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As some of you might know, I am a new pet to an CAG. We've had her for about 3 weeks now, Bella has fit in just perfect! Her vocabulary is unreal! We never heard it during visits. But recently we get "G D" followed by "M F". First time I heard it I was on the floor I was laughing so hard! Now we can almost pinpoint when she's going to say it. Not saying it's a bad thing in our household, just want to hear some other experiences with naughty birds.

The first thing I would do is schedule an avian vet visit for sometimes when a bird starts plucking it means something is amiss, there could be an infection or inflammation in that area. Then if everything checks out ok then look to see what if anything has changed in his environment, it could be something so slight for greys do not like change. Whatever you do don't let it bother you or allow him to see you upset about the plucking for they pick up on our emotions.

She seems to be afraid of anything she's never seen before. Not fearless after all. Will all the noises, voices and whistles she does, as soon as she sees someone she stops. She doesn't like hair!! I bent in the clean the cage and she tried to bite my head. Our son said he's noticed that too. Hair is bad!! She's still evolving. We're still learning.

Hi all ive had my african grey for almost 15 years now but i got him when he was 1 year old most recently i have noticed he is picking at one side of his wing but he has never done this before ? He gets bathed with water out spray bottle sometimes with some aloe vera juice every few days for as long as ive had him and is on a very good diet etc so this is very out of the blue really. Im a first time poster so will try upload a pic and any help/info would really apprecite it thanks

Anything new in a grey's world is out to kill them (in their minds, anyway). You may notice that they are incredibly observant. Sometimes they will sit and observe for a while before being brave enough to edge towards the new thing and give it a prod. Sometimes they may need to observe 'the thing' for a few days before they finally realise it's not actually going to kill them. In regards to the hair... Is she attacking your hair (e.g lunging at it and acting aggressively) or is she just having a gentle poke at you to see what that fluffy stuff on top of your head is? Alfie likes to play with my hair on occasion. They will 'beak' things when checking them out. I'm just curious if it's aggressive or curious behaviour. Sounds like it's aggressive from your post though.

Alfie doesn't swear. I'm amazed he hasn't picked up the odd word or two as people do swear in front of him (myself included, though I try not to). I'm not really keen on him learning to swear as I know he'll most likely use it at the most undesirable times. Then again, Alfie isn't really a big talker. He prefers noises and sounds over words.

Dorian doesn't swear. I caught my brother standing in front of his cage one time saying "shit head, say shit head" once, and he was no longer allowed unsupervised time with the bird after that. Our nursing home in town had a parrot for years. He came in with a resident and then, when the resident died he became the nursing home bird. He was known as Tony the swearing parrot. He (the parrot) had a dreadful vocabulary but everyone seemed to get a kick out of it. Some people do find swearing in a bird funny, but it could potentially make re-homing a bird harder. If you want to stop the swearing just don't respond to it, especially with laughter. They love to do things that get a response from us. Don't let her see or hear you respond to the naughty words, and then when she says something positive give her plenty of praise. This can take a while. I'm in the middle of trying to extinguish a sound here with Dorian and it's taking forever. Then again, he's slow on the uptake lol. You'll probably hear lots of things as she unpacks her suitcase. Sit back and enjoy.

😊Thank you Judy, Your 100% right😊 Judy's made a real good point......My respect runs deep for you...God bless you Judy, Luvparrots and all you sweet people. Rev Jay

Greetings, if I may, has you home been warmer or dryer his season? You might wish to spray your baby 2 to 3 times a week with the Aloe Vera juice, you an also make a mild solution of Chamomile tea and spray your fid. The spray isn't absorbed by the feathers but by the skin. You can also try limit fruit to 3 small pieces a week and feed a almond or two a day. Greys don't absorb calcium by food very well so you might want to try real sun light and or a sun lamp.You can also increase the green leafy veggies and feed a washed hard boiled egg, just cut in half shell and all, a half every other day. Finely a good food for calcium etc is to boil some chicken drum sticks and let your fid eat them, please leave some meat on them lol...You'll be left fix-ins for chicken soup for you.....

My Corky is a little lady, Kind of straight laced. She wouldn`t say sh*t, even if she had mouth full.

