RayRay

When I first got him his wings were clipped, but I decided to not keep up with that. After about 4 months of having him he can now finally fly around. He is not a very confident flier, and usally only takes off when startled. I've been trying to get him to fly to my arm when he takes off, and have successfully got him to land on if quite a few times now. I really want to get him completely comfortable with flying around in my home....but I think this may be a long ways off. He also has a lot of touching issues. He does not like to be touched anywhere near his back or wings, and there is no way I can even try to get a harness on him. He's just way to jumpy for that and the few times I've tried he was about to have a meltdown so I decided to try again later if he ever lets me touch his wings. I suppose all greys are different as he will let me stroke his beak and head and belly area....but its a NO NO on his wings. I'll try to post a video of him one day and I'll show you what I mean.

Which one is unnatural? Letting the bird follow you around? Letiing the bird walk on the ground(our floor)? Biting toes? Don't african greys natuarally walk on the ground in the wild? I've read books and seen tons of videos of this. Don't african greys natuarally follow flock members? I've read and seen videos on this. Don't african greys bite toes? Definitally haven't read anything about this. So I suppose this is the unnatural behavior I do get what you are saying with NO MORE FEET, and No I don't want him to bite my toes or shoes. But I also don't want to lock him in his cage. You know what....I'll just lock him in his cage whenever I'm down the hallway or in the hallway bathroom, then unlock it afterwards. Its not black or white here...I don't have to keep his cage always locked.

Heres a little backround on our CAG. His name is Buddy, and we bought him as a rehome. He has been with us for about 7 months now. He's normally very well behaved and will hardly ever be stubborn and never bites when stepping up on my hand, my kids hands, or my wifes hand. I normalll leave his cage open so he can climb down and explore the floor of our house, and he's gotten really used to hanging around with my wife when I'm at work. He'll get down on our floor and walk around with my wife down the hall and in the hallway bathroom. My wife says he has started climbing on her feet and bobs up and down and reguritates on them. I know this is either a mating ritual or he just really likes her. Anyways, he's develeped this nasty habit now when I go to the hallway bathroom. He will climb down from his cage and come and try to aggressively bite my feet. By aggressively, I mean draw blood on my toes, or my ankles. This isn't an anger bite or scared bite. He doesn't growl or anything. He just chases down my feet and toes , puffs up, tips his head sideways and slips in for a nasty toe biter session. I tried being stern with him telling him NO...but he just does not listen. I've tried different methods to get him to stop. I've put on shoes and tried to resist and push back against his bites, this didn't help. I've tried watering him to get him to stop. He gets distracted by that, but then eventually keeps on coming to my toes and and tries to bite the heck out of them. I've even tried picking him back up, Telling him NO many times, then put him in is cage and shut the door for timeout. No luck. This bird is darn stubborn on this issue and I'm not sure what to do about it. He is very loving with me all other times. So I dont' get it. Is this a territorial thing? If my wife is around he'll bite her toes very gently, kinda in a loving manner. He goes for mine with a vengance. How do I correct this behavior? Its not like I can use a positive re-enforment technique on this. If I feed him seeds or prasie him and pick him up when he tries to bite my toes He'll eqaute that with gettting rewared for it....there has to be some positive way to get him to stop.....It just eludes me at the moment. I don't want to have to shut the cage on him cause he really is a good bird all other times. And, he really enjoys our home now and has some real freedom.