soon to be Canadian TAG owner

[jbsmomto1]

Hi,

 

Tommorow I am picking up my new baby TAG, Skip. He is about 4.5 months old and not quite weaned but I will be taking over the feeds. No problem as I have done this before, just not with a grey. Currently we have a quaker parrot Echo, a hairless chinese crested dog.

 

I am not new to grey's as we did have a CAG before but he was a breeder bird whose mate had died and he just didn't adjust to being my pet, ate holes in my drywall etc etc so we rehomed him to a breeding family and he has done very well. They sent me pic of his new bride and clutch and offered me one of the baby's but it just wasn't the right time to be bringing in a new baby. 4 years later and now IS the right time. So I looked everywhere to find a TAG but man they are hard to find in Canada and I had pretty much given up any hope, until a woman called me one night with the most amazing news. Tomorrow he comes home!! My 9 year old and I are super excited and not sure how we will make it through today. It's crawling by at a snails pace.

 

However, I am a bit worried about how Echo will feel, he has always been my baby since we adopted him at 2 months old. He has always been the only bird. I am sure he will go through a stage where he is totally jealous and may throw a tantrum or 2. How is the best way to make sure he knows he will ALWAYS have a place in my heart, he will always be my #1 bird, and that I can love 2 of them just as easily as one. Any ideas?? Echo is an awesome bird, knows about 100 words and some of his colours and can count to 6, he is super smart and most of the time will answer a question with an appropriate answer.

 

I am really excited to hear the 2 chattering to each other from across the room and hope that one day will tolerate supervised playtime together. Skippy isn't talking yet and to be honest I don't really care if he never does, I love grey's talking or not. What do I do with him the first few days? I typically have never locked up my parrots unless I am not home or am in bed, I open the door in the morning and they have always been free to come and go as they please, will this be ok to do with skip or should I leave him locked up for a few days?

[judygram]

Hello Jbsmomto1 and welcome to our family and congrats on your new Tag Skip.

It doesn't surprise me that your first attempt at being owned by a grey turned out the way it did but he has another mate now and is doing well so now on to the arrival of Skippy. You did the right thing to return him to the breeding program for rarely do they make good pets or vice versa.

I know that feeling of anticipation of the arrival of a new member of the family and we are right there with you but tomorrow is just a heartbeat away and then the fun begins.

Since Echo was there first keep him first in everything, first fed, first out of cage and so forth and so on so he knows his place as top bird, he may or may not be jealous, just make sure you spend some one on one time with each of them and hopefully you will not have many problems. Just let them get to know one another from their own cages at first then open and allow them to come out and see what happens but always supervised. They may want to check each other out or avoid one another, its hard to tell at first and who knows they may become pals but usually the most you can hope for is they tolerate each other and if that is accomplished then you are ahead of the game.

I look forward to seeing some pictures of Skippy after his homecoming and you are welcome to share some of Echo if you like, we have a quaker room within the other birds room.

[Timbersmom]

Hello and welcome to you and Skip! I'm not a victim of MBS (yet) so have nothing to add to what Judygram said. Good luck and God bless

[Ray P]

As Judy said number 1 bird should always stay #1 and your grey will find his place in the flock.

Any way welcome to the grey forum to you and skip.

And yes we love pictures.