Got new African Grey Approx 1 year old

[Pajarita]

You can try a gray forum but you will find that the larger birdsites end up been more confusing than helpful because of the large number of answers, most of them contradictory.

If the bird has yellow eyes, he is not 8 months old, he is a full adult bird and, as such, impossible to calculate his age. The fact that he is an adult, added to the things you have told us (his fear, the growling, etc) leads me to believe that the bird was poached from the wild (which is what you commonly find in Africa and Asia) and not captive-bred and hand-fed. Just as information, baby birds bred in captivity are hand-fed to make them imprint to humans which makes them believe that humans are part of their family while wild-caught birds don't trust humans at all.

I suggest that you stop offering food in your hand for now and just keep him company for hours and hours and hours every day following the 'approach only as near as the bird will allow without reacting in any way'. This will help him begin to start accepting your presence without your asking for anything which will, in time, create trust (you should talk, sing, whistle and, if he doesn't get scared or moves away from your hand, offer him a treat every now and then). Once you see that the bird no longer reacts negatively to your presence near him, you can start letting him out of his cage for flying and, once he doesn't fly away from you and eagerly approaches you for a treat (it should always be the high value item!), you can start target training. But this won't happen any time soon because, if I am right and he is an adult wild-caught, it's going to take a loooooong time for him to trust you...

[Wolf]

Michael has written a book on training your parrot, which you are able to access right here through the forum or you can purchase. The thing about it is that it actually begins after you have gotten through the initial taming process and have established a degree of trust with your bird. That is the point that you are currently at and is what we are focusing on trying to help you with. Once this process has been accomplished and you have established a degree of trust, you will be able to begin with other forms of training and Michaels book would be a good place to begin.

We will be happy to answer any and all questions that you may have and will answer them as many times as you may require.

[mustafarangoon]

My African Grey is ( psittacus erithacus ) which I think is a congo male. There is slight yellow outer line in eyes. He has become quite calm and is not afraid until and unless I try to approach him. When ever I take his cage and shift here and there he sits calmly doesn't react too much like before. I have installed TV connection at my home today will it help parrot in any way? If we then what type of channels should I use?

[Pajarita]

Well, for one thing, I would not be moving his cage from one place to another -they don't like change at all, it stresses them out. And, for another, if you are able to move the cage with the bird in it, the cage is way too small.

I don't use TV with my parrots but I do have a radio on a 'light music' station until one hour before I turn off the overhead artificial lights (I want them to start 'winding down' a few hour prior to going to sleep).

[Wolf]

Part of the problem that you are having could easily be caused by too small of a cage. I am not sure which system you are accustomed to , metric or American, so I will put it this way a Congo African Grey averages 33cm or 12.8 in in length and the minimum recommended size of cage for this bird would be 5 times the length of the bird. This would be 165cm square and about the same height, or in the American system this would be 64in square and about 5ft tall.

Most birds are uncomfortable in cages that are too small for them as they feel crowded and insecure.

[mustafarangoon]

So should it mean that I should stop watchching TV with him? Today mornind I was hand feeding him pamogranades...he is a farm breed confirmed by store people. There is small small 4 to 5 feathers which I saw around cage what it is? Is it normal ?

[Wolf]

I think that watching TV with your bird is more of a personal choice, some people do and some do not. My birds very often watch TV with me and when I am leaving, I make sure that they have music to listen to. While my birds do watch TV with me, enjoying some programs more than others ( it seems to me) they appear to like listening to music much more than TV.

[mustafarangoon]

I have many questions regarding my Grey.

1) How much food we should give him ?

2) What is the maximum age of Child and Minimum age of Adult in Grey?

3) I feel like my Grey is burp'ing ( Kind of air sound from mouth), what is it ?

4) Food we provide should be RAW or it should be proper peeled of?

5) Will LED Bulb is good for Grey? Syska LED Bulb White ?

6) My bird waste alot is it ok? I am giving sunflower seeds and Pomegranate at the same time but he only eats half and throws half. Should i give pomegranate without Peeled?

7)There were 4 to 5 small white feathers on cage which i think he has plugged off, Is it ok?

8) I am out from morning 8.30am to 6.30Pm for work, then i come home and stay with my Parrot and because its just been 4 to 5 days with me he is not taking Toys to play so i am worried.

