Dave007

Broccoli------Carrots ----Kale ---Peas -------String beans-------Sugar Snap Peas--Romaine---corn ( especially the cob) I stay with as many dark green veggies as possible. My birds will eat the above when they feel like it. Not everyday. They tire of veggies. Variety works. Stuff like celery, cucumbers, iceberg lettuce has no value at all. One of my birds won't eat any of the above. He isn't a veggie eater and has never been and I got him when he was well into adulthood. He'll never change. You should understand that many older birds who haven't been fed veggies may not accept all types, sometimes none. Lots of fruit isn't good because it's acidic. Small amounts are fine.

Well, sorry. I guess I read your post in the wrong way.

I think you would be crazy to give him up. It would only confuse him and his personality would change. A deal is a deal. You took him, gave him everything, made him happy. He's your bird and that's the way it should be. If you wanna email her and explain how nice things are then do it. But remember, he's now your bird. All of this is if she's the same person that owned him in the first place that you're thinking of.

I don't know if this helps but when I was given Tee ( TAG, extremely aggressive--8 yrs old at the time) the previous owners Emailed me from time to time to find out about him. I constantly Emailed them back and made sure that I included different photos all the time to show how friendly and loving he was becoming. This went on for about 1 1/2 yrs. They were very happy about that. When they gave me the bird, they had just about given up on ever having a parrot again but after seeing that a parrot could actually be nice, they wound up getting a baby TAG from a friend of mine in NY and they never had any problems again.

I never heard anything bad about the food. A couple of well known pet shops sell it. This place can give you more info about it. http://www.mybirdstore.com/FOOD_TREATS-GOLDENFEAST_5.html

It's not a good idea to tell a person that their bird will act like another bird when one of those birds is a rehomed adolscent/adult bird that has a certain type of developed personality as opposed to a baby bird that's still an extremely young bird who is now living with it's very first owner. Doing something like that can cause problems for the person owning that rehomed bird. Some people will be disappointed. It's much better to find out about the personality of a species, in this case greys. Greys don't like children. That's been proven over and over. As far as giving certain foods, that rehomed bird may have already developed a dislike for certain catagories of food and that dislike may have developed in a previous home and telling a person that the bird will come around and achieve certain results by doing certain things is fine. What isn't fine is telling that person you can assure them that this or that will happen. A person needs lots of experience with adult birds before certain facts can be talked about.

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A grey will do something like that especially when it's a baby. Your bird is a baby bird. The bird is regurgitating but I watched and watched and the frequency and regularity is telling me that there may be an obstruction and my advice is to go to a vet as soon as you can so the bird can be checked out.

I put in 19 weeks and that was a mistake on my part. Bad calculations but in your first post, you said 74 days old. That means 2 1/2 mts old and your bird is younger than that. That's why I put the pics in. It was to give you an idea of what a bird looks like at different ages. I never said anything bad about you or to you getting an unweaned bird. I never said you weren't concerned. That's in the past and there's nothing you or I or anyone else can do to change that. I DO feel angry that that person you got the bird from mislead you as far as the age. Things like that can happen in any country that sells parrots. Here we always try to tell people to avoid buying unweaned birds but many times, people will still buy them because they think that the bird will bond better because of hand feeding which isn't true. In the UK, it's against the law to sell unweaned birds. People can be fined or even put in jail. Antibiotics-----usually, something like that is given to a sick bird, not an underw eight bird. Usually a vet says whether the bird is actually sick. Antibiotics make the bird's internal system weak because it's killing off bad bacteria but also killing off good bacteria which affects the immune system. This also happens to people. Revised formula---if you can get some flavored oatmeal mix the present formula in with the oatmeal and let him eat it by using a spoon. Give as much as the bird wants. Pellets-----take a couple of spoons of pellets and soften them up with water. Slightly mash them. Feed it with a spoon. Give as much as the bird wants. Keep some general parrot mix near by. A maturing parrot who is active and whose body is reaching its full size will lose his intense fixation on feeding every time he sees you. Sometimes he will be so preoccupied with playing; he will show no interest in food even though he should be hungry. When this occurs, do not be tempted to force him to eat. Wait an hour or two and his hunger will eventually exceed his interest in playing and the feeding session will be easier. If your bird is playful that's a good sign. I'm not trying to change the policy in India. I realize that things are difficult for you right now.

