R&C Greys

14 Week update photo of Ella, she will allow you to turn her onto her back and fuss her and loves to lie on your chest and go to sleep, she is like a little puppy that loves attention. She has got a cage but only goes in it at night time to sleep, during the day she spends hours with us and is still taking a bit of top up formula at 4.00pm and then again just before bedtime about 10.30pm although she eats almost everything she is offered and loves to try new things. If you have been following this thread then Thank You for taking the time to read it It has been on my bucket list tick sheet for years to breed and hand feed a parrot so another Thank You for the information found on this forum, i don't think we would have managed without the knowledge shared here. Carol, Rob and Ella 🐣

No they won't give a refund and they have kept the Cites certificate that they asked me to return (like an honest fool i sent it to them with another £31) I struggle to understand how an organisation which is set up to protect endangered species makes it so difficult when another potential breeding bird is born (again not that Ella will be going anywhere as a breeder) but i do wonder what will become of her when we are no longer around, just got to hope one of the family would offer her a safe home, when a bird is not registered it has no value and has to be gifted and probably abused because there is no financial loss. As a side note Cites expected me to contact the previous owners of the male bird to find out who had removed his ring and illegally changed his certificate but it's obvious they would just say it wasn't them and as i have no proof there is no point in chasing it up and i will have to take the loss on the chin. Please check if you purchase a bird that it's paperwork is in order and that some cheating so and so hasn't tried to alter anything.

Hi, Just a cautionary tale, don't bother trying to register your birds with CITES it's a con, i bred Ella from two birds i bought at Stafford show (Staffordshire show ground) at the Parrot Society official show, i was supplied with two Cites certificates and paid a considerable amount of money for them, it turns out that when i tried to register Ella their chick, that the male had his certificate altered to show he wasn't rung but microchipped instead and a sticker with his microchip number had been stuck on his certificate. I paid £31.00 to Cites with the application which they refused and i sent them the proof of purchase and all documents they asked for, they replied with pay another £31.00 and a new application for the male and it would be sorted out. It turns out that Julie Berry from the Cites office has deemed that they cannot issue Cites certificates for Ella (the chick) or her father. To cut a long story short Cites have stitched me for £62.00 and i have lost the price of the chick plus i have an unsaleable pair. They do not deserve honest people to register their birds, it's a scam 😡 P.S. Not that Ella will ever be for sale.

Just a 9 week update picture... This was a couple of days ago and she has now lost all her baby feathers and is being very difficult to feed as she has decided not to eat all her formula but is eating veg and pellets but not very many, her weight has dipped very slightly but is still hovering around the 430g mark. I don't think i have stressed so much as i have recently over whether she is eating enough but i realise weaning is hard on the bird and the owner 🍼 > 🍎🥕🥦

Just thought i would put a picture of the problem i've got with a breeding pair of AG's, they are fed on top quality seeds (low sunflower) harrisons pellets and fresh fruit and veg daily. They can produce fertile eggs on a regular basis but just can't get them over the line and hatch them, i have nest box cameras and the hen sits tight all the way through but as you can see from the picture they fail anywhere between embryo and 2/3rds developed. (She's had about 12 rounds in 18months same result each time) At first i thought it was perhaps genetic or bacterial but when i pulled a round off her and artificially incubated i had 1 clear 1 very early death (just a blood ring) and 1 very healthy fully developed chick which i have posted about in the nursery section. Any ideas welcome, if not i am destined to incubate and hand rear all of their eggs, which is a shame as i would like the hen to manage herself so she can complete the cycle and give me a rest. Carol & Rob

Well, Ella is 7 1/2 weeks old now and doing well she is still on 4 feeds a day (50ml approx) and starting to pick up pellets and cooked veg doesn't eat much solid food just plays with it but some goes down. She has started to perch and her feathers are developing nicely so i think we are on the right track 🤞

I think Ella is going to be a mommas bird 🤗

Being the first, she is too special to let go 😍 so will stay with us as a member of the family. I keep greys just as a hobby really, i've just retired and the food bill will have to be covered at some point as the price of Harrison pellets is not cheap plus the daily fresh fruit and veggies, so if we get anymore then they would have to be sold (unfortunately) we couldn't keep them all as much as we would like to 🐥🐥🐥 Carol.

Thanks ALL for the welcome and here's one i took this afternoon 🐥 Facebook link with up to date videos and photos of Ella's progress

Definitely an ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan Timbersmom 🦢

I've updated the Facebook post with a couple of video updates as Ella is now 0n 30ml of formula 4 times a day now and she has started to sprout her little red tail feathers plus she is preening herself all the time now. I also would like to say although i'm posting updates quite regularly on FB i do not want to encourage anyone who has no experience to take on a chick that is not weaned, this might sound like do as i say not as i do but i have been OCD with video's, forums and general googling, books etc and we triple check everything we do with Ella's food temperature, disinfecting everything hands, feeding utensils and clean bedding after every feed. It's not easy believe me and you need a lot of expensive equipment already to hand before starting. So unless there is no choice then let someone else do the hard work and better still if you can visit the breeder and ask if you can help feed the chick supervised then thats defo the way to go. The Nursery on this forum has some excellent advice on hand rearing and also check https://www.africangreybabyparrot.co.uk/index.php/12_weeks_progress/?k=:2:: another great reference plus read everything you can before you do anything. Rob & Carol.

Thank You, glad you enjoyed the video we were a bag of nerves when she decided to pip and unzip having never witnessed a hatch we were both spellbound 😃i will keep updating the post from time to time to show her progress. Carol.

It's definitely been a challenge the first 2 days of on the hour every hour was not easy (lack of sleep wise) but when she was happy with one night feed at 3am it got slightly easier after a week she now goes 7 hrs through the night and we got our sanity back 🤪she is fairly straight forward feeding now but not looking forward to weaning her, just hope she gets the hang of it when the time comes. We started trying to breed AG's about 2 to 3 years ago with 2 pairs but about a 1 year ago we lost a hen after she ate a slug and died unfortunately, the second pair laid after a couple of months of owning them but she just can't seem to hatch them herself, we must have had at least 8 clutches of mainly fertile eggs that just never made it to hatch so Ella was incubated and it was a real surprise to us as we just expected the same result again. My first love has always been cockatoos but where we live now in a built up area it just wasn't practical, although the greys are also gorgeous and a damn sight quieter 🙄 Carol.

https://www.facebook.com/rob.h.wilson.1/posts/3239442786076217 Just a Facebook link to a post of us hatching and hand rearing Ella the African Grey 🐣currently 5weeks old 🐥 Carol and Rob

Just a quick note to say Thank You for letting me join and a bit about myself. 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.