African grey staying home.

[Darius Basson]

Hi

I am leaving my African grey at home for 2 Days , but I have people that is going to look after him during the day, but they are not going to handle him(just talk to him and change his water,food).
We handle him almost 80% of the day so will he be okay if he is not going to be handled for two days?
PS:His cage is in front of a window where he can see lots of garden birds and has a lot of toys inside of his cage.

Kind regards
Darius

[Michael]

Probably not. If you got him used to being unattended in the past it would be no big deal. However, if you handle him 80% of the time each day, every day, he'll probably have a break down. I've heard of parrots plucking themselves bald over a weekend because their owners used to handle them too much and then suddenly disappeared. You gotta prepare your bird for different circumstances ahead of time so when they happen it's not a big deal.

[ishael]

Based on what Michael has said and depending on when you are leaving, I would gradually spend less and less time each day with your bird leading up to your vacation. It may help a bit, but any real parrot enthusiasts can correct me if I'm wrong.

[marie83]

Michael is right, you cant go from so much attention to nothing. You might get lucky and come back to find nothing has changed but if your really unlucky you will come back to something like Michael has described.

Now I know its impractical to "practice" going away for time, financial reasons etc but there were and still are things you can do to make your bird adaptable to such things.

I was really really ill for 2 weeks ages ago, my parents fed, watered and cleaned my birds and although I was about I could not handle my birds but did spend time sat outside the cages talking to them. Ollie plucked his entire chest area down to the downy feathers almost overnight. It was then I realised I was teaching my birds to be too reliant on my for attention. That was the first and last time any of my birds have ever done anything like that. I spent a couple of weeks making things up to him to try to distract him from pulling more feathers out, after all he didn't know I was sick. Then I started making subtle changes to their routines, nowadays literally nothing is done by the clock, I can go away and know I wont come back to a traumatised bird, I can be late home from work or not get them out for a day. It doesn't matter if breakfast is late because they wont start screaming the place down.


That said greys are sensitive, you will probably need to start adjusting his routine at a much slower pace than I did. How long until you go on holiday? if its in the immediate future I would seriously consider cancelling or moving the date back to ensure you can begin making your grey comfortable with the idea. I strongly feel that when you take on an animal you make a commitment to put their entire welfare first.

[Darius Basson]

The parrot was fine over the weekend nothing changed everything is back to normal so he proved all of you wrong!LOL

Kind regards
Darius

[marie83]

Not really, all we were saying is it was a big gamble. I'm glad you were lucky but I would take the points that everyone made so your not in this situation again.

[Nir]

You guys are seriously being way to paranoid. He said the bird would receive attention and would be taken care of. And it's only for 2 days. Going from lots of attention to little is not good but let's not get too carried away. It's just for 2 days. He will be fine. I heard of a guy dying from a ping pong balL before but that shouldn't make everyone be scared of playing ping pong.

But next time you should try not to spend too much time with your parrot for other beneficial reasons so they are not too overly dependent of you.

[friend2parrots]

i am delighted to hear the african grey has made it through the weekend with flying colors. however, i actually don't think the posters above were being paranoid - the reaction of a particular parrot to what it perceives as a stressor can often be unpredictable, so the best precaution a parrot owner can take to prevent stress responses like plucking, biting, screaming,etc is to desensitize the parrot against situations that might provoke that response. so getting the african grey used to being left alone for increasingly longer durations of time is a kind of desensitization to being left alone. that way, it will be less likely to enter a stress response. nothing can really predict how a parrot will react to a stressor, i think. each bird is an individual unto itself, and one can't assume based on the species either. so many factors come into play.

[Michael]

i am delighted to hear the african grey has made it through the weekend with flying colors. however, i actually don't think the posters above were being paranoid - the reaction of a particular parrot to what it perceives as a stressor can often be unpredictable, so the best precaution a parrot owner can take to prevent stress responses like plucking, biting, screaming,etc is to desensitize the parrot against situations that might provoke that response. so getting the african grey used to being left alone for increasingly longer durations of time is a kind of desensitization to being left alone. that way, it will be less likely to enter a stress response. nothing can really predict how a parrot will react to a stressor, i think. each bird is an individual unto itself, and one can't assume based on the species either. so many factors come into play.

Very well said.

You guys are seriously being way to paranoid. He said the bird would receive attention and would be taken care of. And it's only for 2 days. Going from lots of attention to little is not good but let's not get too carried away. It's just for 2 days. He will be fine.

Under normal circumstances for a well adjusted parrot this is true. However, when people spoil their birds rotten with attention and then stop giving it, really bad things happen. Although not guaranteed to happen, it is something to prepare for and avoid. I wouldn't hesitate to leave my birds for this long or longer, however, they are very well prepared for this. I cannot necessarily recommend this to people in other situations without proper preparations.

[Nir]

Under normal circumstances for a well adjusted parrot this is true. However, when people spoil their birds rotten with attention and then stop giving it, really bad things happen. Although not guaranteed to happen, it is something to prepare for and avoid. I wouldn't hesitate to leave my birds for this long or longer, however, they are very well prepared for this. I cannot necessarily recommend this to people in other situations without proper preparations.

fair enough.