No, they can't overeat. Some eat more than others but their metabulism regulates the amount. It's extremely hard for a grey to gain weight. What you need to watch out for is when he doesn't eat. In other words, a drastic change from eating to only a little eating. When that happens the bird will become quiet, listness and is usually a sign of illness.

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Understand something--I'm not trying to scare you or give you a hard time. I've dealt with chicks in the past and from what I can see, that bird isn't 2 1/2 mts old. I can show you what a 2 1/2 to 3 mt old bird looks like. Your bird looks just like the first one above. The tail is short, the bird is fluffed up, the feathers around the neck and breast area aren't uniform yet. In a past post I spoke to you about formula reduction and what happens to a bird who is stepping up to solid foods but that applied to older birds such as 2 1/2 to 3 to 4 mt old birds. At that time you hadn't submitted pictures so I just went along with your age figures. Now you've submitted pictures and they don't match up to the age you spoke about. An older bird will lessen the amount of formula as drastically as you said. A 10, 11, 12 wek old bird won't do the same thing. So I suggested the vet because your bird seems to not wanna eat a full meal at feeding time and that calls for an exam. You need to find out if there's a problem. On the other hand, maybe you took some lousy photos. I put some pics in to show ages of birds and also their body lines. Now you're saying that you're not sure of the age and possibly the seller didn't really know the age. In the Health Room and the Nursery Room, giving out medical advice and medical treatments isn't something I allow. So, it's up to you. I'm only concerned about your bird. It may be difficult to do some of these things but it's worth it because an african grey is meant to live a long time but many bad things start off at the time when the bird is very young.

You're positive about the bird's age? No w that I see the pictures, I would say that he's a little underweight. He's possibly a small boned bird which isn't abnormal. If this was my bird I would feel better taking my bird to a vet for a checkup just to be on the safe side. I would feel better getting proper info from my vet. These are pictures of 11 week old and 14 week old birds. Your bird looks like he's about 12 weeks old. You said he was 19 weeks old--(74/76 days old). So, if the bird is underweight or is under the weather, he should be checked. We can only give opinions here and photos can't always show exact situations and we're not vets. Better safe than sorry and make sure you check up on the bird's age because the bird looks younger than 19 weeks. 11 weeks http://i1163.photobucket.com/albums/q552/DavidDVP/11weeks.jpg 14 weeks http://i1163.photobucket.com/albums/q552/DavidDVP/14weeks--avd--12.jpg

Your bird is approx 2 1/2 mts old and normally, a person introduces semi solid foods at 1 1/2 mts. Many times a bird won't really eat a lot of that food but it is there to experiment with. A bird won't starve itself. A bird will eventually eat more solid food as long as getting to that food is very easy. Some birds take longer to switch over than others. As a grey grows up, they take less formula. That's a natural thing. The number of feedings goes down. I really don't know why you're worried about the bird looking compact unless your idea of compact is different than ours. Mashed banana---I have no idea who told you to use that as a formula. Formula has a number of items that have vitamins in them. At one time in the past you weren't able to get formula, you should have looked online and gotten ready to buy ready made formula even though it would cost more than here. You need to feed all kinds of veggies. They need to be in an area that the bird can get to. He won't like them at first but he'll learn to eat them. It's important that you do this now because as a bird gets older and they don't like veggies, they won't like them in the future. If you want to get solid parrot mix then get a parrot mix that has many more varieties of seed than the ones you're naming. Above. Another thing about mashed banana---it's very sweet and birds like sweet things but eventually they'll take less formula which is replaced with solid food so it is normal for the amount of each feeding to lessen. The bird is talking to you. It's telling you that formula doesn't appeal to him as much as solid food and you're the one who needs to give it. Giving a lot of fruit isn't good for a bird because there's no vitamins in it. Some peoplewill say that fruits has lots of vitamins in them but they're referring to the vitamins that are good for people, not birds.

I never said anything about praising her or not praising her. I never said anything about a floor or couch. I said *perch*. You asked about the age of the bird when starting to fly. You asked a technical question and I gave you a technical answer.is on a perch doing those things, that's the time when a bird is getting stronger and nearing the flight stage. I said that the bird shouldn't be encouraged to fly off when it's not ready to ( off a perch ). I never said anything about your arm or wrist. Praising her isn't going to make her develop more quickly. Exercise and nature is doing that.