The objects that scared her were being carried by her by me. I don't walk slow. I do approach her into the cage slowly. My son said it look aggressive. It was my fault for suddenly poking the top of my head in while cleaning the bottom of the cage. A big round brown scary thing!! When she's at the edge of the door opening or out of the cage I will slowly lower my head and have my son observe what happens. We've had birds that liked to preen hair and others that would attack it.

Our Joe when we rescued him would say things like 'Please feed me", Buddy and Pistachio whom we rescued from druggies would cuss and carry on, in a very short time after no longer hearing those words, they ceased using them...In the wild, parrots especially Zons will use the language of the tribes they live by, so it is more than just mimicking.

Funny about the paper towel roll, that's one of Timbers favorite things to play with/chew on. On the other hand, anything orange in color will set off his alarms and cause a scene. I love to hear the vocalize, so hope that is OK in your situation. That's one of the things that sets them apart from the other non-human occupants of the house, their ability to communicate.

Hello and welcome to the forum! Your grey is beautiful I have no experience with plucking, but others here have, and they will respond soon I'm sure.

For a person who knows nothing how is it that you can handle Nilah and no one else can !!??, MOM

She's DNA tested confirmed female. No surprise there. This morning she came out of the water bowl door while I got her water. This time she was completely on the side of the cage and didn't volunteer to go back in. I tried to lead her back in but she wanted to hang out. I unfortunately had to force her to step up to get get her back in. Voicing her displeasure set off the Eclectus, not something I wanted to do at 5:30am.

Well I guess the good news is Nilah is 9 years old.....so I will be looking forward to year 12....! And she is no doubt bonded to me..which I am fine with...I just feel bad for Talon especially who is kinda on her own cause NIlah is the boss of me 😎

Yes, I am the confident one that keeps the upper hand. I can usually calm her when I start singing to her.....She does actually have her "act" on my shoulder where she actually demonstrates having an amazon orgasm 😱 i(didn't know there was such a thing, but there is with her) Then she goes on her merry way.. I don't have any willing volunteers who will work with me on re-socializing her...so I just have to deal with it. One of the girlfriends is very meek & low confidence... and Nilah can sense that...so she spends no time in my house other than my sons room, when she passes thru, I take Nilah in the bathroom with me & we wait it out there.. The other girlfriend IS self confident, not afraid of her, has tried to offer her snacks over the years etc, Sometimes NIlah is fine with her...mostly in the fall & winter...but spring is a different story. The only weapon of terror we have against Nilah is Zoob-tube that she is fearful of..so my sons girlfriend just carries it around with her everywhere when shes here. Only in the spring will Nilah fly at her, but my son tries to shoo her way...it gets a bit stressful in the house when he brings her home...but only in the spring.... Most importantly...NO-ONE is willing to help the situation in my house cause MOM knows NOTHING...😜

It's fixed, that's all that matters. I guess I'm the only new member to try to add to their profile since the last change. I run a forum and website for vintage Yamaha guitars (ProBoards & WordPress). I'm my own tech guy. If something breaks it's usually something I did by mistake and I have to figure out how to fix it. Fun stuff.

Maybe it is just tech folks that like to know why something broke, but...... This forum has been through MANY reiterations and database conversions over the years. Each conversion imports certain fields from the last database, and that was a field imported the last time. The question could not be answered because the database had no = to the question, which was left behind from a previous database conversion. Anyhow, thats why. When the field was deleted from the current DB, the problem went away. I know there are a few tech guys here also, so this is mainly for them, but I digress

Thanks. Will do. I was at work all day, getting home at 5pm. I split an hour between all 3 birds. Again she came out onto the cage front when I left the door open. I gave her some scratches and went to the next bird. She went back in. She came out the water door this morning and went back in when I put the bowl back in. No mating behavior today. She continues to look calm and curious. I heard she had a whistling contest with our oldest son today. Not sure who won but I heard it was close!! She continues to get more vocal. Hmmm.... Maybe that's why they wanted her gone!! :?) She continues to add more whistles, noises and words that she must already know. I finally found something that scares her. An empty paper towel roll. BAD PAPER TOWEL ROLL!!!!