Hello everyone, nice to meet you all!

Badgerman231

Registered
Hi,

After a 10 year wait and debate amongst my wife and I, we are finally in the position to bring an African Grey Parrot into our home. We have experience with Budgies & multiple finch species.

I feel I have done so much reading of books, online information, watching of online videos and trawling through multiple forums of the pros and cons of a African Grey. To our excitement we have found a breeder and we are going to visit in the next week or so to meet the African Grey chick we will bring home when it is fully weaned and ready to leave.

I wanted to ask if there are any questions or things to check for when visiting the breeder?

I am really excited to finally be able to join the parrot community!
Thanks in advance!
 
Hi and welcome from us :welcome: . They'll probably automatically give you the info, but check what food your new baby is being given and get the same one initially. Even if you're planning to move him or her onto a different diet eventually. Also, check whether they have shown interest in particular toys (wood or cardboard or coconut for example) all just so they can have something they're used to in their new home!
 
:welcome:It might be worth to make sure breeder doesn’t clip baby wings, happened to someone I know, breeder clipped her baby parrots wings as they claimed it’s more safe for parrot and it’s going to be easier for my friend to tame him

This also happened to me, i bought my grey at 5 months old and was told that he had two feathers on one wing clipped. I was unaware at the time and he was a massive impulse buy, i didn’t think to check or ask more questions. I was uneducated around birds and luckily for me was dedicated to giving him and my parrotlet the best life, id fallen in love with his little grey face and couldn’t walk away!
I bought my baby, got him home and joined this wonderful forum only to find when he lifted his wing they had clipped one full wing!

Bo is now 2, he was between 12-18 months when he wing feathers grew back in. He is so much happier now he can fly and i will never clip him ever again, unless for medical reasons advised by a real avian vet but not ever to make life easier for me or make him more dependent on me.
Birds should be able to fly, he loves lapping our room stretching his wings and i have found since his feathers have come back in i have a braver bird, he is no longer scared of everything as he knows if needed he can get away.

If i was to ever buy another parrot this is one of the main things id be asking 🙂
 
Thankyou for your warm welcome. Some great advice and I will definitely be checking when I see our grey for the first time.

This may be a silly question but do any of you use anything on your windows that open to stop your parrot sneaking out- that is the main thing I am worried about! I’m thinking about putting up some slatted blinds with something like the Velcro insect mesh you can buy over the actual opening?
 
Friend of mine got roller blinds and then on the top of it insect screens, the only worry about type of insect screens she has is that they would accidentally go up, hence she always puts blinds down about three quarters of the window length, but she only opens windows in tilted way, my windows sadly don’t have tilted way of opening they can only open fully so always before I let girls out of cages I check are windows closed, I do lock doors too because some of our friends got bad habit of just walking in through kitchen door which wasn’t problem before we had parrots but now it’s not an option
 
My windows have a three tier locking system, so the boyfriend calls it.....

I can open my window the width of my finger and it still locks, then about 2 inch and it still locks and the third one is wider which is pointless!
If it’s really warm i use the finger width lock and let the birds out because the windows cannot be opened further from the inside or out without unlocking them.
I also have blinds so if the windows are slightly open i make sure the blinds are at such an angle it would be super difficult for the birds to get through them.

If it’s not too hot i shut them completely, the doors are always locked if the birds are out. Not worth the risk of somebody opening the doors and off the lit
 
windows and new birds can be a danger as your bird may try to fly though them, I introduce windows new flock members to windows by setting them close and tapping the glass i may leave them on the sill and let them explore, mirrors are also an attraction that new bird may fly into so you should introduce them to any mirrors in the room. if a bird dose fly into a mirror or window, I do not go straight to them (if you do they will blame you for there accident) i will observe them as they are normally shocked and wait for the bird to recover. then approach them and see that they are ok.
 
If flying into windows happens often stickers can help, at least it helped us with our previous parrot Rio, his previous owners didn’t let him much out of the cage so his flight skills weren’t great but stickers solved the problem of flying into living room window
 
Welcome to the forum!!! I'm happy you get to experience the love of a bird! Don't know what I'd ask a breeder, I'd just see how healthy and taken care of they are, good luck!
 
Hi and welcome
Remember to ask breeder if the parents are disease tested.
Window wise NO open windows or doors when baby is loose in the house. If it gets out at this time of year being only a baby it will not survive as it will not know what to eat or how to defend itself.
Nothing in is going to prepare you for having a baby grey in your home. It's going to find all the stuff you don't want it too. Cables to chew, plants it shouldn't have access to you're well paper will be redesigned as will your priorities as to how long you go out for etc. Grey's have the intelligence of a two/three year old human child that never grows up for the next 50 years!
 
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