My fellow Snippers, flighters, and Hatchlings. My name is Marlene McCohen, and this is my African Grey Parrot Favor. For those of you who want to know more about what it’s like to have an African Grey Parrots, please stay with me throughout this whole writeup because I’m gonna cover everything from what it’s really like to have in African Grey Parrot, right? If it’s easy, do they bite, do they talk, do they damage things? Can they be potty trained? Are they smart? All of those issues I’m gonna cover here today, along with some of your questions. Now, before we get into this properly, I want to go over a few things. But I wanna go over some exciting things for you guys. So those of you who are new here.
My Blog is about educating you guys on parrots but also showing you how to have fun with birds and live with them in an engaged, non-cage manner, which is my hashtag. It’s really important birds are extremely forgotten about in the world and people rush out to get birds. So I’m here to dispel some myths and some rumors. So grab a cup of tea and stick with me. Real quick, some orders of business. I wanna give some shout outs to some of my flighters. My flighters are those of you who support me making Blog. Appreciate that.
Thank you so much. So shout out to Casey Angela, Janet Lawson and precious James. Thank you for joining us. I’m really excited to have you guys. Next order of business I want to congratulate our winners of the Golden Ticket from our feathery fun box last month, Tammy Deir, Ariel’s , and Renee Reece. You guys have all $100 worth of toys from our website greyafricanparrotforsale.com. I hope you guys are really enjoying that number and loving it.
Videos some new things we’re gonna do I’m gonna feature one of your Instagram videos at the end of every episode of mine so if you want to be featured hashtag pick me greyafricanparrotforsale.com and I’ll show your bird at the end of the video I love when you guys tag me in your bird eating our food watching our show in your merch it’s really exciting for me so don’t forget that and some shout outs to our hashtag greyafricanparrotforsale.com today those of you that comment on my Blog early Diana beats medicine Ramirez, and Estelle.
Okay, let’s get into the Article. Alright guys, clearly it is no secret that there is a popular Influencer that just got an African Grey Parrot. I know he’s a bird lover, so I’m very excited for him, but I am also aware that there’s probably a lot of you that will want to go out and get an African Grey Parrot just because now you think it’s cool, you think it’s easy, or it’s just kind of giving you this awareness. So I hope this Article will help enlighten you a little bit more on that But it’s really like that.
African grey because it’s not as easy as you think but it may not also be as hard as you think. That depends on you. So let’s just get right into the questions and then we’ll talk about it. Read till the end of the Article guys. I really want you guys to be educated on the subject. This is very important to bring awareness to people because there’s so many birds locked in cages all over the world just because people thought they could handle them. They wanted something pretty. They wanted an exotic pet and they just did not have the skills. So yes, it all is going to boil down to you. So let’s talk about it. Okay.
In a new particular order, I’m gonna go over some of the questions that were sent to me from you guys and they’re really good questions. So here we go. First question. Will my African Grey parrot talk? I wanted to address this first because I know that a lot of you are really excited about this factor when it comes to African Grey’s or Burns in general and a lot of people run out and get birds for this reason. Just right off the bat, let me tell you, there is a good chance that your African Grey will not talk. I had three African Grey’s.
My first African grey Parrot George was an amazing speaker. (laughs) – George could apply words to sentences. George could tell you. Colors, animals, what’s going to happen, just full on conversation. It was unbelievable and that intellectual stimulation was exactly what made African Grey Parrots my favorite. But since then, I’ve had a few more African Grey’s, most notably Cody and Merlin. If you guys are interested in how I got Merlin and want to watch the journey of Merlin, don’t forget to check out that Article on my Website, I’ll put the link below.
If you had an African Grey like George or some of the grays that I see you know these guys just don’t really compare and you have to love them anyway you could not get a bird to talk well a lot of them even if they don’t talk they will make really interesting noises micro waves beeping camera shutters water running is some of the amazing fun things a lot of people in my house love hearing them do water running and all those those kind of things.
The Influencer that we’re speaking about is obviously Logan Morgan. Logan Morgan just got a baby African Gray parrot and you know his bird guide so I know he loves birds and he has experience with birds so congratulations to him. I wish him all the best. But there are some things in the Article that I feel we need to address not in a way against him or anything like that just because he’s not a bird enthusiast so really maybe he doesn’t really owe it to anyone to speak on these things or he’s not he’s not that kind of Influencer so he’s not really aware of what he’s showing.
