Info on life with Greys

[roxynoodle]

I'll soon be adopting a Grey and have been doing a lot of reading to refresh myself on them, but am not necessarily finding anything that is much different to other parrots. Also some of the websites I've been on are perhaps a bit optimistic. I've always understood their intelligence to be considered in the 5 year old human range and their lifespan to be 40-50 years. I was just on one website that said intelligence of a 9 year old and an 80 year lifespan. If that is the lifespan then I must expect she will outlive me.

I've always been a very intuitive animal owner/trainer and am not really expecting anything I can't manage fairly easily with common sense, but if anyone knows of something I should read, I will.

I'm guessing she may be a lot like my Blue Crown conure and require toys that involve some mechanical ability and problem solving. My BC used her chewing type toys for when she needed to chew, but they otherwise didn't interest her much. And if toys were too simple to figure out, she got bored with them immediately. What she did love were huge knotted cotton rope toys that took her a long time to untie. She also loved a plastic treasure chest with different shaped holes filled with wooden blocks of varying shapes and she had to figure out how to remove them all. Am I thinking along the right lines for things that would entertain a Grey? My Nanday is honestly pleased with ALL toys, lol! I'm still learning my zon and he is still learning as well what toys he likes as he didn't have any with his previous owner. I think he would really like an actual large swing maybe attached to the Parrot Tower.

I always called my BC the little engineer and she did keep me on my toes with figuring out what would entertain her. She wasn't particularly acrobatic, but rather needed toys that were very mentally stimulating to a bird who needed to problem solve. Being a mathematician, I totally understood!

Also wondering if adding a humidifier to the bird room would be a good idea with the Grey? It would probably benefit all of us anyway. This is an old house that tends toward being very dry, especially in the winter.

Anything else you feel I should be aware of concerning Greys in particular, I would appreciate

 

[MissyMe83]

Hope you get some replies. I'd be interested to hear : )

 

[roxynoodle]

Spiritbird sent me some good links and suggested reading Would you like me to forward it to you?

 

[suncon97]

Well I figured I may as well say what I know haha.Ive had Pearl about 5 or 6 months and I've enjoyed every second of it. I just absolutely love her intelligence and how she tries to talk so bad.She almost got out pretty Pearl one day. She is an absolute clown and Im sure you will love life with a grey.She has usual chattering moments every night. I love how she has the ability to make up sounds that I've never even heard before.From growling like the dog to do the attractive whistle when I walk in the room,I never know what's coming next as far as her noises.In my opinion she's more intelligent than my baby cousin that's over a year old. I've had birds in the past that we're also very smart but I couldn't believe how smart she was. Since she was my first large to medium parrot,I wasn't expected to how quickly she can destroy toys,so I've learned to have some stored away. I could keep going on from what I've learned from friendly forum people and everyday life with Pearl. I am obviously not as experienced as other owners but I think you will love life with a grey.Hopefully more experienced owners such as antoinette And spiritbird will tell you more from the experience they've had with years with a grey.Good luck I think you will love life with your new grey!I could keep going but I think I've said enough because I could go on forever way I've learned and am learning.

 

[usamimi]

I know I haven't had Kevin long but like suncon, every second has just been a treat. I LOVE this bird. The biggest thing I didn't expect was how smart he is, I knew they were smart but I just didn't think he could be this smart. I spend a lot of time trying to keep him entertained and thinking and he blows through everything. It's amazing.

He's picking up sounds and mimicking and it's hilarious what he picks up, his newest sound is to mimic my dog's weird noises. When he wants to play I start hearing the little squeaks my dog makes, took me the longest time to figure out it was him!

Honestly I don't think I will ever own a bird other than a grey again, I love this guy and if he stays even half as wonderful, these next 40 years are going to be wonderful.

 

[roxynoodle]

It's hard to define sometimes if one bird is much smarter than another. My Nanday is smart enough to use tools to get to her newspaper at the bottom of the cage so she can rip it up. My amazon was smart enough to drag the large water bowl I put at the bottom of his cage (hoping he would bathe) over to his hanging ladder toy to use as a step stool to get on the toy! My BC just had like a different type of intelligence though. Does that make sense? And from everything I've learned about Greys over the years I expect they might as well.

One thing that was interesting about my BC is that she learned my name right away. I live alone so there weren't other people here much using it. But, her first words were, "Hi, Oodie!" My name is Audrey. She then started calling me Oodrey and finally Audrey. It took awhile for my Nanday to learn my name.

One toy I had gotten the BC was this green peanut shaped thing with a drawer that the bird had to move a lever to open. You put a treat in it and then the bird has to figure out how to open the drawer. I thought that would entertain her. She figured it out in about 2 minutes and then got angry that it was easy and took it apart, lol!

Every day as well she would unscrew all the links holding her toys to the top of the cage. That was fun for her. I would come along and screw them all back together and then she would go and unscrew them all again. I figured she would probably like bolts with nuts to unscrew but didn't want to chance she could swallow a nut. It's hard to find large ones in a bird safe metal like stainless steel.

The new bird, Merlin, is supposedly not very acrobatic. So it doesn't sound like she is going to want to hang and swing through the air like her South American roommates do. She will be coming with her current toys so that will give me a good idea as well what she likes to do. She likes to help with food prep and doing dishes so I will involve her in those activities. My Nanday would jump into the sink of dishes if I tried that with her! And that would be too deep of a level of water, so I've never let her help with dishes or anything along those lines. Merlin also likes to go in the shower so I guess I'll be showering every day with a bird as I take in the amazon every other day or so to keep his dander down.