New Owner, Please help

[samzahid]

HI Guys, I am new to this forum and I need your help.

I have a baby african grey - his name is Einstein and he is 3 months old and I dont fully understand his language. I got him yesterday and he was so stressed out from travelling 3 days to get to me that he bit me when I tried to get him out from the carrier into his cage.

Once he calmed down, I finally got him into his cage and he has settle in fine and he will take food from my hand but will not step up onto my arm as yet. Also when he takes food out my hand he wipes his beak on me which is fine but he also bites my fingers which I am not sure if thats ok?

He makes a kind of tweeting noise when I go near him and I am not sure if he is scared or excited.

I am scared to let him out of his cage as I feel he might not retun to it and I might have a hard time trying to get him back in if he is not coming to me.

He plays with his toys fine in his cage and eats and drinks ok.

I am not sure how to bond with him and I have contacted the breeder who says that he will came round given some time.

Can you please give me some advice if these things are normal and what I can do to try and understand my Einstin.

Thanks,
Sam

[Pajarita]

If you do things right, he will come around but you need to put work into it. I hope you are feeding the right food (and that means two kinds of soft food served fresh twice a day) and that his cage is large and comfortably fitted (right perches, toys, etc) and in the right place (near a window, with a wall or some kind of covering for the back). Aside from that, the only thing you need to do at this point in time is talk, sing, whistle, offer a treat and keep him company for hours (babies all need company for hours and hours). Do let him out of the cage every day. If you do it about two hours before sunset and put his seed dinner in the cage, he will go back into it on his own (but, for this to work, he cannot get seeds at any other time during the day, he needs to get cooked whole grains, veggies, etc). Handfed babies are not scared of people but you are a stranger so you need to prove to him that you can be trusted (never ask him to do anything he does not want to do) and to win him over so take your time with him. For example, he might not want you to touch him or even to step up for you right now but if you give him time, he not only will but he will ask you himself.

[liz]

Einstin is a baby. That baby did not have much but lost everything he knew. You had him shipped? So basically you took this baby from everything it knew, put it in a box to travel alone then you, a strange giant, put him in a strange world where nothing is right. Have mercy.

He does not know you so he is still alone but with a preditor.

1 Put the little thing up at face level on a big enough surface that he can step out without falling out.
2 Open his door to give him some freedom so he can learn that the giant is not going to eat him.
3 Spend a lot of time in his room talking to him or just figgeting around. So he can get a good look at you while you are not asking anything of him.
4 Do not ask anything of him.
5 Keep your hands away from him. They are afraid of hands but not faces.
6 Treat him like the poor little baby that was taken from him home and put in a strange place.
7 Eat with him. Sing to him. Read a book to him.
The two of you have a long happy future ahead of you if you do it right. He is an intelligent being. He will learn if you learn.
8 He will come to you.

[Pajarita]

To be 100% honest, I would worry about his health after travelling for three days... that's way too much for a little baby that needs to eat frequently during the day and feel safe and loved. Baby birds that are stressed out when babies (and this trip was a doozy of a stressor!) remain high strung their entire lives...

[Wolf]

I am sorry in that I should have responded sooner, but to be honest, I was too agitated over the shipping involved with this bird. you have no idea as to how lucky you are to have been able to open the container and find a stressed out bird instead of a corpse, but the breeder should have been aware of the risks involved and shipped the bird same day sir. I am so upset and can barely type this even now and I saw this post within minutes of you submitting it. I have six birds of five different species, one of which is a Grey. I have them because they were all abused and needed a caring home where they would not suffer from abuse. They are all very special to me, but the Grey holds a special place in my heart.
If I am reading this post correctly you are also new to living with parrots, so until I hear from you informing me otherwise I am going to operate on this assumption. The first thing that you are going to need to learn is the birds body language and here is a link to help you with this http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww15eii.htm Most parrots have very similar body language so it doesn't matter that some of the body language is using a different species of parrot.
The very next thing that you need is to learn what to feed your bird, which has been addressed adequately by Pajarita. However, in addition to what Pajarita has said watch him eat and take note of what foods he eats as well as the order in which he eats them as he will pick out his favorite foods to eat first and this will give you insight as to what foods you can use for treats with him. Generally they will like things like sunflower seeds or nuts such as almonds when his jaws are strong enough to eat them, but he may also like such things as apples or melons, mine likes cantelope and watermelon a lot and her favorite is almonds.
Now you are ready for your first interactions with your new baby and that is to spend as much time as you can just sitting around at various distances from his cage and talk to him, use a lot of praise in your speech and let him know that you love him and want to be his friend, he needs the reassurance and needs to feel that he can trust you. As he recovers from the shock and stress of his journey and begins to get accustomed to your presence he will start looking forward to you being there for him and will begin to move to the side of his cage that you are on. If you are close enough to his cage when he starts coming towards you then you will be able to begin to offer him a treat while you are talking with him. You should be studying his body language while you are doing all of this hanging out and talking to him so that you can begin to see what he is trying to tell you. Once he is coming over to you and accepting treats from your fingers through the bars of his cage in a calm and relaxed manner then you can begin offering treats while you sit in front of his open cage talking with him and if you are patient he will begin to step up onto your hand all by himself. You must never force yourself on him by insisting on any action from him. If you ask him to step up and he doesn't then wait a minute or two and ask again and if he does not step up after you ask him the third time move on to something else. For you to have the relationship that is beneficial to both you and him you have to let him set the pace and come to you, let him open himself up to you as he sees fit not as you think it should happen because if you start insisting then you will damage the trust and therefore the bonding.

[Pajarita]

I have a feeling this is a wild-caught bird for some reason...