Bought - Adopted - Rescued

[Admin]

I am interested in hearing how you all came into ownership of your greys!

[Bama]

I live in Alabama, birds are not a big thing here.  They also cost  more usually $1200 or more and poor pickings.  I wanted the bird for in the truck while I work.  I inquired with several "experts" on Grey's, I did not want a long tail and mid size was important.  I was told that a young bird could be accustomed to the truck but an older bird would never adapt.  I went to my son's for Christmas in Missouri.  I had checked a few pet shops and one had a little black eyed beauty loose in the shop.  I inquired of age and price and it was $800, had been sexed and banded with paperwork from being hatched in Oklahoma.  I played around with her for a few minutes and bought her.  The pet shop owner told me several lies the main one not telling me that she had been sold and returned.  Other than the fear, she was a great personality and definitely hand fed.  The pet shop owner did supply a small used cage to transport her.  She was scared to death for a month, shivering with fear.  She went right into the truck in the middle of winter.  She slowly came around and was soon my buddy.  I kept her on the food that she was on for a couple of months then went to Zupreme.  Half of the food was wasted so I talked with a vet about it and went to Cocktail food.  The same pellets but smaller and last twice as long.  Now she eats everything I eat.  I do shy from Mexican food due to not familiar with it enough to know what has avocado in it.  She gets real upset when I eat and she does not get any.  I usually giver her treats while I am eating, but she knows the difference.

I just put her in a new cage and she spent the afternoon beaking every bar, nook and cranny.  Just added some new perches and she is playing now so I guess the cage is a keeper.  I did transfer her toys and food dishes so she would not be totally lost.  I probably hold the record for the largest cage in a truck.  It is 24 x 24 x 46 from the floor to the top and is flat topped so she can climb around up there.  Now she is back above window level and she does like to watch out the window.  Only thing that spooks her is the windshield wipers in a rain storm.  Of course they are big, 24 inches.

She is four years old now.

[jamiem251]

my mom bought him at a breeder because she had always wanted one. i ended up getting the most attached. i was in and out of my mom's house, i stayed at my boyfriend's a lot though. then when we decided to get our own house, i BEGGED my mom to let me have him. i had bought practically everything for him, she never took him to the vet cuz it cost too much, and odds and ends like watching over his diet and ensuring he had clean water she didn't do- she was "too busy working full time". i'm in college full time and have 2 part time jobs, and i manage. she finally gave in, crying he was leaving, but it was for Tito, not either of us. she said it was my "i'm doing good in school gift". so we didn't move far, but it was one less animal to look over for them (they have 3 dogs, 1 cat, 3 chinchillas too now) i never thought i would be so attached, but i honestly love him like he's my own little one. overall, it's between purchased from a breeder/ given as a gift


in response to above- Tito is scared of windsheild wipers too. he loves to go in the car. but the first time we were out in the rain, (which was only a month or two ago), he was on his window perch, saw them go across, ducked down, and just stared like "WHAT WAS THAT?!?!" i reassured him it's ok. it's been 2 times now he's been out in the rain, he seems to slowly get used to them.

[maureen]

Hi everyone I was adopted by Teerie who was in the local council aviary but was feather plucking and they were looking for a new home for him where he would have company all day to see if he would improve. So far he is doing well and sitting next to Alfie the Orange winged Amazon and  Basil the Senegal.

[jules]

It was my partner tony who first wanted a parrot. as we'd always had dogs before i wasn't too keen and kept saying no, what do we want a parrot for? we don't know the first thing about them. can't we have another dog we know where we are with dogs, but no he wasn't having any of it and he started looking around. then one day about four years ago he came home and said i've found a parrot i'm fetching him on tuesday. our first parrot was rocky a white fronted amazon who sadly died last year, but from the first day i was hooked on these lovely little birds. after rocky i was devastated and after a few weeks decided i would love to have another one. tony suggested an african grey which was hand reared as rocky wasn't he was about a year old when we had him and not very tame. so after alot of searching and phone calls we found a breeder in melton mowbray, leicestershire and a week later we had jasper. i don't know why i ever doubted myself in thinking i couldn't take to parrots, of course now jasper is mostly my bird and i'm sure tony gets a bit jealous cos jasper won't sit with him (unless theres food around of course)

thanks for asking,don't get much chance to talk parrots, only when i see my freind katie which will be in a few weeks if she can make it. she had a new baby in march so i can't wait to hear how she's coping with parrot & baby.

