Do African Grey Parrots Make Good Pets?
As well as being very beautiful, African Grey Parrots are also one of the easiest species of parrot to train and keep. The African Grey Parrot originates from central Africa, and it is renowned for its intelligence, and its exceptional talking ability. African Greys have an amazing ability to develop a massive vocabulary, which they use to the full when conversing with their owners!
The African Gray Parrot is a medium-sized parrot, which (when fully grown) is somewhere between ten and fourteen inches long (i.e. from the top of the head to the tip of the tail). There are two different types of African Greys - the Congo African Grey (light grey with a red tail), and the Timneh African Grey (charcoal grey with a maroon tail). There is no difference in appearance between males and females, but the males are usually larger than the females, and they also usually have a broader head and neck.
These types of parrots have a very long lifespan (i.e. anything up to sixty years), so buying one is a long term commitment. Due to their very high level of intelligence, they can very easily become bored, which means that you must be prepared to create a very stimulating and interactive environment for them. If you fail to do this, boredom will quickly result in behavioral problems (e.g. aggression, and self-mutilation). Even a relatively small change in their daily routine or surroundings is enough to make this sensitive bird develop behavioral problems. If you are prepared to put in the time and effort required to ensure your African Gray is happy, then you will be rewarded with a great, well behaved parrot.
One of the reasons why an African Grey Parrot is a good choice of pet parrot is that it is a really sociable bird, which typically lives in a flock in the wild. If you treat them correctly, and meet their needs, they will treat you and your family as their ‘new’ flock. Even though they don’t especially enjoy being handled a lot, they do really enjoy having their head scratched, so, with patience and training, you should be able to coax them out of their cage and on to your hand. One common behavior of African Grays is attempting to “kiss” their owner’s on the mouth – don’t encourage this, because the normal bacteria you have in your mouth is dangerous to birds!
To sum up, African Grey Parrots have lots of personality, and many human-like qualities. This means that they make great, and interesting pets, as long as you are prepared to put in a lot of time and effort to making sure that they don’t become lonely and bored. Just in case you aren’t able to keep your side of the bargain, when it comes to looking after an African Grey, I wouldn’t recommend having one if there are young children in the house, because one of the bad behaviors that can very quickly develop is biting, and their beaks are very strong and hard!
