that fish store.    

Our first challenge was that she was completely terrorized about getting on anyone’s hand.  She just wouldn’t do it.  It took months before we could get her to step up on a basket so we could move her around the house.  Then, once we could get her on a basket, we started working to get her to step up to our hand.  That took another few months. We figured that the person who owned Corey before we did, probably did some very destructive/instinctive thing while Corey was sitting on their hand and Corey decided that sitting on a human’s hand was not a safe thing. The other challenge I had was that she [probably like most Greys] tended to prefer just one person and she was very partial to John [she seems to like men more than women].  Luckily for me, however, she was not aggressive toward me and as long as I wasn’t competition for John she tried to be cooperative with me most of the time.

We’ve weathered most of the difficulties of sharing our life with a sensitive, smart and talking creature.  I remember being totally blown away by the fact that she not only picked up an impressive vocabulary BUT sometimes she absolutely used those words in an appropriate context. When you tell people that she can use words in a novel and appropriate fashion, you can tell that they think you are just reading too much into her behavior.  But they don’t know Greys.  I was shocked by how much social interaction she needed and the harm that could come if she wasn’t sufficiently engaged [we ran into some feather plucking issues early on when we had to work out of the house].  I also realized, years ago, that she was much better at training us that we were at training her.  It’s a humbling experience to share your life with a Grey.

Our main challenge now is that John, Corey and I have just moved back to Davis, California [near Sacramento, Ca] and we do not have a reliable way to provide care for Corey when we have to travel.  I will spend a bit more time looking through the posts on the Grey Forum to see how other people have dealt with this issue.  So glad to have found you all!  Terry

Thank you

I work in a pet store, and occasionally we get in large parrots. In the seven years I've worked there I've seen three other baby greys come through the store. I can remember each one very distinctly. Echo, Smokey, and Ash. The only one of those that I still have tabs on is Echo, she's in her second home now but is thriving there and I'm positive they will be her forever home. Smokey and Ash have both disappeared from my life after they left the store. I don't know what's become of them except that Ash was renamed to Apollo and that Smokey was rehomed within six months. And trust me, I get it... this is exactly why pet stores shouldn't carry parrots, especially ones as sensitive and complicated as Greys. I'm in full agreement there. And I thought my bosses were too after Ash. But last summer I came to work to find a beautiful baby grey who wasn't quite fully fledged yet. (She had only down feathers and some pins.) As cute and sweet as she was and despite the fact that I was instantly in love as I always am with baby birds, I braced myself for the emotional roller coaster that was to come. She was on hand feedings for quite a long time, so naturally the bond that developed between us was easy and strong thanks to my inability to keep emotional distance and her trusting nature. I knew that just like the rest, some day I would have to say good bye to this sweet baby and there was a chance I may not be able to keep track of her like I have with Echo. Through a naming contest on the store's facebook page, she ended up with the name Ori, (I've since changed the spelling to Auri, but more on that later) and that was the beginning of our story. 

As much as I loved (and still love) the other three, there was something different about Auri. For starters, she chose me. each of the others had their "Person" while at the store, but Auri was the first one to choose me as her Preferred Person. The other thing is that last year was not a normal year. It was very difficult and challenging with the pandemic and being an essential service (pets gotta eat!). Auri was a huge emotional support for me through it all. When anti-maskers spit at me or called me names she was there. When I was stressed and overwhelmed and crying in the back room because we'd just had a non-stop rush of panic buyers stocking up pet supplies out of fear we would close down, she was there. When I was annoyed and angry with customers because they had impulse bought a pet at the beginning of covid and were now having regrets and challenges and refusing to take any advice and instead were insisting that we take the animal back and give them a refund, she was there. When I was working 50-60 hours a week to cover the shifts of sick coworkers, she was there... you get the point, she was there for me. An adorable peekaboo, a kiss, a snuggle... She always knew how to cheer me up. 