[Chuckles]

Chuckles was rescued. Long story and I cant give full details (sorry) or my ex-husband will get into trouble! My ex had seen the situation Chuckles was in and knew she was better off elsewhere.  He knew I always wanted a CAG. Dont jump to the wrong conclusions though. Chuckles (not her former name that she did not know anyway) was NOT stolen - her previous owner thinks she has gone to a zoo.
I dont believe Chuckles will ever completely recover from the abuse she received but she is a happy girl who chats nearly all day and plays games with me.
We had an electricity power cut a few days ago. Chuckles was out of her cage. Chuckles and I were on the floor playing. I thought she might panic because the lights had gone out so suddenly. I spoke to her in a calm and gentle voice and she immediately walked over to me and climbed on my arm. After the power was restored and the lights back on Chuckles was back to normal and threatened to bite me LOL. From this experience I know that if she needs help she knows she can trust me.
Chuckles will probably never be confident with strangers but i am sure she knows my ex did the best for her. She has always been relaxed with my ex and is now happy when my daughter or my closest friend visit.
I do envy all on this forum who are able to cuddle their greys and take them to the shower etc but I would NOT part with Chuckles. She is certainly the best thing that has happened to me for a long time.

[jamiem251]

in response to Chuckles: I agree with the last part! Tito is very tempermental, set in his own ways. When I take him in the shower, he sits up on the curtain rod, he still HATES water. But with the whole cuddling thing, yes, sometimes it's so frustrating to have a bird that won't even let my boyfriend (whom i live with) pick him up. I want him to be the fun loving, talk and go to anyone bird, but apparently we have ALOT of work to do.

[Tycos-mom]

How I got Tyco is a long story I'll try to make it as short as possible. One day my Daughter called she said I was at a after the bar closed party last night It was at a crackheads house that I didn't know but went with some friends. In the back room of this house I saw a African grey in a very small cage with a heavy blanket over it. the cage had so much poop on it I don't think it was ever cleaned the water was filthy and all it had to eat was a couple of gungy looking peanuts. I ask the guy about it and he said that his ex girl friend left the bird here when she moved back to Ontario and I haven't heard from her since. he said the bird is mean won't let me near it so I don't bother with it. So I told my daughter to take me there immediately and when we got there it was 3:00 pm and the bird still had the filthy dirty very heavy horse blanket over it. siting in a little back room with nothing in but a small window. When the bird saw me she started pacing back and forth and stretching her neck toward me so I open her cage she literal jumped up on to my arm. she let me rub her beak and give her a kiss on it. The guy said how did you do that that Bird is just plain mean and hates every one. My Ex bought it a couple years ago from a little old lady. and then she left and I'm stuck with it. So I asked him if he wanted to sell her and he said sure got 8 hundred dollars. I didn't I had 3 hundred so I said can I give you 3 now and the rest by the end of the week he said d sure. I really hated to leave her there but had no choice her cage had so much poop cake  thick on every bar it made me sick. So I went home and called everybody I knew to borrow the rest of the money I needed I finally had 400. dollars together and I went back and said will you take seven hundred for her. He looked sick and in need of some drugs and said yea just take her. So I did. I noticed that she was very off balance and had no flight feathers on one side so I asked him about it he said she has always been like that that it was a birth defect so the old lady that his girlfriend got her from said. I took her to the vet because she would fall on her keel really hard and I was so worried she would break it. It wasn't a birth defect at all she had barbered every fight feather on her left wing and had been doing it for years.
So i got her wings clipped so they were evened out so she wasn't so off balance and now she is fully flighted for the first time in her life but I don't think she ever fledged because she doesn't know how to fly. She was in such bad shape when I got her now 8 months later she is absolutely gorgeous. this is her now

[karine]

What a great story!!!! Thank you for rescuing her!!! She is gorgeous and you must be a pretty great person to be paying a lot of money for an older bird that didn't look all that healthy just to make its life a worthy one!!!! Thumbs up to you!!!!

