What to teach your african grey to say

African greys are not meant to be clowns that will make party guests laugh.  They are as smart as dolphins and chimpanzees!  Don’t just teach them gibberish.  They can actually understand what you are teaching them if you take the time to use the word/short sentence in the proper context.  I am teaching my bird these things so that we can actually communicate with one another.

Step up

Go back

Stay here

Go potty

Want out

Name the food you are giving him or her… nut (don’t be too specific they won’t be able to go into types of nuts)

Want water

Pet (allow him to get pets when he wants to…when I say ‘pet pet’ my grey puts his head down for a scratch if he wants one and only when he wants one)

See you soon!  (If I’m leaving so he knows that means that I will be coming back)

Come here!

What are you doing?  or What’s up?

I love you!

Hello!

If you teach him to say his own name it isn’t very useful because he isn’t likely to understand that you are referring to him…

Use the short phrases in the proper context and don’t dilute them with irrelevant words so that he will soon begin to understand that he is not just imitating but actually communicating with you.  If you have not heard of Dr. Irene Pepperberg from MIT she has studied Alex, a grey and proven that this can be done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KvPN_Wt8I

If you must teach him cutesy things to make people laugh…be careful not to teach him ridiculous things…obscene or obnoxious things…they will repeat them over and over…and if you end up rehoming the bird in 20 or 30 years (they live to be 80)  it could make it harder for him or her to get  a decent home.

And think about it:  If you were meant for the wild, and had a brilliant mind but the people keeping you in captivity never bothered to teach you to your full potential and you spent your life uttering gibberish just to get peanuts when all the while you had the capacity to actually communicate with your captors then it is really sad.  And then imagine that your captors only want to make you act foolish to laugh at you.

Would you do this to your best friend?  Just my two cents.

Blood feathers on tail

I recently relocated from a beach city to the desert in December of last year. My parrot has been fine up until a month ago. The temperature here gets up to 115 degrees in the summer months. So your inside most of the time and the air conditioner is running constantly. I purchased two humidifiers one for my bedroom and one for the living room. I was informed this would help with his problem. He has six new tail feathers coming in and there all blood feathers. He has been pulling on them or chewing them and then they bleed. I’ll be at work or out for evening and return to find blood at the bottom of his cage. This is just frightening to me. I’ve purchased a remedy I got from a parrot pet store called  ”Feather-In”, by AviTech.  Soothing botanical for dry skin related to feather picking. It’s powder form you mix it in warm water then spray it on the parrot until it soaks down to his skin. He hates it and fights me.  Do you have any other suggestions I can try?

Age of Bird

I was wondering if there was a way to find out an African Grey’s age by their leg band?

grey parrot alway scream or growl

 before  2 days i just brought a new african grey parrot.he is 2months old.first day he was alright and quiet but on second day he start screaming and growling when i and  my any family member come near to him.there are three children in my house.is he is afraid of the children r what the problem please anyone can tell me that what can i do for him.And what i have to do for him so that he will become friendly with me and he can trust on me???waiting for the comments urgently…..

What low temperatures can an African Grey tolerate

Our Parrot lives in our conservatory (Wales) and in the present cold snap the temperature inside can drop to around -3c and although he has a warm cover over I worry that he may get a bit too cold. What I have tended to do is leave a 400w bar on the electric fire on overnight but am I being too extravagant! Any views on the temps Greys can tolerate would be appreciated. Thanks.

Will my African Grey bond with me after he has weaned?

Hi there.

My husband and I  bought an 8 week old African Grey on Monday and I after ‘doing some homework before buying’ I was told it was ok to buy a baby that was still getting ‘spoonfed’.  The Petshop Owner showed us exactly what to do and gave us some info with regards to what to be careful of and what to look out for etc.  I took him to our local (Bird Specialist) Vet and he got a clean bill of health.

What concerns me terribly is what I have read on the internet so far in terms of NOT buying a baby that still needs to be spoon fed as this baby will then ‘regect’ me once it is properly weaned.  Is this true!?!?!  It will kill me if he does not want to come to me any more and chooses someone else completely to rather bond with!!  Pls tell me if there is anything I can do to prevent this from happening.  As my husband is a little nervous of feeding him I mostly do the feeding.

Any advice will be much appreciated, thank you!

Kind regards,

i would like to know what the signs are when my african grey dont want to be fead anymore

already talking

How to get my 7 year old adopted African Gray to stop biting

We have just recently got an African Gray Parrot, she is 7 years old and this is the 3rd home that she has been in, the last home she was in there was another female there that was the dominate bird so, Harley didnt get a lot of attention she stayed in her cage most of the time, she didnt like for anyone to pet her and the only time she would step up was when she flew to the floor. We have had her for about 2 months now and she has already become a very muched loved member of our home. We do not have any children we have 2 small dogs and they have learned to get along with Harley pretty well, in the 2 months that we have had Harley she will come out of her cage more and will come and sit on our lap or on my husdands shoulder, she even has tried to feed us. The problem that we are having is that she likes to bite at times when we try to get her to step up or try to put her back in her cage, and Im sure if you have been bitten you know these bites can be very painful, she has even brought blood a few times. We have bought some books on African Gray’s and they have suggested things from leaving her in her cage for a while after she does this to telling her no bite or saying you hurt me to covering her with a towel to put her back in her cage,(which by the way I have refused to cover her with a towel becuase I think that is cruel) We have never owned a bird before so we are inexpierenced about their habits and such except from what we have read and to me a lot of what I have read seems to contridict each other. We love Harley very much and want her to be a happy loving member of our family is there any suggestions on what we can do to teach her to stop this biting. Thanks.

Can African Grey’s hold intelligent conversations?

Question by Elisha: Can African Grey’s hold intelligent conversations?
I am looking at buying a African Grey. Any information on these animals would be really appreciated.

Best answer:

Answer by wilderwriter
African Greys are believed to be the smartest of the parrots and can learn a rather large vocabulary, but they don’t really know what they’re “saying” and therefore would not be carrying on conversations.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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