Attempts at flying usually happens after the bird has flapped it's wings over a long period of time. Muscles are being developed. Strength is being developed. Breathing is being developed. Heart rate is being developed. The actual attempt at flying happens when the flapping is causing the bird to lift straight up off the perch about 1 to 2 inches. That may take weeks or days.The bird does that flapping more and more and finally gets brave enough to attempt flying which will wind up being very sloppy. The bird will usually end up on the floor after only going a short distance. The bird is doing the exact same thing that can be seen in nature shows that are focusing in on birds from the egg to adolescese. The bird should never be encouraged to do this. The natural body parts are telling the bird to try it. The bird has no control over that lifting off of a perch. The wngs are getting stronger and nature is taking it's course and pulling the bird up off the perch into the air.

Greys talk all day long. They talk to their owner about many things and they talk to other birds. As soon as the bird is settled into a new place, they're start talking to the owner. As soon as they become familiar with certain things, they'll make sounds that apply such as giving a certain fook, wanting to come out of a cage etc. The big difference is that they may not talk in human language. Your bird is talking to you. They'll talk to the TV and the radio and musical sounds and voices and other pets. So, the big trick is to understand what they're saying in their language. It takes a while to learn what they're sayiing but as time goes on they will talk to you in their language. This especially applies to greys who are much older and don't mimic human language. I have 2 greys that don't mmic words and they never will mimic words. Both are adults. But they constantly communicate with me. I understand all the sounds they make because it's the same sounds that they apply to different things so I do know that they're talking to me. They direct that bird talk to me. In the arrot world it's known as parrotese. This whole process can also be compared to body language. After learning a parrot's body language it's very easy to understand what the bird is doing. So that's why I asked you if your bird was talking to you. It also was because of the bird's age. That's why I asked you to find out from the previous owners whether he was a human language talker. Just ask other experienced owners of older greys that don't talk whether they understand what their bird is saying all day long and whether all those sounds apply to certain things.

Concerning the whistles------African Greys are well known as the best whistlers in the parrot world. The one thing that's guaranteed is that your CAG or TAG will eventually whistle. The bird needs no encouragement. It's not a good idea. Encouraging greys to whistle won't entice them to do any other sounds unless they want to. Eventually, they'll whistle constantly whether they're talkers or not. They'll invent their own whistling melodies. Pople will say that their bird does the wolf whistle as well as other sounds and no lessons were done to accomplish that. Eventually, they'll whistle many things with no prompting. And they'll do this for years and years. So basically, it's not a good idea to encourage whistling when dealing with one of the best natural whistlers in the parrot world. Especially if you're looking forward to having your bird mimic human language.

Well, whatever your reason, if it comes from your heart than it's a perfectly good reason which should make you happy and make the whole day seem like a better place to live. Just remember, you're not allowed to rename me. OR ELSE!!!!!

I wasn't asking you. It was meant for the OP because the bird is 8 yrs old. But for the future. since you mention it, birds react to the new high and low tones, pitch, speed of the words much more so than a name. A new name never decreases *baggage*. Using a previous name that the bird had in a past bad environment won't make past bad experiences linger. baggage and changing names have nothing to do with each other. Lots of birds that have * baggage* don't even have a name. Call your bird a totally different name or no name at all and you'll see what I mean but only you or others who constantly talk to the bird should do it. In other words, feed familar sounds/questions/responses and watch the reaction. Then do the same thing but add the bird's name. Parrot baggage has to do with physical happenings. I'm not trying to give you a hard time here. Just trying to tell you the difference between a wild animal such as a grey and a domestic animal like a dog.

Why would you possibly wanna change the bird's name? Parrots have absolutely no idea of what a male or female name is.

Because of the seriousness and potential extremely bad results that may occur, the only thing I would advise is for you to make this a sticky immediately!

You should find out whether he mimiced human language at the place he lived in before you got him. Buit obviously, he is and has been talking to you and the hubby alot since you've gotten him, right??

Hi and welcome to our parrot world. We also hope to make friends with you. We have great people here from all over the world and there's loads of information here and people love to chat. maybe you can tell us if it's hard to get greys in your country and which are the most popular parrots there. In some countries greys aren't available. Anyway, welcome and have some fun here.