by Pajarita » Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:00 am
Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new family member. Now, please don't take this the wrong way because I am not trying to pop your balloon, I am merely trying to prevent a potential problem. I don't know if you are aware of this but Grays don't do well with busy households... you could say that children and chihuahuas are, most definitely, not their cup of tea. They are very high-strung birds by nature, they hate changes and they hate conmotion and the fact that she has changed homes three times before she even became an adult is something that will affect her for the rest of her life [we have studies that say that birds that grow up with stress remain high-strung for the rest of their lives] so, please, please, please, make a HUGE effort to keep noise and movement to a minimum around her. Another thing you need to know about them is that they are not good family pets. No parrot really is although there are some species that do better than others - grays don't. They choose one single person and that person becomes 'their' human with whom they need to spend, at least, 4 or 5 hours of one-on-one every day. They are highly intelligent birds but they are also a very difficult species to keep happy and that's why they are so prone to plucking and even self-mutilation so I suggest you take this time, the very foundation of your relationship to her, to put together a routine and a plan to make her environment one conducive to her happiness.
As to her diet... yes, grays are picky eaters. In my personal experience [I've had six under my care], they are the most difficult species to 'convince' to eat a good, healthy diet [and that does not mean free-feeding pellets which are nothing but way too dry -parrots evolve to eat a diet that is 85 to 95% water- and 'dead' -it has no phytonutrients whatsoever]. It can be done but it needs planning [because it needs to be done at exactly the right time of the day and exactly as your bird likes it -and this is an individual preference so anything anybody can tell you about what their gray likes might not work for yours] but, generally speaking, persistence and patience do, after a long time, win the day. In my personal experience, they tend to like juicy things [so I am not surprised at all that she doesn't like dry things -which, by the way, are not really good for parrots]. Mine eats a large variety of produce and adores her breakfast gloop but she favors super juicy things like oranges, grapes, cantaloupe, pommegranate seeds, blueberries, blackberries, etc. - she also likes apples, pears, bananas, carrots, peppers, etc. and she adores fresh corn on the cob lightly steamed so it's still juicy and crunchy.
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