Haggy

Hi sorry i haven't been on for a few days. Great post - thanks, Dave! Harry seems to be progressing well - I've been sitting by him, just chatting and occasionally handing him a cheerio, peanut, small chunk of wholemeal bread etc and he seems nice and comfortable in his new position. His front is nearly completely covered in feathers!! He's starting to make a few more 'human' noises so i'm hoping this is all progress and signs that he's a little happier. Unfortunately I can't find out any more about his past so we're left guessing, but I'm certain he'd been locked away for some time! I've been very laxed with the training and think I'll knock it on the head until we have a bird that more confident in his surroundings Thanks again for the advice - I'll look into the palm oil. Hadn't heard about that until now

Yeah it took us a long time to figure out that he didn't like having his cage covered up. We assumed he was plucking while we were at work but it turned out it was at night time - he just hates anything touching his cage! I'll have to find some info on cage territoriality at some point as he's pretty much cage-bound and it's pretty tough to clean him etc without riling him

Haha yes I used to let out a sigh or a desperate "WHY??!" but found that achieved absolutely nothing. He seemed to use it as a threat and would motion to pull one out until I stopped whatever I was doing that he didn't like. It helped us identify what actions etc he didn't like and now he never really bothers. The only time he seems to pluck now is when we're not home but since moving his cage I don't think he's pulled a single one ... Think he might not have liked the living room window

Yes you did Thank you very much

More excellent advice Thanks! Harry is actually pretty good at taking foot toys, though sometimes he tends to snatch them violently from our hands. He loves curtain pole rings and toilet roll tubes, and I've ordered some sisal rope to make some more bits and bobs for him. Patience definitely seems to be key here

Hi thanks for the welcome Yes me and my girlfriend already owned a Kakariki and a Cockatiel and had wanted a parrot for some time. We'd taken the Cockatiel (Peggy) off a friend of hers who couldn't find the time to look after it anymore and tbh he was in a pretty bad way too. Similar problems to Harry - balding, bad diet, underweight etc. And after seeing the improvements from him and how satisfying it is to help a troubled bird, we decided to re-home a parrot rather than buy a chick. The problem was deciding which parrot - I preferred Amazons, she prefers African Grey's - but after seeing Harry advertised on bird trader she'd called the owner before I even had a chance to think lol. Now that we have him I think he's swayed my opinion He can be VERY frustrating at times, like when he decides to take a step backwards from all the progress he's made and ESPECIALLY when he pulls a feather out right in front of you, but African Grey's really do have great personality's and Harry brings us a lot of joy.

Hello everyone I'm Jason, proud owner of TAG Harry I guess my introduction really is over here for anybody with any input to offer Great forum! I look forward to speaking to you all

Hi thanks for all the fast replies! It's reassuring to know that we're making progress, just 6 month seems so long to the less patient of us lol. There's definitely lots of ups and downs! Sometimes he gets son confident that I'm sure he's lowering his head to be stroked. Other times he'll scale the side of the case just to bite my elbow lol. He used to threaten to pluck every time we changed his food/water bowls but that seems to have stopped now, so he definitely seems to be finally settling in

Hi everyone I'm new here. Please bear with me - this is going to be a long post My partner an I bought Harry, our plucking TAG, back in November. We were told on the phone that he'd only very recently started plucking and that up until then he was hand tame and even said a few words. I doubt this, to be honest. When we first got him he wasn't in very good shape at all. He was nervous, smelly, wheezing, virtually bald over his entire chest and definitely NOT hand tame - Both of us have the scars to prove it. He had been fed an all seed diet, presumably for 4 years, so we switched him to a veggie and 10% sprouted cockatiel seed diet (we own a Cockatiel and Kakariki as well) and slowly let him get used to the new pad (in hindsight we may have been a little too excited at first). We put off taking him to the vet for a while, as we wanted him to get used to us first, but as this didn't seem to be happening very quickly we got him checked out by an avian vet last month. He was tested for everything (£350!!) and came back fine apart from low kidney function and high white blood cell count, which he attributed to his previous poor diet and his constant plucking keeping his body run down. Over the last 6 months he's made lots of progress and his plucking is slowly coming to a halt. We can feed him treats from our hands and he'll come and sit on the cage door. However he is still nervous of people and change. Last week I moved his cage to a new location right next to my computer desk, where i'm perched most evenings, so that I can talk to him more. He definitely seems much happier here and within 2 days he made sudden amazing progress and even came out of his cage for the first time in months! I've started clicker training but have decided to drop the clicker and use "good boy!" as a bridge instead, as I thought it might get him a bit more used to my voice and praise. Basically i'm just looking for some advice on where to go now. Ideally I'd like to get him used to our hands, but this is obviously difficult with an anxious, biting bird. I've tried stepping him up onto perches, but he just runs along them and bites my hand. He's terrified of gloves and GROWLS at them so i'm guessing I'm just gonna have to brave a few bites, or has anybody else had any other successful methods with biting african greys? Any help is greatly appreciated P.S. I know I've listed all his negative points here. He really is a lovely bird and enjoys wolf-whistling. I'd just like to help him get past his phobias and integrate a little better Thank you!