Over the course of a year, we had no serious inquiries about her. No one seemed to be seriously interested, only casually. Until one day about six weeks ago or so, a lady from a Province over called and asked if we still had our African Grey. She asked a lot of questions and seemed really serious. She'd been looking for a grey for a while now. She promised she'd come in within the next two weeks to meet her and see if it was a good fit. When I tell you that my blood ran cold when I was told this, it's an understatement. First of all, she lived a whole province away?! And I'm in Western Canada, so a whole province is like, a 12 hour drive, usually. Second, according to my co-worker who spoke with her, this lady had several very young children, and thanks to Covid rules Auri had not been socialized with any kids at all. At that point I'd already seen some signs of over-preening in Auri and I knew being in such a high energy environment like the pet store was not great for her, but I also knew that a home with so many young kids wouldn't be much better. Plus... she was my baby. I couldn't let her go so far away to live with strangers. I just couldn't. 

So, sort of on an impulse, I went to my boss and I asked how much she'd be with my staff discount. It was still a hefty price tag, but he agreed to let me pay her off slowly and that I could take her home when I was ready. So thanks to my tax refund, selling my homemade masks online, and careful budgeting, I was able to come up with a sizeable deposit and it took me about 5 weeks to pay her off in full. The person who had called from the other province never showed, largely due to their borders closing to non-essential travel I'm sure. But now Auri is home! We still have lots of work to do, she's in a 24" by 24" temporary cage while I refurbish and repair her 36" by 24" cage that I bought off a friend. We have a vet appointment next Monday to get her health checked and to talk about her overpreening and how to intervene before it becomes a plucking issue. So far she's been settling in great! She talks all the time, she loves her veggies and is super great about trying new things. I try to introduce her to at least one new thing every day, whether it be a new type of veggie or a new toy or a new item of some kind. She's very curious, sometimes cautious, but mostly curious. Her full name is Aurora, as I wanted her to match with my cockatiels who all have sky/celestial themed names (Nova, Zephyr, Luna, and Nimbus). Auri is how I'm shortening her name. It suits her. 

Anyway I know this is a long post, but I wanted to share our story. 

Disclaimer to address some comments I know I'll get: 
1. Please don't hate on the store I work at, despite still selling birds and other animals it's really progressive and we all work very hard there to ensure every animal in our care is given the absolute best treatment before they find their forever homes. I'm happy to answer more questions about how our store is different from others in another thread, if that's something people were interested in. 
2. I'm not new to parrots. I've never had anything other than cockatiels until now, but I regularly babysit larger parrots and I'm a member of my local Parrot Club which provides education and resources. I am well aware of what I've gotten myself into and I have no regrets. 

And now a photo of Auri for tax. This is my favourite photo of her, and it was taken on the day I decided I needed to ask about adopting her and thus officially began the process of adopting her. Thank you to all who read this to the end! 

I'm new here from Southern Calif. I just got my African Grey named Gaby. She is 3 1/2 months old. I've had her for 2 weeks now. We are practicing Recall. She is getting better and better with each session. The one problem I have , there is a hanging light fixture where we fly her and it has become a magnet to her. I do give her treats, but she is never that hungry. I don't like starving her so she goes more for the treats. 

I do have a question.... I am concerned down the road about her plucking her feathers. I know its a stress thing or health issue. I am trying to decide on weather keeping her full flighted or clipping her wings. My breeder told me if I don't want her plucking, keep her full flighted. So my question is how many of you have clipped wings with no feather plucking, and for all full flighted, do you have any problems with plucking. You can also list your bird as plucking or not plucking, flighted or clipped. 

