Wierd eating habit

[amerrie]

HI!!! I'm the companion to a really cool African Grey named Taffy. She is 5 years old. I have only had her 3 days, for you see I have adopted her from a rescue. (I have had another Grey male that I adopted and ended up giving back to the rescue for he had been severly abused and was in need of intensive care and training I was unable to provide.)

My question?? Curiosity is this....Taffy will only eat or drink if it is directly from my mouth. She has food and water in her cage, and has not touched it in 3 days. When I realized she wasn't kissing me but trying to get food from me I was interested. She drank for 1/2 hour straight. (The rescue had only had her 3 or 4 days when I adopted her and I wonder if she drank there at all?) I have tried hand feeding her, (she was a hand fed bird from birth), I've tried wetting some food and trying to get her to eat it, I finally got her to eat some melon by putting her at the dining room table with it in front of her. I can't eat or drink at all around her unless I plan on sharing! I find it odd that she only seems to know how to get food or water this way. As I said she refuses to even look at her seed type food, and I am wondering if someone has an idea of how to get Taffy to eat and drink normally? I told her today that she has baby bird syndrome and needed to learn to eat on her own for crying out loud, she laughed at me.

[judygram]

This is something you are going to have to stop as this can be very harmful to your bird. It never ceases to amaze me what some people will do with their birds, they are so ignorant to not know this is a dangerous practice.

 

I am not coming down on you, just the person who owned this grey before you rescued it. Put her food in her bowls in her cage and she will eat when she gets good and hungry.

[Luvparrots]

Yes, please place her food in her food bowl and she will eat it when she gets hungry. They are very intelligent and will eat if they get hungry! Welcome to the Grey family, Amerrie!