Hand-raised african grey

[sgtpepper]

Hello,
Today things did not go as quite as good as expected. When we woke up the male was outside, chewing up on some basket. He got out through one of the food tray openings. We did not no what to do as he does not trust us to step up yet, so we opened the cage front door in hope he will get in. Instead, the female got out and took them about 3 hours to chew half of the basket off. While they were out I wanted to replace their food, and the male immediately attacked me through the cage bars. Do you know how to stop this aggressive territorial behaviour ? He did not try to bite before, just this one case.
Anyway, they finally got into the cage and we closed all the entrances, securing them with some wire to avoid any accidents until we earn their trust.
This evening we tried giving them some boiled veggies and oatmeal, but we weren't too lucky, as they are used to a seed diet and do not know to eat other things. We tried eating with them, but the female did not eat at all, and the male was dropping everything on the cage floor.
Also, there was no evening "sing off" , only some dinosaur sounds from the male's part.

We will see how things go tomorrow.

Meanwhile , we are a little worried about the light schedule, as the days keep getting shorter and shorter here. Any advice on some artificial lighting would be truly appreciated:)

Thanks for the help!

[Wolf]

Hi;

Yeah they are very smart and at least you now know something that they like to chew on. You may be able to find some good clean baskets that have no coatings on the really cheap at yard sales that they could have for toys to destroy. So all was not lost by this mishap.
The male was protecting his home and since he doesn't know you well enough to trust you yet, he is only doing what he should do, so for a while at least expect him and her to react in this manner, in fact plan on this behavior so that you can avoid getting bit which is also the best way to train them to not bite. I would say for now you could distract them to one side of the cage while their food and water is changed out, to keep you from getting bit.
The best way that I know to earn their trust and to create the right atmosphere for taming them to you and for bonding with you is to talk to them. That's right talk to them, they are in a strange new place with strange new humans and so to reassure them you need to talk to them and get the accustomed to the sound of your voice and your presence along with the fact that you are a bringer of good things ( food/ treats). The best way to do this is to set aside 15 minutes about 3 or 4 times each day to talk to them while offering the random treat during this time about 3 treats each should be enough. Try to schedule these talk sessions for when they will be a bit hungry, such as before their breakfast about 2 hours after breakfast and about an hour before their dinner. Just talk and include words like good boy and/ or other words of praise for them, and offer them their treat through the bars of the cage. You need to watch them while you are doing this so that you begin to learn their body language. You want them to remain calm or even to calmly approach your side of the cage when you approach them. You want their feathers to be down but not pulled tight to their body but just normal. and you want them to gently accept the treats that you offer to them, before you can try this with the cage door open. And then you want the same calmness from them when you offer them treats with the door open. When they are calmly and gently taking treats from your hand through the open door then you can work on step up, by holding a treat so that they must step on your hand to get the treat.
They are going to need time out of the cage for free time. This is time for them to explore their surroundings, time to fly about for exercise and time to just hang out with you. Hopefully, things will progress fast enough that you will feel comfortable with starting to provide part of this time out in a week to 10 days or sooner. Regardless it is easy to do and work with as you simply open their cage a couple of hours before they have dinner and let them come out while you watch from a few steps away from the cage. Then when it is time to return to the cage simply put their dinner in the cage as usual but making sure that they know that it is there. They should return to the cage shortly after that on their own, if not then give them until dark and check on their whereabouts they should have returned to their cage. If on the odd chance that they have not returned to the cage you can try step up or even leave them out for the night, if it is safe to do so and they will return to the cage before dawn, in nearly all cases. Once they will step up for you then it will not be a problem.
The best time to get them to accept and learn to eat fresh fruit and vegetables is in the mornings for breakfast. You chop up their vegetables and fruit and sit down to eat with them and give them the fruit and veggies. This is the time of day that they are the hungriest and feed them their seed mix for dinner and remove it after they go to sleep.
The lights that you want are Full Spectrum with a CRI of 94+ and a K Temp of 5000 to 5500. You turn them on after sunrise and off before dusk. You can do this until you are down to 8 or 9 hours of daylight. Then provide that amount of light until the days get longer or adjust the lights to mimic their breeding cycle. Pajarita can tell you better than I can all about these lights and how to best use them.

[Pajarita]

Yes, the light specs are correct. What I would do if I lived so far up North is to reproduce, as much as possible, a sunrise and a sunset so, for the sunrise, I would start off by uncovering their cage and turning on a red light in a lamp that allows me to control the intensity of the light (dimmer) and start with the lowest intensity and the lamp on the floor and kind of far away from their cage. In ten minutes, I would lift the lamp a bit (like on a low stool or a coffee table) and increase the intensity to the medium setting. In another ten minutes I would start with a white light (I don't think you can get full spectrum lights that dim so you might have to use a regular light bulb) in a low setting on top of the coffee table, then on top of a regular table and at full intensity and, finally, turn on the full spectrum lights overhead. And, for the sunset, you do the opposite. This is important because with a mated pair, you want to keep their sexual hormones only flowing during breeding season or the male will become aggressive, very defensive of the female and extremely possessive of the cage (which will be regarded as their nest -this is the reason why he tried to bite you when you were cleaning it).

Grays are not easy birds to switch to a good diet, at least, they have not been in my personal experience. It's not impossible but it's just not as easy as with other species like conures or amazons. It just takes more time, that's all. Your best bet is to cook whole grains (wheat, barley, oats, brown rice, etc). You start with cooking them to a very hard texture (so they would resemble seeds in texture) and offering them by themselves, once you see them eating them without a problem (you should always offer them in the morning after taking away their seeds the night before after they eat dinner -they should get about 1/4 cup of seeds each but get a cockatiel mix, not a parrot mix), you start adding some vegetables to it. Start with fresh corn, they all like it and go for it without a problem. Once they are eating it, add peas. Then diced carrots, then chopped broccoli, like that, slowly and gradually. You can also try giving them barely boiled corn on the cob (I don't know of a single species of bird that doesn't love corn on the cob), a nice piece of apple and a celery stalk stuck between the bars of the cage (they also all love apple and celery -celery is not what you would call nutritious but they love the salty taste of it and it's a good way of getting them used to eating greens. My grays like crunchy (like the romaine hearts, bok choy stalks, etc) and juicy (they love to suck the juice out of fruits like watermelon and oranges) but they all have their individual tastes and before you can figure out what they like best, you need to teach them to eat a variety. I eat in front of them and always repeat the same phrase (like "apple, apple is good, it's good") because it creates a conditioned response in them and, after a while, anything you offer using the 'it's good' phrase will be accepted as something good to eat.