Harry our anxious TAG - Where do we go from here?

[Haggy]

Hi everyone I'm new here. Please bear with me - this is going to be a long post

My partner an I bought Harry, our plucking TAG, back in November.

We were told on the phone that he'd only very recently started plucking and that up until then he was hand tame and even said a few words. I doubt this, to be honest. When we first got him he wasn't in very good shape at all. He was nervous, smelly, wheezing, virtually bald over his entire chest and definitely NOT hand tame - Both of us have the scars to prove it.

He had been fed an all seed diet, presumably for 4 years, so we switched him to a veggie and 10% sprouted cockatiel seed diet (we own a Cockatiel and Kakariki as well) and slowly let him get used to the new pad (in hindsight we may have been a little too excited at first). We put off taking him to the vet for a while, as we wanted him to get used to us first, but as this didn't seem to be happening very quickly we got him checked out by an avian vet last month. He was tested for everything (£350!!) and came back fine apart from low kidney function and high white blood cell count, which he attributed to his previous poor diet and his constant plucking keeping his body run down.

 

Over the last 6 months he's made lots of progress and his plucking is slowly coming to a halt. We can feed him treats from our hands and he'll come and sit on the cage door. However he is still nervous of people and change. Last week I moved his cage to a new location right next to my computer desk, where i'm perched most evenings, so that I can talk to him more. He definitely seems much happier here and within 2 days he made sudden amazing progress and even came out of his cage for the first time in months!

I've started clicker training but have decided to drop the clicker and use "good boy!" as a bridge instead, as I thought it might get him a bit more used to my voice and praise.

 

Basically i'm just looking for some advice on where to go now. Ideally I'd like to get him used to our hands, but this is obviously difficult with an anxious, biting bird. I've tried stepping him up onto perches, but he just runs along them and bites my hand. He's terrified of gloves and GROWLS at them so i'm guessing I'm just gonna have to brave a few bites, or has anybody else had any other successful methods with biting african greys?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

P.S. I know I've listed all his negative points here. He really is a lovely bird and enjoys wolf-whistling. I'd just like to help him get past his phobias and integrate a little better

 

Thank you!

[katana600]

Welcome to the forum and congratulaions on the progress you have had with Harry in the short six months he has been in your care. If he has stopped plucking, my instinct says he is feeling somewhat secure with you although his outward mannerisms may suggest he would rather bite you and not have any hands on interactions. We have Gilbert, a rehomed TAG, and we have passed the two year anniversary of his arrival and he is still not confidently "hands on". It has taken a long time with lots of ups and downs to get to the place where he is beginning to become adventurous enough to play with toys. You are doing a lot of things well, and changing his cage location was fruitful, so you are "reading" Harry pretty well so far. I find with Gilbert that giving him a choice works best. I may have to offer him the same thing a hundred times, in as many different ways before the time is right for him to try it. He may reject my hand for a step up a thousand times, but when he does offer his foot in trust, it is magical for both of us and marks a milestone in our relationship. If you approach changes as you did with the cage relocation, watchin his reaction, moving forward when you see him accept your offers and backing off when he gets upset, you will continue to help him unpack his baggage and become the little spirit he was meant to be. Six months is just a blink in "grey time", he may indeed be a talker. He is still getting the lay of the land and one day he may start saying all the things he heard before and the new things he has heard from you.

[Timbersmom]

Hello and welcome to you and Harry! I'm inexperienced myself so don't have anything to say except it takes a lot of time and patience with a rehome. Others with more experience will come along with useful suggestions I'm sure.

[Jayd]

Katana600's advice is solid.....The key being "Grey Time", Pretend your building Rome...

[Timbersmom]

Yes indeed! Kantana600 was posting at the same time as I was this time. I didn't see it until now. You should read her thread about Gilbert. There is a lot of insight in that.

[Ray P]

Hi Haggy. First I would like to welcome you to the grey forum.

Stop by our welcome and introduction room and introduce yourself to the membership.

Greys take time to come around so take it slow. Never use gloves as this could set back your progress in building trust with your TAG.

It sounds like you are doing ok as your TAG has stopped plucking.

For now just take it slow, talk to it and it will come around when ready.

There has been given to you some great advice by our members.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Ray P

[Haggy]

Hi thanks for all the fast replies!

It's reassuring to know that we're making progress, just 6 month seems so long to the less patient of us lol.

