lycraloon

Thanks all for the replies. This is comforting to know.

MY CAG doesn't bite me as such and will only nip me if she gets a fright (is startled) by something or someone when I am near her cage. Because I allow her as much out of the cage time as possible, she messes a lot of her food on the floor and I always get to clean it. She will often hang on the cage and pull my hair, or sometimes when she is on my hand, she will try and get to my hair and pull it. Most times, painfully. Is there something sinister in this or is it fairly common / nomral behaviour?

Thanks for the warm welcome all. Ok, so just to be sure we have the evidence correct, my bird is Peta. She's probably about 10 years old or so and I inherited her from my exe's uncle. I think the reason for that was that Peta and I always had a close bond. We would look after her when they went on holidays and long weekends away and I was one of the few who could take her out of the cage and pet her every time i went to visit. Unlce's wife and Peta never got on well after she moved in and one day I got a call to "come and fetch your bird" (having jokingly said a few times that I would gladly take her at the first chance that came along). Naturally, I was a bit mystified but it soon became clear that "aunty" was less than charmed with Peta and it was "either her or me". Damn, thats a tough choice to make but from where I sit, I would have helped her pack. And so I have a new owner. I have several pics of her on facebook and if I can find the links, I will post them. I just love this bird, she is intelligent, gorgeous (which she thinks is one of her names) and is highly entertaining most of the time.

So Dayo and Peta are the Congo African Greys. Name is self explanatory. Where do the others originate from? (Other than hand reared in a billion countries around the world)

Thanks again Dan. Like people I guess, she has her own little personality. She loves some things raw and others not. For example, she will not eat raw banana but loves the honeyed dried banan chips. Will only eat raw cougetes not cooked. Eats carrots but prefers them cooked. Loves apple but only fresh. will eat yellow corn not white. And definitely has a preference for white sunflower seeds over black ones. She loves to take a sip of my coffee but that practice will cease now I know what it can do to her. Mostly, she will not take food from me unless I put it in my mouth (bewtwwen my lips) and feed it to her. And the traitor will take nuts from my GF or GF's daughter. Me, I have to put it in her bowl first. Go figure. I'm the one who feeds her but she won't take food from me.

Tahnks Dan. I will go check it out soon.

You can count me out of this one too. I have never bitten my parrot. Not once. Scouts honour. True story. Oh but the temptation has been there a number of times. Peta has thankfully never bitten me either. She has nipped a few times but no serious bite or war wounds from interacting with her. Joe, My exe's grey, has bitten her a number of times and often tried to "tie one on" with me. He's just too dumb to get it right, but now we've split up, he will never get that oportunity.

Being new on any forum is always quite daunting. Finding out who all the personalities are, will they take to my humour and where to find junk is something of a hit and miss afair. If it's already been covered, I haven't found it yet, so please be patient with me for a bit. I guess I will find my way around here. As far as I know, there are two main breeds of Greys. A lighter grey with a scarlet tail and a darker grey with a maroon tail. Are there more and which is which. I only have my exe's word for the different breeds and I wouldn't bet anything onthe correctness of the info. Peta (Aka Silly tart / dumbass and several other identity cirses she has from time to time) is the fairer complexioned light grey with scarlett tail. Joe (the misfit grumpy old fart) is my exe's bird and he is the darker complexioned maroon tailed nutcase.

danmcq, the problem I find in the big city is everyone seems to think that peanuts in their shells and sunflower seeds are the base of a parots food Don't get me wrong, Peta has always loved her raw peanuts in their shells and when she was getting them, she would pick them out for eating first. It was amazing to watch her open up a hole and then pick the nuts out of the shell before discarding it. I used to limit her to about two or three per day, but have decided to remove them completely from her diet. My concern is that the "aflatoxin" that is found on the peanuts may have contaminated the other food in the packs that we buy. So now the question is, what should I be feeding her. I will no doubt check out the forum and find the correct places to get these and other answers.

LOL. Very punny. I am techno challenged and it will take some time to load some pictures of Peta (Sorry, I have fat fingers so most times, I get it a bit wrong.) never mind videos which I dont have at this time. The young lady is extremely bright and very amusing at the best of times. Just lately shes been doing a lot of feather plucking and I have been doing some reasearch on that one. One theory was something to do with a bacteria or fungus in peanuts and it has helped but the "silly tart" (her favourite thing to say) is still plucking. Sheis also terrified of new anything in her cage so I want to find out how to introduce her to some new stuff without scaring the rest of the feathers off the poor baby.

Wow. Thanks so much for this information. I was blown away by some of the things that are toxic to my young lady. I joined this forum because I recently learned that Peanuts are bad for Grays and wanted to check out what else might not be good for my bird. I have taken peanuts out of her diet no matter how much she loves them. Apparently, they can get some kind of fungus on them that is bad news for grays.

I greet you all from a sunny Johannesburg in "darkest Africa". Although a forum member of various other forums, I'm the new kid on the block here. Reason for joining is to gain some knowledge of how best to take care of my Gray. Pete is her name and although I've had her a few years, there's stil much to learn.