Thank you,

Keith and Gaby

Anyway, a little bit of background on us, we have a dog (Jelly, 8 years old), cat (Jams, 4 years old), and lovebird (Kiwi, 2 years old) who all get along very well! We had adopted Jelly first, from a shelter, when she was around 2 years old. She had been bounced from shelter to shelter and her previous owners would tie her up outside at night but allow her in the house during the day. We are pretty sure she was abused as she'll flinch when we're holding a broom or some other object and we have NEVER hit her. She also had a lot of separation anxiety and PTSD from thunderstorms as well. We have worked through those and is a very spoiled puppy now. We got Jams around the time when Jelly was starting to get sad and lonely being home alone when we were at work for long hours (weird schedule back then) and she took to nurturing Jams like her own baby! Jams was around 5 weeks old when we adopted her. She was born on the side of a church with a few other kittens and her mom didn't come back for days. We were thinking the momma cat had been killed. ☹️ Jams and her brothers and sisters were promptly adopted out to different families. Since Jams was raised by Jelly, she acts more like a dog than a cat. She is of course very spoiled as well. We had gotten Kiwi after we had been watching my younger sisters budgies and Jams was very excited to have them around. She would sit by the cage and watch them all day! She was very sad when they had to go back home to my sister's house so after a few months we decided to get a lovie and they've been best buddies ever since! Not sure if Kiwi even thinks she's a bird because she scoots around the floor with Jelly and Jams (she is able to fly but prefers to walk, although we are recall training her which she is having fun with!). Here are some pictures of the three: 

Now let's get on to Ruby! Geoff and I had been looking around at rescue shelters to see if we would come across an African grey (or other bird) who would take to us and want to come home with us. But because of the pandemic, volunteering and helping out at shelters have been nonexistent (they wouldn't take in new volunteers). I just happened to be browsing Craigslist (because people list birds there all the time) and she was listed on Craigslist that same night I was browsing. The family said that they couldn't take care of her anymore and needed to be taken in by some other family. We went to go meet her (to make sure she would actually like us) and fell in love! The current owner told us her background: 

- She is currently 19 years old. The first 15 years of her life she spent with an older gentleman (we are thinking British from her accent) and she was raised very well there (based on how she interacts with us and her training). The older gentleman suddenly passed away (we are thinking he was involved in an accident after he had left the house because she has separation anxiety whenever my husband leaves the house, working on that). 

- So then she was picked up by a couple who had high school kids and they had her for 3 years. This is where she had started to feather pluck. I think also where she was abused (she is deathly afraid of towels and sticks [we had tried to use a T-perch with her] and does not like it when someone is moving too fast towards her). After their kids had moved out, they wanted to downsize and said they couldn't fit her in their new home anymore. So on Craigslist she went where the person who we picked her up from took her in. 

- The most recent house that she was at was very high energy. They had about 8 people in the house, another bird, cat, and small dog. Ruby was not settling in well with them (they had only had her for 8 months) and I think she was too much work for them too. The mom did try to help with the feather plucking. She took Ruby to the vet to get checked out and she was deemed healthy. They started her on Avi calm which seemed to help but she had only been on it for 2 weeks or so before we took her in. Here are some pictures of her first day at our house after the owner dropped her off: 

We are her fourth (and forever) home. When she first came to us, she was a very dusty grey. I don't think they gave her baths at all which probably made her super itchy and led to even more plucking. We let her settle in and left her cage door open in case she wanted to come out and interact. We talked with her a lot and just had conversations around her. Kiwi was super excited to have her around and so were Jams and Jelly but we kept them separate for a bit.

We believe she is settling in well. She likes the very calm environment at the house (yes even with 3 other pets, we like to keep a very calm environment). She has taken to my husband more (since she was raised by the older gentleman) but I have been working with her so that she doesn't just like him. Here are some pictures after 2/2.5 weeks from when we adopted her: 

We have been giving her daily baths (she's not too fond of them and grumbles about it) but she is getting better. She is not dusty anymore (still some but not the puff cloud that would come out when we first got her) and it seems to be helping with her feathers too. We are adding aloe vera to her bath as well (thank you, I think it was Dan who posted about the aloe vera here?, for that great advice!). She is very loving and sweet and we've had her meet my parents and my husband's parents so that she gets used to being around other people as well. She is a lot more talkative when it's just my husband and I around though. She continues to surprise us every day and she is very smart! She has a vet appointment next Saturday to make sure she is alright (we waited a bit until she was settled in since the other owner took her in a few months ago to the vet and she was healthy then). We did find out that her previous owner had taken her to a bird shop who trimmed her secondary feathers so now she can't fly! We were super upset about that but our groomers said that they should grow back but it will take time. That bird shop also trimmed her beak for no reason which I'm glad they didn't do any damage (according to our groomer). Here is a picture of her after a bath, this was a month after adopting her: 