There's definitely lots of ups and downs! Sometimes he gets son confident that I'm sure he's lowering his head to be stroked. Other times he'll scale the side of the case just to bite my elbow lol. He used to threaten to pluck every time we changed his food/water bowls but that seems to have stopped now, so he definitely seems to be finally settling in

[Timbersmom]

Half the battle is trying to read their body language and figure out what is making them act like they do. I'm not always successful, but more than I used to be. I always tried to remember everything that happened prior to a bite. Sometimes you can find a "trigger." Sometimes not though!

[katana600]

I really admire how you are seeking out others to find glean some insight into Harry. It really is an individual process and each of us bounce ideas around and sometimes they come at just the right moment that what didn't work for six months or two years in my case, will suddenly be magical. It is common early on for us to wonder if we did the right thing with getting a rehomed grey, but when they do start to open up, it is worth all the time we have given them. We are just now having some breakthroughs and success with Gilbert, more than two years in. He had a plucking frenzy about three weeks ago and he looks a lot like Harry. It comes and goes. Just don't set any "goals" for yourself or try to have a timeline of when you would like to see progress. That seems to lead to disappointment. When you just meet the little guy where he is, accept him and give him some space, he will start wanting to come toward you. It is a delicate dance of pursuit and withdrawal. When I would pursue Gilbert would withdraw, when I withdraw, he cautiously comes forward a bit. (P.S. Timber's Mom aka Karen, I saw that you were posting right at the same time and you have more experience than you realize, you are doing great with Timber)

[Haggy]

More excellent advice Thanks!

Harry is actually pretty good at taking foot toys, though sometimes he tends to snatch them violently from our hands. He loves curtain pole rings and toilet roll tubes, and I've ordered some sisal rope to make some more bits and bobs for him.

Patience definitely seems to be key here

[katana600]

I know we can't compare progress with a grey to progress with a dog. I was thinking on your dedication to be patient with Harry. If you think about six months in the life of a rescue dog, it is a significant period of time in proportion to its expected lifespan. For a grey, it may be a blink of an eye and just a tiny portion of its lifespan. Also with a rehomed grey there isn't a progressive path of positive growth and interaction. Its up one day, backward the next and it goes along without regularity if we look at it from a standpoint of human interactions. That's why we call it grey time and when I accepted that and celebrated our good days and kept my behavior predictable and consistent on his bad days, we are making some strides. If it helps any, the general consensus is when these guys start making progress, they have one insight after another and will cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

[Jayd]

I know we can't compare progress with a grey to progress with a dog. I was thinking on your dedication to be patient with Harry. If you think about six months in the life of a rescue dog, it is a significant period of time in proportion to its expected lifespan. For a grey, it may be a blink of an eye and just a tiny portion of its lifespan. Also with a rehomed grey there isn't a progressive path of positive growth and interaction. Its up one day, backward the next and it goes along without regularity if we look at it from a standpoint of human interactions. That's why we call it grey time and when I accepted that and celebrated our good days and kept my behavior predictable and consistent on his bad days, we are making some strides. If it helps any, the general consensus is when these guys start making progress, they have one insight after another and will cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time.

What a excellent expression of the way it is...Thank you.....................

[Greywings]

He is doing very well so just keep practicing your patience, difficult but so rewarding.

[judygram]

Dee is full of firsthand knowledge for she is living the experience of life with a rehomed grey from an abused past, its a work in progress and you can read her story in this thread:

http://www.greyforums.net/forums/showthread.php?192443-Gilbert-is-home

[katana600]

Thanks Judy, I thought I had an idea what we were getting into with Gilbert but I had little insight into just how complex these intelligent creatures can be. To Haggy's thread title "Where do we go from here?" I say, to worlds unknown, to infinity and back. That is how many variations there are on the rehoming spectrum. Our parrots study us carefully and interpret the slightest motions and expressions based on what they have seen before. It takes a long time and consistent repetition before the wary grey begins to trust his prediction of a new companion. Gilbert has had me second guessing myself and wondering if I was the best person for him and now I know it just takes time to give him the space to slowly extricate himself from the place inside where he withdrew to cope with things he didn't understand.

[Dave007]

Hi everyone I'm new here. Please bear with me - this is going to be a long post

My partner an I bought Harry, our plucking TAG, back in November.

We were told on the phone that he'd only very recently started plucking and that up until then he was hand tame and even said a few words. I doubt this, to be honest. When we first got him he wasn't in very good shape at all. He was nervous, smelly, wheezing, virtually bald over his entire chest and definitely NOT hand tame - Both of us have the scars to prove it.