What it’s like to live in the house with Vinny is actually the sweetest bird which I tell you guys all the time. So, you know, there’s like this balance between entertainment and, um, reality. A lot of people, I’m afraid, and want to get a baby African grey Parrots. Sometimes you’ll see that if you get a baby and it’s really young then you’re gonna have to hand feed the baby it’s formula. And personally, I do not advise that. I’m not speaking to those of you who are experience with that. I’m not speaking to those of you who know how to. Do that. I’m speaking to those of you who have never had a bird and even those of you who are very experienced with birds but not with hand feeding like myself and I’ve had some training from Lou actually and I just still wouldn’t take the chance. There’s a lot of things that you can do to damage a bird if you hand feed a baby bird. You can burn their crop, you can cause them infection. Do you think that’s fine?
You can cause aspiration pneumonia, And also if you don’t do it right, you know, you could just have a malnourished bird. So I feel my personal opinion that you have to be really experienced again with the Article, that you guys are reading, you don’t know someone experience maybe feeding birds, don’t ever take any of that and then just attack people. I’m here to tell you what I know and what I would do. and as you’re reading this article. Hopefully gradually see the work that is going into just making an article about a parrot so that’s just my personal opinion on that again if you guys are experienced with any of this don’t just ignore it move on I’m just talking about myself and what I would advise on a different note should you get a rescue or a list of guys I always promote rescues most of my efforts are rescues, there are so many.
That needs home, but I also feel it’s important to stress responsible rescue. I get a lot of emails from people who ran out and rescued a cockatoos and they’re just that was just not a good idea for them. Maybe a different bird wouldn’t work, but like they didn’t know about cockatoos and their issues. So I think we’re gonna have to talk a lot more about responsible rescue because a lot of people are like rescue rescue. Listen, I love bird lovers, so… I’m not here to just have a baby bird, and I have a bunch of rescues. And for me, it’s the same. I love them all the same, even more so my rescues, because I feel like I’m giving them something like a home and that’s really important to me.
So I do encourage you guys to rescue birds, but to rescue responsibly, some of my past experiences with my first bird who was clearly not a rescue is a cocktail. That made me who I am today, And it made me go out and rescue a lot of birds throughout my lifetime so try not to judge people because you never know what they’re going to become and that’s important too because the bird world has a lot of that kind of drama that’s just like you know I’m here to help not to judge and on that note can you bond more with a baby listen I think there is a different kind of bonding but not one is better than the other you guys know I’m obsessed with favor but it’s not because favor is my baby bird.
Okay, next, are African greys an easy bird to have? Okay, this all depends on you guys, you know? One time I got this nasty email from someone going, “You make it look so easy.” And I’m like, “Listen, I’m not gonna lie. Everybody knows that, you know, I show the crazy things. I show the hard and I show some other things that I may make look easy.” And it may be hard for you.
All of the baseboards and there’s a lot. That might be something that an inexperienced bird owner might say, “Oh my God, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I’ll lock this bird in the cage.” And then that is not for you. You have to be aware of how much work you’re willing to put into things. I don’t get to relax much, like even if I sit and watch TV if one wants to come to me, if one wants something, there’s always the getting up and you know there’s just a lot I think you guys don’t think about if you don’t have birds that you might not know. this question can only be answered by you with some experience.
You have this factor that if you cannot deal with it and your solution is putting the bird in the cage and never letting the bird out oh the bird bit me the bird destroyed something then you are just becoming part of the problem of those people that have birds and cages and think it’s okay.
Doesn’t want to come out because you know I tried to work with it. That is the problem that we have here especially in the United States and everywhere so you may become part of the problem because you think when you’re excited about something that you’re going to be willing to deal with a lot of things that in reality you won’t have the patience for. I have an incredible amount of patience for birds because I grew up with them. It’s like ingrained in my lifestyle. If you are 30 years old or 40 years old or even 18 and you’ve got your whole life changes coming up, it may not be for you.
Next big question. Can I potty train an African grey? – Absolutely. You can potty train an African grey and potty train on most of any bird, however, a lot of that is gonna depend on you, your sensitivity, and how tuned you are to your bird. So it’s not gonna be a magical, like, oh my God, the bird just went somewhere to go potty and then flew back to me, oh my God, let me say a lot of my birds are like that, And it’s just kind of being family.
With the birds, but I’m not saying that’s going to be easy for you. So the first thing is going to have to be about how to and then you are to your bird to say okay I think right now the bird needs to go potty and then you putting the bird somewhere where the bird can go potty and there will be accidents and there will be mistakes that you will have to clean up sometimes on the couches and on the floor and that’s just going to be how it is but yes they are potty trainable but it’s not going to be magical and it’s not going to be perfect. A lot of whatever that is going to depend on.