We are so happy to have her in the home even if it has been a lot of work so far (totally worth it!). She is a bit overprotective with Geoff and I when Jelly, Jams, and Kiwi come around but we are training her to not chase them off and that they are part of the family (work in progress). We have been trying different toys with her (she's not a huge fan of them) and also different foraging opportunities but she doesn't seem to want to forage. She even hands a nut back to me if it's too hard to open for her (this was a back and forth handing back one night because at first I didn't understand what she wanted). We are thinking she is just enjoying the new home and she is settling in. We are continually looking for things to spoil her with (looking for a new perch stand for her, more toys, etc.) but we've noticed she just loves to be around us and likes to have conversations with us. She loves listening to Disney music which is great because we love listening to it (and singing along to it, whether it sounds good or bad, haha!).

Anyway, this post has been long enough! And I really do appreciate you reading to the end! Again, super excited to be a part of the community and I love reading all of the threads! They have been super helpful! Until next time!

Sincerely,

Johanne & Geoff

(Mom and Dad to fur and feather children)

I have had little birds, a cockatiel and a greencheek, for 19 years. We resently had the opportunity to adopt a 28 year old African Grey named Vannah. She has lived with same companion humans for the past 22 years and seems very well socialized. They offered her to us because they are in their late 70's and wanted to have a choice in where she goes instead of waiting until something happened to them. She was the only bird in the house, but she did have a dog for a while some years ago.

We brought her home July 5th, and since then she has warmed up to playing with new toys, having us clean her cage and perches, and is eating well andtalks more every day. She won't step up regularly yet, and ignores requests to go inside her cage or to leave the baseboards alone. We just entice her with something better tasting and she kind of goes where we need her to.

Does anyone have a suggestion about how long we should wait on really reinforcing the stepping up? We are trying let her settle in and relax in her own way, but I don't want this to become the 'new normal' for her.

We are husband and wife Rob & Carol and we are currently in week 5 of hand rearing Ella a female AG, her parents are prolific egg layers but just can't seem to get eggs to hatch DIS at various stages so we decided to see if we could do any better incubating with the last round and had two clear and one fertile.

We have some previous hand rearing experience with an umbrella cockatoo some twenty years ago but never a day old grey hatchling before, what an intense learning curve its been, helped by the nursery section of this board (so thank you)

I have been keeping a log of weight, feed quantity, temperature videos and photos and will post them if they are of any interest to anyone.

Bye for now Carol.

I have actually been a member here for awhile, but havent been on the forum in a long time.  I have a seven year old Timneh Grey named Breezy.  He is primarily bonded to me, but he likes my husband as well.  Hoping to keep learning about Greys here.

 My research and common sense would tell me that the best time to remove the eggs is when she gets tired of them and ignores them, or tries and push them out of her nesting box.  WELL, she has been sitting on her 3 eggs and two wooden balls(from one of her toys) for the past 4 weeks! She allows me to feed her her regular food(by hand) and she is drinking, but is not budging from those eggs. Just recently I moved her food and water dishes down closer to her.  She is not getting a lot of exercise and no play time.  She acknowledges me by watching me and occasionally lunges at my hand if I am offering her food etc. Now what?Any ideas? Thanks

A month ago, I had posted a question regarding my decision to adopt a baby Grey and how well my dog will respond to it. I am excited to announce that I have figured out how to keep my dog and my bird separate and also spend quality time with both of them. Since I work from home, it is not really that difficult. I will be bringing home the baby in the third or fourth week of April. I just wanted to share this happy news with everyone. I am very glad that I found this awesome supportive and knowledgeable community.

Thank you all for guiding me. I am excited 😂