[jamiem251]

that is so sad and disgusting to find ANY animal like that in such conditions. my sister just got a job not long ago at a vet around our house. she noticed a dog in a back room in complete dark, lying in his own pee and poo, shoved in a cage that was way too small for him. she asked what was wrong with him, and they said "he's not friendly, he's getting put down this weekend". my sister went over to him, and he wagged his tail, happy SOMEONE was giving him attention. as the guy she was with started yelling at her to "get away he'll bite you", she took him out, gave him a bath, and played with him. the vet was trying to get her to pay $200 for him, but she argued what's the point you were gonna kill him anyway. she got out of paying anything, and he now stays at her friend's house and goes to work with him. it pathetic what people do to animals. i've seen it in the news and stuff, but when i found out about this dog, in my same town with that kind of treatment is disgusting.

[Tycos-mom]

A vet should no better as far as I'm concerned that vet should be put out of bussiness and reported for abuse to animals. I'm sorry but I have absolutly no tolerance for someone that is suposed to treat and love animals and then abuses them like that.

[clamboni]

Don't really know the story about Kenzie before my aunt bought her a couple years ago.  We took our green cheek in for a clipping and asked about the grey they had on consignment.  All the store could tell us is that she was about 2 years old and didn't seem to have been in a bird friendly environment.  Not that she was unhealthy but she just wasn't very sociable.  When they got her her nails were very long and she had full flight feathers.  So they clipped her nails and absolutely butchered her wings.  She squawked horribly when the store owner was trying to get her from the cage she was in but she calmed right down when he handed her to me.  So my aunt ends up buying her.  I lived with her at the time and my aunt and I were hte only ones that could handle her.  She got nasty and would bite once in a while but it was tolerable and I didn't know what she'd been through before so I just dealt with it and tried to work with her.  My aunt wasn't really a great bird owner either, and I don't think the house was right for Kenzie. 

Anyway, 8 months later I moved out of the house.  Found out a couple months later that Kenzie bit my aunt pretty hard a few times within a couple weeks and my aunt got fed up and brought her back to the store to be put on consignment again, she didn't tell me because she figured I wouldn't want her since she bit me last time I tried to handle her.

I go to the bird store and into the consignment room and Kenzie sees me and starts running back and forth along the perch in her cage.  I'm convinced...........Had her home a couple hours later.  She did fine with the move and is now very happy.  She's about 4 now and is getting better and better as time goes on. 

[roz]

Good for you ! I really respect what you did

[lezab]

Hi

I got my Grey from one of the men that I "Support" for a living, he has a learning disability and really loves animals.  A LOT of people take advantage of him and so the owner, a neigbour,  got him to mind him while she was pregnant until she sold him. He was doing more harm than good but with good intent.  tol him to ask her how much she wanted for him and that I would pay whatever she asked.  So I did, just couldn't watch her anymore.  (turned out she was a him when I got him to the vet)  He's been a lot of work eversince.

Leza & Bandit

[Elliot]

I found a bird breeder one day. She breeds African Greys and Quakers. Well when I went to her house the last baby from the clutch that year was sold. She was also not going to breed anymore. So I had to wait a year for the season. Around June she found someone about 2 hours away that had 2 babies in a cluch. It was $650 but the guy had to up his price because of gas and going to bird shows to $750. So she went to his house and sat there for a while and picked the older one. She brought it back to her house and she is handfeeding/weaning it for me for FREE! I go and see Elliot about once a week sometimes twice. Elliot is a TAG.