Maya loves to explore our home and play on the floor. She usually initiates this by flying off of her perch and landing on the floor. Or sometimes when we take her out of her cage she starts flapping her wings – which have been clipped – really really fast. Then she usually lands on the floor. She loves walking around or sliding around (we have hardwood floors). This is a good time to have the whole family involved with playing with her. We do make sure that there are no dangers nearby and then we just follow her along and she what she wants to explore. She will try to nibble on chairs and low hanging curtains – but we are right there and no damage is done. Her explorations up to this point have been more of “look and see” what is around this new home of hers. Although, she is not quite into playing “catch” with us yet. We tried to roll a small plastic ball in her direction to see if this would seem like fun – but she seems afraid of it and just jumps over it or runs out of the way.

Maya is not the kind of girl that just wants to sit around her cage all day – she loves being close to us or “hanging out with her flock”. We take her out of her cage 3 – 5 times per day for various lengths of time. We have discovered that African greys need to have lots of interaction with their human family. We have two play stands that can be moved around and she uses them every day. She seems very content to just be around us – even if we are not constantly talking to her or paying attention to her. So we do keep one play stand in the living room where she can see us moving around from various rooms in the house.

Well – I originally thought that RoudyBush was “all that” – but it seems that parrots love “Fanta-Seeds”. I found out about these from my visit to The Bird Zone in Pineville. It is a small local owned bird shop with everything you can possibly need for your parrot. The container of Fanta-Seeds is a little under 4 lbs. And it has everything from sunflower seeds to dried fruit. There must be 20 + different items in this mix and the birds love it. The first time I introduced this new mix to Maya – she spent about 3 hours eating out of her food dish. However, I decided not to discontinue feeding her the RoudyBush completely – so I continue to put those pellets in her dish also. Although- It looks like now she is not as enthusiastic about the pellets, as she once was…

I am so happy that our breeder fed RoudyBush pellets to Maya. These are really nutritional pellets that can make up a complete diet for the African Greys. These pellets are 75% of what our bird eats now. Although, I did try to supplement her diet with vegetables in the beginning – she picked at the steamed peas, carrots and corn for a few days – and I think she did consume some of it – but then she quickly lost interest and totally ignored that stuff. Now I try to give her fruit twice per day in addition to her RoudyBush. I was thinking of trying sweet potatoes or yams in another week or so. This is a sweeter tasting vegetable and I have heard that African greys like them! Also – I thought that I would visit the Bird Pet Shop in Pineville to see what other types of delicious pellets they have for sale. I think it is probably good to have a few other pellet choices around so she does not get bored with her food.

We took Maya out today, for the second time, into our back yard. The weather was cloudy – temperature about 80 degrees – and raining very lightly. We decided to bring the 2nd play stand/perch outside to let her enjoy the back yard environment. We have a protected wet land behind our home and it is full of deer, birds, owls and other creatures.  There are so many sounds that I think she really enjoyed it. However, we were careful not to leave her outside by herself – even for a second. We sometimes see these large hawks circling above and they would consider a helpless wind-clipped baby African grey as prey. We will definitely be doing this again…..

I would say that these birds are very messy. I like to change the newspaper at the bottom of the cage every day. My cage is very big and it has trays that slide out for easy cleaning. I usually wear a dust mask while cleaning the bottom of the cage for health reasons.

I think it is also a good idea to vacuum around the cage every day. When my bird eats she has a way of slinging food all around – so check the walls for dried food hanging there too. I started wiping down the entire cage with a sponge and some soap and water – I don’t use any commercial cleaning solutions because they are toxic to these birds. I think I will do this once per week or so.

Then of course there is the daily cleaning of their play stands. We take our bird out of her cage several times per day and put her on a play stand. This can also be a pretty messy place after a short while – so I clean these once or twice per day. And let’s not forget about the occasional droppings that hit the floor or carpet. It is a good idea to have Clorox wipes around for that.

These birds love consistency – which is why I try to stick to the same routine every day. Although, week ends can be a bit of a challenge.

Each morning I come down between 7:30 – 8:00am. I say “Morning” to Maya and I open both window blinds. Then I begin to get her some fresh fruit.  She likes “Dole” peaches, pears and pineapples. Then I get her fresh water for her water bowl. Although it looks like she barely even drinks water – she still needs to have a full bowl of clean water in her cage. Then I take her out of the cage before she has even had a chance to eat the fruit. Also – I always keep her RoudyBush pellets in the cage – so she can eat them any time.  The fruit is given to her twice per day – morning and evening. The RoudyBush pellets as well as some other highly nutritional pellets are always available for her – I keep that bowl full.

Maya likes to be cuddled – especially by my husband. He can hold her close to his chest for 30 – 45 minutes and she does not move. She loves to have her head scratched. However, when I tried to cuddle her – she got real fidgety after about 5 minutes. But she still did like having her head scratched. My husband usually puts a towel on his chest to catch any droppings.

We don’t exactly know how long this baby stage last with these birds – but we figure that this is a good way to bond with our new baby grey. I assume that as she becomes an adult grey – she will no longer accept the cuddling/head scratching. So we are enjoying this now!!