You, right? Like when you get a dog like either they can pee in the house or you could be a good trainer and show them where they need to go. How much work did you have to put into that? You have to put the same into a bird but more often, right? So that’s where it gets a little bit difficult. That is also work on your part, I put this question down for obvious reasons if you guys know what I’m talking about. And funny enough we also have a similar situation in our house so should you get a bird if you have. Dangerous dog in the house, maybe a dog or cat or something that is going to be harmful to animals. Probably not. Again, I would never say to trust that dog 100%
Extreme hypersensitivity to all the things that can go wrong all the time with birds and let’s be honest we’re not born with those instincts you know the younger you are when you have a bird or the longer you’ve had a bird the more different types of birds you have and the more hypersensitive you are then the more problems you’ll be aware of that could arise I think it’s my obsessive compulsive disorder that really I’m not joking when I say that like literally diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder and a lot of people are like.
I’m organized, but no, like I am traumatized, legally disturbed, like things are out of place, I am crippled, stupid rules I make up for myself, sometimes I’m better, sometimes I’m not. Doesn’t matter, I think that kind of hypersensitivity has not be great with birds, but also that can stress people out. Is an African grey, good for a first time, bird owner? God, this is such a difficult thing to answer, because honestly, you know, people talk about Starter birds and Heavens.
Having a smaller bird before having a bigger bird and then people are sensitive about the term starter bird but sometimes there is no other way to explain it. Here’s what I think 100% honestly. First of all, the whole thing about having a smaller bird before a bigger bird doesn’t devalue a smaller bird, it’s just like kind of getting you used to all the crazy things they can do. So for example, you might have a cocktail and it might chew up your notebook and you’re Oh, I need to hide my notes.
So that the bird doesn’t chew it and you might have a coin or an inch who’s all the wires in your house And you’re like oh my god I have to pay $70 to get a new note book charger or all these phone chargers, and that may be shocking to you Yeah, but what if you like started off with a Macaw and they could take out the whole stiding of your door You know what I mean these are the small reasons people don’t think of it’s like are you Prepared for the amount of damage or do you just go out and get something because it’s beautiful.
Or cool or exciting or your friend has one or you saw it in a YouTube video and then it eats your door and then someone in your family is like absolutely not no way. We have a nice house, we have this like whatever it is like I can’t afford all these damages. It’s just kind of like sometimes people that started with different birds they kind of get used to it. On that note, can you be a first-time Macaw owner and be a great first-time Macaw? Absolutely, only you know that, that’s up to you but I’d advise you to do a lot of research I don’t even think it’s.
I don’t think enough research is ever going to do you. I don’t think enough videos even my videos like where we show you things that are entertaining it could make you want to burn but at the same time I try to show you things that are overwhelming so that you don’t want to burn and I’m more pleased with the emails That I get that say I wanted a bird and you talked me out of it and that makes me happier than anything in this world Because that’s just somebody admitting to themselves that they probably would not be great for the workload of a parrot So, yes, can there be people.
People that would be great with an African Grey as a first time bird, absolutely. Are you that person? I have no idea, but I can tell you what you should be prepared for. Having a toddler, having to chase somebody all the time. With Marlon specifically, he goes and chooses to bathe sport, he gets himself stuck in the garbage. Oh my god, what are you doing in the trash? Every second, when I think I could relax, I have to go see what else he’s damaging are destroying.
Or knocking over or spilling, and it’s not because of any irresponsibility on my part, like, “Oh, I left them alone.” It’s because they want to have fun there. They’re birds, they’re animals, they like to forage, they like to do stuff, and there’s a certain amount of area that I give them to do that, you know, because I don’t want to just put a bird in a cage, take everything away from them, and also my birds are flited, right? So that’s another kind of ability you have to have when you commit to a bird, like, you want them to be flited.
Um, but some people don’t. Some people can’t. And I also respect that, you know, it just depends. I prefer flying birds, I think it’s healthier. So even if you can manage a parrot, can you manage a flying parrot? Can you train them to fly to you and not fly into a wall? Can you handle them flying around the house? Can you make sure that they’re not going to be in any danger? Can you make sure they don’t run into windows? Like, how do you do all this training? Do you guys know? Yeah, this is something that you really…
Have to think about because the amount of accidents that you get emails about, they have to really be in tune with you and the bird and do what’s best for you guys. I love to promote the goal of having a flight at bird, because clearly my first bird was not flight at that first, you know, and you get you get to go get a bird at a breeder or a bird store, they send it home, which puts things, and that’s what you get right, but I know birds well enough to know how happy my birds are flighted, that’s just just make but it does add some extra.
work to you to give the bird a certain kind of life that you might want to get the bird.