TPeter4

Greetings Everyone, Thank you so much for taking the time to write in with advice! You'll be pleased to hear that after several weeks in our home Lulu has settled in quite nicely. If I take the top of her cage she climbs right out. While she's still not eager to spend time with us, she's happy to ride around on our arm/shoulder and get delivered to one of her favorite hang outs. I've also gotten her to occasionally eat some orange, but other than that she almost exclusively eats sun flower seeds. TinyTimneh, you recommended turning the sunflower seeds into a reward. If I were to take them out of her seed mix all together would she eventually given in and start eating the other seeds or would she go on a hunger strike? I want to make sure I'm not going to be abusive or possibly harm her if I try that. I also tried putting the seeds into a tube which was pretty successful. She still has a ways to go before learning how to really play, I think, but she's doing much better. Thanks again for all your help and advice! Cheers, Tom

Greetings, I'm hoping to get some advice from an experienced hand about a 9-month-old African Grey (I believe it's a Congo) that I recently purchased from a pet market in Amman, Jordan. While the grey was raised by a man who clearly cared about her, the standards for what constitutes a nice home for birds is a bit different over here. For example, her cage was probably meant for a love bird or other small parrot. She was supposedly hand raised, but remains a very skittish bird. She'll allow me and my girlfriend to touch her and rarely bites. If she does chomp someone, it's gentle, and just a clear way of saying "please stop." She does not, however, enjoy being touched, she only tolerates it. While I understand that training/taming a Grey can take a bit of time, what disturbs me most about mine, Lulu, is that she has no real sense of curiosity. I've put her in a large cage and though I can't find proper bird toys here, I've tried putting new things in her cage (a link of chain, paper towel rolls, an interesting Q-tip box, etc.). She doesn't even investigate them. Sometimes, she accidentally steps on them, which I originally thought might make her want to explore them a bit, but she just walks over them and moves on. She doesn't have any interest playing. She just sits in her cage and periodically moves from perch to perch or preens herself. If you leave the door open she doesn't even poke her head out. She just stays inside her cage. Beyond that, when we take her out of the cage, while she will tolerate being held for a few minutes, her main interest is breaking way and climbing to the highest point in the room or preferably her cage. When she gets to where ever she's going, she doesn't do anything. She just sits there and looks around, and maybe preens herself. I understand that most greys consider their cage a secure place and that all birds prefer high places, but this seems a bit extreme. It's also hard to train her because she doesn't care one way or another about food. For example, we've tried feeding her apples, kiwi, blood oranges, regular oranges, green beans, garbanzo beans, and a few others and she just not interested. So when you're training her the only real reward you can give her is leaving her alone or letting her go back in her cage. Again, I think this goes back to her original owner who only fed her sunflower seeds, which is now all she'll eat, even if I get her a nice seed mix (pallets are unavailable here). I'd love to keep her as a pet, but I'm feeling like I've gotten a bit over my head. If I can't even find a nice food reward or a toy she enjoys playing with I'm not sure how to train her or help her regain her mental alacrity. If anyone has some advice about where to start it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Cheers, Tom