African Grey Parrot

The African Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus), also known as the Grey Parrot, is a medium-sized parrot found in the primary and secondary rainforest of West and Central Africa. Experts regard it as one of the most intelligent birds. They feed primarily on palm nuts, seeds, fruits, leafy matter, but have been observed eating snails. Their overall gentle nature and their inclination and ability to mimic speech have made them popular pets.

If you want to buy an African Grey parrot, make sure you have plenty of time to spend one on one with your bird. These guys need at least 4 hours of interaction a day along with plenty of things to do in their cages like foraging for food and chewing on toys. Due to the African Grey's high intelligence and sociability, a life in captivity can be very difficult for this species of bird to handle if they don't get enough attention and things to do. African Greys can easily acquire mental illness if they are under-stimulated. These illnesses usually manifest themselves in the form of feather plucking, self mutilation, aggression, or extreme phobias of anything new.

Grey parrots are among the best talkers in the parrot world. These birds usually don't start talking until they are 1 to 2 years old but some may take even longer to learn. It is important to note that some individual birds never learn to talk at all. If you want a talker guaranteed, buy a bird that is already talking. The African Grey owner should expect to hear any sound that is often heard by the parrot. Also these birds can get loud.

Training

The African Grey is probably the most intelligent of all the parrot species and because of its uncanny ability of imitating a large variety of sounds around it as well as the fact that some of them have been shown to associate words with numbers and shapes, scientists consider the African Grey to have an intellect equal to that of a three year old human child. This means that the African Grey is a very interactive, intelligent and adaptable creature.

If you get a young bird then you'll be working with a blank slate and one of the best ways of teaching it certain words is through demonstrating with another human being.

You need to be aware that an African Grey will analyze any sound it hears from you and his environment and try to imitate it whether it's the sound or songs of other birds, or your microwave oven ding and doorbell, everything is fair game when it comes to what they imitate, so if you use certain words all of the time they will pick them up and start using them as well.

Example

Let's assume that you want to teach your African Grey to say the word "apple" when you plan on giving it an apple. The first thing you do is bring a friend in the room and sit them close to the parrot. Then you show your friend the apple and say "Apple"; you need to have your friend botch the first few attempts by saying things like "app" and then after saying "apple" correctly you reward them with the actual apple.

Diet

African Grey parrots need a varied diet that includes as many fresh foods as possible. While the commercial pelleted diets do contain many all the necessary nutritional requirements African Greys, but they do not contain the phytonutrients that can be obtained from fresh fruit, vegetables and grains.

Feed your African Grey a variety of chopped leafy green vegetables like broccoli and spinach, which will help supply them with calcium. They will also enjoy carrots, squash, corn on the cob and chili peppers. Include fruit such as apples, grapes, bananas and oranges. In addition, an African Grey will need additional protein. Add small portions of cooked meat, a cooked rice and bean mixture, and boiled eggs to their daily diet.

Foods toxic to parrots

Chocolate, avocado, caffeine, alcohol.
Chocolate and coffee contain theobromine, an alkaloid that is toxic to birds.
Foods with a high salt content are harmful to birds because they can not excrete salt.

Health

The results of not giving your African Grey Parrot a suitable diet or food can be particularly unpleasant and upsetting. Some of the following issues regarding African Grey Parrots health are linked to not getting the correct food: Poor Health, Hyperactivity, Persistent Screeching, Bad Temper, Non replacement of feathers after the moult, Biting, Continuous Moult Feather Plucking, General Bad Behaviour, Lethargy, Self Mutilation.