He had been fed an all seed diet, presumably for 4 years, so we switched him to a veggie and 10% sprouted cockatiel seed diet (we own a Cockatiel and Kakariki as well) and slowly let him get used to the new pad (in hindsight we may have been a little too excited at first). We put off taking him to the vet for a while, as we wanted him to get used to us first, but as this didn't seem to be happening very quickly we got him checked out by an avian vet last month. He was tested for everything (£350!!) and came back fine apart from low kidney function and high white blood cell count, which he attributed to his previous poor diet and his constant plucking keeping his body run down.

 

Over the last 6 months he's made lots of progress and his plucking is slowly coming to a halt. We can feed him treats from our hands and he'll come and sit on the cage door. However he is still nervous of people and change. Last week I moved his cage to a new location right next to my computer desk, where i'm perched most evenings, so that I can talk to him more. He definitely seems much happier here and within 2 days he made sudden amazing progress and even came out of his cage for the first time in months!

I've started clicker training but have decided to drop the clicker and use "good boy!" as a bridge instead, as I thought it might get him a bit more used to my voice and praise.

 

Basically i'm just looking for some advice on where to go now. Ideally I'd like to get him used to our hands, but this is obviously difficult with an anxious, biting bird. I've tried stepping him up onto perches, but he just runs along them and bites my hand. He's terrified of gloves and GROWLS at them so i'm guessing I'm just gonna have to brave a few bites, or has anybody else had any other successful methods with biting african greys?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

P.S. I know I've listed all his negative points here. He really is a lovely bird and enjoys wolf-whistling. I'd just like to help him get past his phobias and integrate a little better

 

Thank you!

 

 

First off this is concerning that plucking problem--there's no guarantee that he's gonn completely stop that habit if nothing is done about it. You should get a gel/salve and coat that area frequently. The best item to use is aloe vera gel. It can be purchased in pharmacies and places that sell huge amounts of medical supplies like Walmart, K Mart, Target etc. It's inexpensive and will last a long time. That area is raw even if feathers are growing back in.'

 

Second, you need to find out if the bird was a cage bird meaning that was he brought up in a cage with no playtime outside. A cage bird can get used to being in a cage and become quite happy. A cage bird is gonna take quite a while to come out to investigate things and when it does, he'll quickly go back in for no apparent reason.

A bird who tries out the new world should be left alone and be allowed to start investigating what he wants in his own time. Just because he comes out doesn't mean that he's ready to start the normal process of stepping up and other usual things that new birds do. You're new to him and visa versa. Clicker training means nothing to a bird that doesn't trust the person using the clicker.

Cockatiel doesn't have all the necessary seed elements that larger birds need. Regular sized parrot mix made for larger birds such as greys, amazons should be used. Don't expect him to gobble up the new type of seed quickly. It takes time for changeovers.

 

Becoming hand tame can only happen when he feels totally comfortable with you. Give him trats and expect nothing in return. Use nuts, try some oatmeal, try ome small pieces of bread, try diferent types of pasta. Et etc. These things don't hurt a bird internally.

Pretty soon, you'll be thinking about getting red palm oil which will supply the concentrated types of vitamons tht greys need. There's different ways of giving that oil and others here will tell you how improved their birds have become.

 

Geys are inqustive and eventually wanna be in the mix of things. Let the bird show you he's interested, no the other way around.

Some people move the bird's cage around and don't have as much luck as you did.

 

Your grey has set habits and feelings about adult people and need time to accept new people. Having the bird since Nov isn't a very long tome when it concerns adult birds..

 

ONE THING----NO GLOVES. Any thing positive done with the bird will go out the window. Don't even go near him with gloves. Some birds are afraid of large cardboard boxes. You'll need to find this out for yourself.

 

To sum it up, training isn't as important than total trust in you--he's an adult and so are you.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Dave007

[danmcq]

Thanks Dave, great post!

[Timbersmom]

Yes indeed. Lots of good info there.

[Haggy]

Hi sorry i haven't been on for a few days. Great post - thanks, Dave!

Harry seems to be progressing well - I've been sitting by him, just chatting and occasionally handing him a cheerio, peanut, small chunk of wholemeal bread etc and he seems nice and comfortable in his new position. His front is nearly completely covered in feathers!!

He's starting to make a few more 'human' noises so i'm hoping this is all progress and signs that he's a little happier.

Unfortunately I can't find out any more about his past so we're left guessing, but I'm certain he'd been locked away for some time!

I've been very laxed with the training and think I'll knock it on the head until we have a bird that more confident in his surroundings

Thanks again for the advice - I'll look into the palm oil. Hadn't heard about that until now

[katana600]

Congratulations on getting Harry to a better place. You have a great outlook and are getting good results from your patience. Your time with Harry is going to be very rewarding. Well, actually, it sounds as if it is already rewarding you with smiles at his progress.