9) My Grey's Cage is of 51cm Approx and when i asked store people to Provide me big cage he said "you will not need now and in big cage he will roam around all sides, This cage in 1 year of age is Ideal".

10) Please suggest me Pellets or food available online on amazon, Flipkart, Ebay etc etc. Which companies provide good food and from where to buy it if not available online.

[Pajarita]

I have to go shopping with one of my daughters (grandson birthday party coming) but I will get back to you later - maybe Wolf can reply in the meantime.

[Wolf]

I will try to answer your questions as best as I can, however I may not answer them in the order that you asked them.

I would like to begin with the question about the cage size, mostly because I tried to answer it already. I told you what the minimum size of cage is for a Congo African Grey is and that is 165cm square and about the same as far as how tall it should be. The reason for this size of cage is so that your bird can fully open his wings to stretch without hitting the sides of the cage. I think that if you could measure the length of your Grey that you would find that it is already 33cm in length or very close to it and that is the size of a full grown adult bird. So even though he may still be a baby for all purposes he still requires the same amount of space in his cage as an adult bird. The larger cage will help him to not feel so insecure and crowded as it will give him some room to move about a little. Yes, this does mean that he would have more room to avoid you, but it is his trust that you need to earn and you can't earn that by crowding him or chasing him around so that you can touch him. I think that the real reason that the people at the store wanted you to have the small cage is so that they can make more money from you by selling you both a small cage and then a larger cage later on. But then I really don't trust people that want to sell things as they are not always honest with us. The good thing is that at some point you may need to take you bird to see an avian vet and this small cage is able to serve as a travel cage, but that is all that I would use it for.

Speaking of taking your Grey to see an avian vet, I would make an appointment and get him in right away to make sure that he is not sick. I am very concerned about your saying that it sounds like he is burping and that is not normal for him to do. It suggests that their is air in his crop or even further down his digestive tract or some sort of problem in his airway. So I would get him to the doctor as soon as possible.

I am not sure what you are wanting to accomplish with the light, but it should be fine for just having light where he is, it is much the same as most other lights that we use for ourselves, but it has no other type of benefit for the bird.

Again I am not sure of what you are meaning with your question about maximum age of child and minimum age of adult. Greys live with their parent birds for the first two years of their life learning about things such as what to eat and not to eat and how to fly and whatever else that they learn from their parents and then they leave the nest and remain with other juvenile Greys and learn from each other and from the rest of the flock becoming adults at around 5 years of age. I don't know if this answers your question or not so you will have to let me know.

You noticed a few feathers that you thought that he might have plucked out. This is not a good thing as you do not want your Grey to ever pluck its feathers out. If they came out naturally then with just a few you are probably fine. I was actually hoping that Pajarita would have answered this as I do not have any real experience with this young of a Grey, my Grey was about 10 years of age when she came to live with me. If the feathers were not plucked it is possible that your grey is molting, but I am not certain of the age of the first and juvenile molts. If the bird is molting it should be fine. However if your bird is plucking them this is not good at all and the very first thing to do if he is plucking them is to take him to see the avian vet to make sure that there is not a medical reason for this behavior. If your bird is plucking his feathers and there is no medical reason for it then your bird is very unhappy and stressed out and this usually means that you need to find out the cause for the stress or why the bird is not happy and change that to stop this behavior.

All of the remaining questions except for one are about foods. I really can't tell you what is available on amazon or any of the websites that you have mentioned, what I can do is share with you what I feed my birds and when I feed them.

I start of first thing in the morning wit giving them two different raw fruits and raw vegetables which I cut into small pieces, small enough for them to eat without holding them but large enough that they can hold them if they want to, This makes the pieces about the size of a shelled almond. I also give them a couple of leaves of leaf type lettuce or other fresh raw greens. I give them enough to last all day long this amounts to about two tablespoons of the fruits and vegetables. I also give them a homemade food that we call gloop which is made of whole grains, vegetables and small white beans and lentils, you can find several recipies for this in the diet, nutrition and health section of the forum and again I give enough for all day which I think is again about two tablespoons. If they have some left when I feed dinner then that is good, if they don't have any left then give them more. Then I give them a seed mix for dinner and remove it when the bird goes to sleep.
I am certain that this will need to be covered in more depth nd so I will try to do that in my next post to you unless Pajarita does so first.