hello

[Wallace]

hello everyone

 

im new to the forum

after doing some reading and about 2yrs of thinking i got myself a 3yr old Congo African Grey male

hopefully you guys will help with any questions /advice

Gaz

[judygram]

Hello Wallace and welcome to our family, so glad you got yourself a grey.

Why don't you tell us more about yourself and this grey, what is hs name, do you know anything about his past, do you have other birds and so forth?

[Wallace]

hiya

his name is Wallace

He is a African Grey Congo and 3yrs old

He was in a family doing fine until the owner had a new baby and then he started to fall out with her (due to lack of interest from her i think)

So now he lives with me and my other half

I want to take him for a MOT but getting him from the cage to a carrier might be stressfull to him and my fingers

He has a slight wheeze but the previous owners said he has just finished a course of antibiotics so i want to take him to my local exotic vets anyway (to be on the safe side)

Hopefully he is fine and ill have my new freind for many years to come

[Ray P]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new fid. This is a great place to be. I am kinds of new here also about 3 months but I have had birds for a long time and it`s nice to have forum friends to share storys with and get help when needed.

[Wallace]

Hi, I am the other half mentioned above and being female I think our boy really mistrusts me...

It is strange - he will talk A LOT to me - especially when it is just us two but striclty NO TOUCHING... i am ok with this but can anyone give us any tips on how to gain his trust.

It problably does not help that his previous owners had been feeding him on more or less solely Sunflower seeds and Monkey Nuts (aargh) I have today got him to taste and lick some cooked sweet potato (not the best but i thought it is a start), obviously I cannot take away his primary food source straight away but we are trying to get him to taste other things to try and at least make a start on diet changes.

Any tips on both the trust thing and the food thing will be gratefully received - ps he does not get monkey nuts any more have managed to replace them with walnuts and brazil nuts (not much better but at least they have vitamin powder on them???

[harmonicaman68]

Hi and welcome :-) Wallace looks healthy in the photo of him. You could try making the Circus Diet for Wallace. A recipe for it is at http://theparrotuniversity.com/circusdiet.php My wife makes it and freezes it into ice cube trays. Then we store it in the freezer. Each day we take about 2 ice cubes of it and mix it with Ziva's pellet food. You could do the same with Wallace's food. Eventually, they get used to the mixture being "on" all of their other food and it even becomes easier to change to different brands of pellets or other food, because the Circus Diet touches and somewhat flavors all of the other food.

 

Just a thought :-)

 

Again ... welcome !!!

[Wallace]

Thanks for that, we have the problem of him being a very picky eater but I may try sprouting some of his seeds that he does eat!

[harmonicaman68]

We understand the picky eater syndrome. Patience and persistence :-) I've found that birds seem to have a built in "food testing" program. They may only touch something with their tongue or eat a small amount or what seems like none. Eventually as they identify the taste and that it had no negative results, they sometimes "come around" and begin to eat what you have introduced them to in the past. I've wondered if God designed them that way so they would not inadvertently eat something that was poisonous to them by mistake. Even new seeds may be "mouthed" to check taste and then dropped. Later they become better accepted.

[Ray P]

We have a CAG Corky and a amazon blue front Cricket that can be picky with food untill they see me eat it. Anything that they see me eat they will eat.

Try to eat in front of them and see what happens.

[Azzie]

I agree with Ray. It seems to work wonders for Cleo. I've spent a fair bit of time sitting in front of the age eating something in a most exaggerated fashion, making nom nom noises and telling her how good it is. Her natural curiosity kicks in, and she ends up asking for some. Only thing is that I now have a dog who is also crazy about tomatoes and capsicums.

[Acappella]

Yep, eating in front of them is magic. We call it the bird diet here. Because they can only eat healthy food, you have to start to eat healthy, or hide in a closet when eating something they can't have!

[Wallace]

Eating in front of Wallace seems to be working well, it is more introducing new things to him, he now has a few things under his belt, we like .... sweet potato (favourite), apple, butternut squash, a little brocolli, a bit of kale, wholewheat rice (only a teeny bit), wholewheat pasta (teeny bit too), orange and potato. We are currently working on carrots! oh and we love corn on the cob, (and anything else that I can stick to the cob lol)

Bizarely the one thing I thought he would love he hates! Grapes... he just takes them off me and throws them as hard as he can away from his cage and his food dishes, I even held on to one to see if I can get him to taste it a little but he was having none of it, he sqwaked and threw a complete strop! He is defo in the terrible twos and wants to talk to us but only limited handling still, oh well considering he has only been living with us almost one month I think we are doing pretty well!!

[Ray P]

It`s sounds like your doing ok with Wallace for only 1 momth. It can take time for trust so just keep it up. Some times it could take 4,5,or6 months or more for complete trust but it`s worth it in the end. Good luck and keep it up.

[birdhouse]

It sounds like you two are doing very well. We tend to want everything now. But it takes a while to negotiate any significant changes with most adult greys. A month is really pretty quickly for Wallace to have accepted a new flock, life & diet. Even if it's only some of what you'd eventually like to accomplish with him.

 

Patience + Time = Trust. There's no other way with a grey.

[harmonicaman68]

Wallace sounds like he is doing well:-) By the way ... Ziva didn't eat grapes at first either ... now she holds the grape, scoops out the soft sweet center and throws away the skin. Go figure :-)

Edited December 18, 2010 by harmonicaman68

[BenzMama]

On the grapes, have you tried biting 1 in half in front of Wallace prior to offering it for him to try? That will let him see that you find it tasty + he will immediately get to taste the sweet center for himself. We do try to limit the number of grapes we give our flock members due to the high sugar content. Ours all seem to have a sweet tooth (beak?!) ... just like their parronts!