Mike the Grey

This post was perfect. Thank you, Dave.

Hello, everybody! First of all, Thank you for all the responses. Everyones advice has been outstanding and I have taken it all to heart. I apologize for not responding quicker, but between work and Bubba & Sassy my scheduel has been, needless to say, booked. lol After a couple of days something great has happened. They have stopped plucking. Between changing around their diet a complete 360 from the guys we rescued them from and lots and lots of attention they have finally settled down and are completely two different birds than what they were, they were great before, but now they are excellent! Sassy is awesome. She steps up, eats from your hand, lets you handle her, pet her and she loves it when my mother (whom I bought them both for for a early birthday gift) plays with her. She loves her stomach and underneath her wings to be rubbed. Bubba took a few extra days, but he nows allows everybody to scratch behind his head and handle him without snapping at us, he loves to act like he is about to, but when he does he takes a hold of you very lightly and then licks your fingers. He is much the same as Sassy, just doesn't like to step up yet on anybody. The screeching that they sometimes do kills your ear drums though. Worse than nails and chalk board! LOL I'll post pictures soon.

Hello everybody, I do have a question about plucking, but first I wanted to explain the situation the two parrots were in before we adopted them. First, I saw the two parrots on craigslist for $350.00 (7 years of age) with cages included so I quickly jumped on the opportunity. What started in a simple purchase quickly turned into a rescue mission once we arrived on the property to pick them up. First, the house they were in was filthy. Second, it was evident that both of the parrots were not being taken care of properly. Bubba's water dish was filthy and hardly had any water in it and the diet that they both were on was wild bird seed. The cages themselves were filthy and was caked with nicotine from excessive ciggarate smoke around the parrots, plus the bottom of the cages were caked in layers of parrot feces. The gentlemens ash tray was literally right next to both of the cages and when we were there he lit up the cigarette and started to smoke around the parrots, which to my understanding is not good (Duh.) Both of the parrots began plucking a couple of months ago (According to him) and both are bald around the chest and leg areas, Bubba more so than Sassy. From what I read online this could be due to several reasons. Poor diet, Boredom, The way they are treated, neglect, Hormones, etc. Once we got them back to our house we went to work on the cages with excessive amounts of cleaning as you can imagine. We changed their diet from wild bird seed to vegetables, fruits, peanuts and parrot seed. They went to town on the food like they had not eaten in days. Bubba still scratches his head and neck, and plucks at the spots on his chest where no feathers are there anymore. I am wondering if this could be due to mites? We already went and bought the hang up mite powder that comes in a circular container with holes and hung it up on the outside of the cage to treat them for mites, if they have any due to the very poor living conditions that they were in. Sassy has gotten a lot better and hardly is digging anymore, or plucking, just on occasions. So I guess the ultimate question I am asking is if they (mainly Bubba) will eventually stop plucking and scratching or if a Vet visit is in order? The only reason why we have not yet taken them to the vet is because we do not want to stress them out less than a week after moving them into a new (though A LOT better) living conditions. They are both very friendly, though Bubba does have a tendency on snapping at you when trying to handle him, which is understandable considering how they have been treated and he does not know us at all right now. Right now, we are doing our best in making everything comfortable for both new members of our family. And so far I think they have adapted well. Thanks for reading and looking forward to your responses!

Hello everybody, I am very excited about joining your community. We just adopted in two members of the family. Sassy & Bubba, two Mongo African Greys Male & Female. I am looking forward to everybodies input and the general community itself. I do have a couple of questions, but I will ask them in the proper section. =) I just wanted to introduce myself to the community and make my presence known.