Hello, I hope you can help me.
I have a 28 year old African Gray parrot. As a family we're not your typical bird lovers and maybe don't provide the care he needs or deserves. Not to say he is being neglected, he's felt as part of the family and we provide the best we can for him.
After delving into more information on caring for African Grays, I feel like he could thrive being handled properly by being let out of his cage, better diet and more company. He does seem happy, he's very vocal, calls our names frequently and seems to be use to his day to day routine (so we thought), however the vocal-ness can be overwhelming with sometimes constant screeching at horrific times of the day, throwing his food out of his cage, fluffing his feathers and his eyes dilating.. some things I didn't even realise could be a trigger for something or another.
We have recently had to move house from a fairly big detached house into a small detached bungalow with close neighbours. We have already had a noise complaint letter from the council from the evil witch next door about our dogs barking (they very rarely bark she's just a mentalist with nothing better to do other than moan about everyone around her - We've only lived here for 2 and half weeks!), but I'm pretty sure she can hear the bird at early hours as its crazy loud in the house and can be heard quite loudly when the windows are open. Inside the house we're having sleepless nights and it's definitely becoming an issue that we don't think as a family we can find a way through as he's so stuck in his ways and don't have the time to help with this.
Obviously he's feeling a lot of anxiety from the house move alone and he's probably picking up on ours, but his behaviour isn't much different from our previous house.
Not that all of this is for Satan's next door benefit, but after reading more into his needs, could it it more beneficial for him as well as our mental health?!
I have spent the past few days mostly crying because he's part of our family and can't bear the thought of him not being here and how he would cope without us.
We've been thinking about rehoming him, but again wouldn't know where to start.
Would it be better for him to be with other birds? He's never had any other interaction with other birds, or would it better to find a sole owner?
I feel awful even contemplating the idea, but I don't think there's a way forward, and I do strongly believe he could live a happier life with someone who can provide what he needs.. I don't know if he can handle being away from us after 28 years and if his grief (if he did) would heal?
I live in Southampton, UK.
What do I do?!![Loudly crying face :sob: 😭](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62d.png)
![Loudly crying face :sob: 😭](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62d.png)
![Loudly crying face :sob: 😭](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62d.png)
I have a 28 year old African Gray parrot. As a family we're not your typical bird lovers and maybe don't provide the care he needs or deserves. Not to say he is being neglected, he's felt as part of the family and we provide the best we can for him.
After delving into more information on caring for African Grays, I feel like he could thrive being handled properly by being let out of his cage, better diet and more company. He does seem happy, he's very vocal, calls our names frequently and seems to be use to his day to day routine (so we thought), however the vocal-ness can be overwhelming with sometimes constant screeching at horrific times of the day, throwing his food out of his cage, fluffing his feathers and his eyes dilating.. some things I didn't even realise could be a trigger for something or another.
We have recently had to move house from a fairly big detached house into a small detached bungalow with close neighbours. We have already had a noise complaint letter from the council from the evil witch next door about our dogs barking (they very rarely bark she's just a mentalist with nothing better to do other than moan about everyone around her - We've only lived here for 2 and half weeks!), but I'm pretty sure she can hear the bird at early hours as its crazy loud in the house and can be heard quite loudly when the windows are open. Inside the house we're having sleepless nights and it's definitely becoming an issue that we don't think as a family we can find a way through as he's so stuck in his ways and don't have the time to help with this.
Obviously he's feeling a lot of anxiety from the house move alone and he's probably picking up on ours, but his behaviour isn't much different from our previous house.
Not that all of this is for Satan's next door benefit, but after reading more into his needs, could it it more beneficial for him as well as our mental health?!
I have spent the past few days mostly crying because he's part of our family and can't bear the thought of him not being here and how he would cope without us.
We've been thinking about rehoming him, but again wouldn't know where to start.
Would it be better for him to be with other birds? He's never had any other interaction with other birds, or would it better to find a sole owner?
I feel awful even contemplating the idea, but I don't think there's a way forward, and I do strongly believe he could live a happier life with someone who can provide what he needs.. I don't know if he can handle being away from us after 28 years and if his grief (if he did) would heal?
I live in Southampton, UK.
What do I do?!
![Loudly crying face :sob: 😭](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62d.png)
![Loudly crying face :sob: 😭](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62d.png)
![Loudly crying face :sob: 😭](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62d.png)
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