Need suggestion

[aurora]

Hello, I am new here but have been searching for an answer to a problem with my African Grey Poet. He has blocks of time where he repeats a word over and over, the same word and it drives us crazy. It is very annoying and I have no idea how to switch his behavior over. He is a great talker but will say this one word for 10 minutes rapidly over and over. Ugh any suggestions? Thankx

[galeriagila]

Well, I'm sure more knowledgeable and experienced folks here will have a more comprehensive answer, but... so many people long for their parrots to say one word, any word... maybe you could just embrace the fact that he says... WORDS! Also, I wonder if you're giving him attention when he does those repetitions. Even scolding is ATTENTION to a parrot. Maybe try ignoring him when he does that, and then pay attention when he switches up! My Patagonian does that, but I've given up trying to change him. Good luck, and again, I'm no expert... others here ARE! So stick around!
Gila

[aurora]

Thanks !! Yes, I should be thankful and he is wonderful, he cues and everything but lordy he can be a pain in the butt !! I tried ignoring, I never yell or get angry, I have however turned the lights out on him without saying a word to him and that works but I hate to keep doing that. I rather keep the light more consistent ya know. I feel that might be confusing him or throwing him off.

[Wolf]

Well the first think that comes to mind is that if turning the light off will cause him to not talk then he is either in a room without windows or he is up past his natural bedtime as birds go to sleep when it is dark So neither of these are good for him.

I am glad to learn that your Grey has at least one word that he likes the sound of and you should be very happy that he chose a word to repeat instead of say the sound of a smoke alarm as many parrots have picked up on. I would try to teach him another word or two, but be prepared for him to repeat them in the same manner.

In truth you will not find any experts on parrots here unless you look to the parrots themselves as there are no other experts.

[liz]

When Myrtle is bored she will get into something that she knows better than to do. She does it so I will yell at her. If I am not paying attention she will make a noise so I will find her and yell at her. I guess any attention is better than no attention.

[Pajarita]

When, exactly, does he do this? Is he, by any chance, in his cage when he does it? At any particular time of the day? Does anything happen before or after this? By this I ask if the only thing you have done to stop it is turn off the lights or have you done something different in the past. How long is he out of cage on a daily basis? How long is his one-on-one? Do you keep to strict routines with him?

[seagoatdeb]

When i have a parrot that makes vocal noises that are too loud or irritating in some way, I find there are two things that can help. One is ignoring the noise, and if that doesnt work then distraction usually will.

I will, do a vocalization myself, and that sometimes does it, or start doing some activity that always gets the parrots interest in me rather than the vocalizing.

[Pajarita]

I wish the OP would come back and answer my questions because, in my personal opinion, the lengthy (10 minutes?), quick repetition of a single word sounds like stereotypy to me and, when it comes to grays, that's real bad because they are so prone to FDB...

[seagoatdeb]

I like greys, but years ago there was a grey that was kept in a pet store and was the owners pet. That grey would say mom, in the whiny tone that kids use when they want something they think you will say no to and it bothered a lot of people, but that grey would just keep repeating that word, in that tone. That grey would have been kept on the diet, that was used 40 years ago. i remember the cage wasnt very big, but dont know if the Grey was brought home at night, or had to live in the cage.

[Pajarita]

Oh, geez, poor thing! Hearing that would have broken my heart... Abnormal vocalizations are something that people usually doesn't give enough credit to as a symptom of something going on. Normally, if somebody has a chatty bird and, all of a sudden, he stops talking, people notice - they might not realize it's a symptom of the bird not feeling well but, at least, they do notice. Of course, making the wrong assumption as to the cause can be as bad as not noticing and that's why I asked the questions of the OP.

My second daughter's mother in law recently lost two canaries in two days. She had noticed that they had stopped singing but attributed it to molt which could not have been the cause of it because the days are neither long enough nor hot enough for it (and, if she had asked me as I always tell her to do, I would have told her it wasn't that -I am very upset over this!). They were dead a week later and, most likely, from a simple respiratory infection that could have been easily taken care of with some antibiotics in their water (which I would have given her). But, when we talk about parrots, we not only need to be alert when they stop vocalizing but also when vocalizations are too frequent, too loud or that have a 'bad' tone to them (and I am sure you will all agree that anybody who has had a bird for a while can tell when the 'tone' is different). Parrots learn to speak in a human language because they want to communicate with us. It's as simple as that. There are species of parrots that have been found to make 500 different sounds and combinations of them so we know they actually communicate (talk?) among themselves. So, when we bring a handfed bird into our homes, they know that human language is the way to communicate with us -some are more adept at it than others but even the ones that don't talk understand us when we do. But, when a parrot repeats the same word over and over and over for a long period of time (and 10 minutes is a hugely inordinate long time for a parrot to repeat the same word) without any discernible purpose to his talking, it becomes a stereotypy. For the people that are not 'up' on what this word means, a stereotypy is a repetitive, useless behavior that animals in captivity do when they have been under anxiety for so long that their minds are beginning to 'go'. Elephants moving from one foot to another and rocking their bodies with the movement, tigers pacing from one end to the other of their cage, dolphins swimming in circles, pigs rubbing their heads against the bars of their enclosure, cats that lick themselves bald are all examples of animals that are presenting stereotypy behavior.

Now, parrots can repeat something until they drive us crazy but they usually do it because they are either not getting the response they want or, sometimes, because they just like the sound of it (like a car alarm ) or our reaction to it but it's never just one single word over and over, machine gun style and for 10 minutes at a time. Sweetpea will drive me bats with his "Whachu doing?" But he doesn't only expect an answer, he also expects the right answer so, if I am cleaning the canary cages, he doesn't accept any other answer but "I'm cleaning the beebee birds" and, if I answer differently (usually a "Oh, geez, don't start, Sweetpea!" ), he would start by repeating the question a bit louder and adding a "Uh?" to it or he would fly closer and put his face in front of mine (two inches away, as a matter of fact) and repeat the question while looking intently at me, etc. He is, in fact, interacting with me and not just repeating something for no good reason - and, if I change the subject, he will gladly go in that direction.

The OP has a gray and they need A LOT of stimulation and time. They are not cuddly birds, very destructive or prone to screaming cockatoo-style so, because they are not Velcro or big complainers people would sometimes kind of take them for granted and not pay enough attention to them not realizing they need hours and hours of their own kind of one-on-one as well as out-of-cage time. That's why whenever I hear of a gray doing something like the OP mentioned, I always want to find out details because this behavior could very well be the precursor to plucking and even self-mutilating in them.