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It’s great to have found the Grey Forums and so many kindred souls! A big thank you to Kevin for admitting me. 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

Would love to see pics too. Everything you mentioned is spot on. We took in an older 21 y.o. Grey that was a talker. My first Grey, GreycieMae, refuses to talk, but when we got Huey, it's crazy how much we converse with him. He tells us what to do, when to do it, what he wants. I don't even have to think for myself anymore 🤣 They definitely are way beyond mimicry, although they do a lot of that too. My GreycieMae, female, is attached to me. She will tolerate my wife but sometimes will strike at her. Huey has goggle eyes for my wife. He tolerates me and will occasionally attack me, unless he wants something, then he's real nice until he gets what he wants. But I found it helped when he came along. Before Huey I couldn't leave GreycieMae alone - ever. They're not friends at all but they are company for each other out in the bird room.

Welcome to the forum! We had great success finding a bird caregiver through our avian veterinarian's referral. If there's an avian store near you, perhaps they provide boarding, although having her cared for at home would be the least stressful option. Would love to see some pics of your beautiful girl whenever you have a moment!