The question “How are African Grey Parrots to keep as pets?” came from Quora
“Come on, fess up!
You’ve done the unthinkable. You’ve actually thought of getting an African Grey but the horror stories of screaming, biting and plucking keep you “centered” or “sane”.
What if you had a mentor?
That’s why you have me!
Learn Amazon parrot care from one of Windy City Parrot’s customers – who gets it.
Hello, Mitch
I’ve followed your blog for quite a while and always appreciate your perspectives and insights. I was pretty much gutted when I read your article on Sunday … “Birds in cages suffer all their lives.”
I want my bird to have a happy and healthy a life as possible, but I read and hear so much contradictory information that I’m really not sure if I am providing what she needs— and I do try.
What are the pros and cons of having a pet bird? was asked on Quora. This answer motivated me to set the record straight.
Pros
If you do it right, you’re going to have a loving companion animal for the next 60 years.
Cons,
If you do it wrong, you’re going to have a very unhappy bird for the next 60 years.
They can live sixty years or more.
They’re loud (a cockatoo’s scream has been measured at over 100db, compared to 130db for a jet engine at 100 feet).
They throw food.
Quora is a cool place for content. Unfortunately, there are a lot of amateurs answering questions with some, well, wrong answers. This particular question ran off the rails quite early.
With 10,400 (plus or minus) species of birds, the question is rather vague. Parrots a.k.a. hookbills, parakeets, and conures all generally reside in temperate climates. One exception we know quite well here in Chicago is the Monk parakeet or Quaker parrot.
I’ve often said the perfect size cage for a Green Wing Macaw is 30 acres. Many birds can and do suffer miserably in cages. There are ways we can offset the majority of the stress for our captive birds — but many of us do not.
Full transparency — I’m a companion to one Senegal parrot and four budgies. That in and of itself does not make me an expert. What makes me an expert in my 15 years of interacting with tens of thousands of captive bird owners while operating the Windy City Parrot website
Dear Mitch, Catherine, and associates,
First thank you for the opportunity to contact you about my parrot, who’s a BF Amazon, named “Dollar.” I wish to add, I adopted him at 6 yrs old, and he wouldn’t let me call him any other name than what it had been.
So, he’s a fabulously happy birdie, but several years in a row around this time of year, he begins to regurgitate and swallow, over and over again. He holds the top of a bell and raises and lowers his head like an oil well, only really fast.
(more…)
Why is it that some of us don’t trust a bird’s 99 million year old instincts to fly – but will trust a teenager to navigate a 3500 pound terrestrial vehicle at 60 MPH on a crowded highway – after 36 hours of classroom and road training?
The below video received 349,906 views on YouTube. We got 11,000 views in a week after placing this video on our Facebook fan page.
From the 11,000 views we received the following comments
Recently Science magazine ran an article entitled “Parrots, songbirds pack more neurons into their forebrains than most mammals”.
Now some scientists are saying that birds are way more intelligent than we ever thought because they somehow counted the total number of forebrain neurons – with soup (we’ll get to that in a bit)!
The study, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that 28 bird species have more neurons in their pallial telencephalons, the brain region responsible for higher level learning, than mammals with similar-sized brains.
How can you stop screaming–excessive (Question from Quora)
Screaming is never excessive for a bird – they are merely communicating, it’s what they do.
Before I can answer your question I need to know the species, age, sex, the diet and a picture of the cage set up if at all possible – thank you.
Hi Mitch,
Bubba is a 30 yr, old CAG (congo african grey). dna’d male on basically harrisons with nutriberries and healthy people food,.. I don’t know how to take a pix of his cage. 2x2x4 feet – 5 perches – all different materials. at least 5 toys I try to keep changed.
What kind of parrot should I get based on this schedule?
I wake at about 5:30 AM and get ready for school. At 7:25 AM I head off for school. After at about 2:00 PM I get back home for lunch and do what I want for 2 and a half hours. I then do homework for 2 hours and then dinner and 1 hour of anything.
