Marvel_ous
Sprinting down the street
On a side note, we probably won't even start preparing for an African Grey until after summer has ended, so I have a chance to evaluate my usual lifestyle and make sure I have enough time for such an emotionally complex bird even with high school work. My family's willing to pitch in, but the idea of it is for me to be the parrot's main caretaker, do the heavy lifting and dirty work, and they help with training and entertaining the Grey now and then, as well as my parents helping financially.
Nothing's set in stone yet, and right now I'm trying to figure out what budget we should realistically set. I'd rather not spend more than $300 on a cage, though could go to $400 if we had to. I'm just wondering what range of sizes you guys recommend for a Grey that would be out and interacting with the family, or at the very least in the same room as the family and out of the cage for most of the day. (My mother is stay-at-home and my father works from home, so it's very rare that no one's in the house.) Additionally, we may one day have to bring the bird on vacation with us, what setup would you recommend that's not too bulky, costly, and hard to move?
As for toys, I was thinking of buying one each of a variety of different toys (Foot toys, foraging toys, easy-to-shred toys, wooden toys, puzzle toys, and the like) to see what our parrot would prefer before we go out and buy a lot of a toy that the particular individual we rescue won't touch. Also planning to try some homemade toys, paper towel tubes, newspaper pom-poms, strips of non-glossy paper threaded through cage bars, certain woods raided from the trash bin at our local Lowes, as the employees there are very friendly and have allowed us to find scraps from their garbage before, when I got into woodcarving for a time, (Going to check for type of wood and if it was treated at all before we would give it) and maybe even stuff like whole vegetables as toy/food combinations.
Another question, is masking tape (The papery, not very sticky type) safe for parrots? Not planning on using it if there's even a chance of danger, but I heard about it from a book, and there are some cool ideas to do with it if it is.
In terms of perches, I've heard different things from different sources. Are dowel and nail-grinding perches alright as long as there's only one of each in the cage? Or should we avoid them completely? Also, does anyone know of a cheaper place to get natural wood perches? We're willing and able to afford them if there's not another way, but not spending $20 on a perch big enough would be nice.
Thanks, all!
Nothing's set in stone yet, and right now I'm trying to figure out what budget we should realistically set. I'd rather not spend more than $300 on a cage, though could go to $400 if we had to. I'm just wondering what range of sizes you guys recommend for a Grey that would be out and interacting with the family, or at the very least in the same room as the family and out of the cage for most of the day. (My mother is stay-at-home and my father works from home, so it's very rare that no one's in the house.) Additionally, we may one day have to bring the bird on vacation with us, what setup would you recommend that's not too bulky, costly, and hard to move?
As for toys, I was thinking of buying one each of a variety of different toys (Foot toys, foraging toys, easy-to-shred toys, wooden toys, puzzle toys, and the like) to see what our parrot would prefer before we go out and buy a lot of a toy that the particular individual we rescue won't touch. Also planning to try some homemade toys, paper towel tubes, newspaper pom-poms, strips of non-glossy paper threaded through cage bars, certain woods raided from the trash bin at our local Lowes, as the employees there are very friendly and have allowed us to find scraps from their garbage before, when I got into woodcarving for a time, (Going to check for type of wood and if it was treated at all before we would give it) and maybe even stuff like whole vegetables as toy/food combinations.
Another question, is masking tape (The papery, not very sticky type) safe for parrots? Not planning on using it if there's even a chance of danger, but I heard about it from a book, and there are some cool ideas to do with it if it is.
In terms of perches, I've heard different things from different sources. Are dowel and nail-grinding perches alright as long as there's only one of each in the cage? Or should we avoid them completely? Also, does anyone know of a cheaper place to get natural wood perches? We're willing and able to afford them if there's not another way, but not spending $20 on a perch big enough would be nice.
Thanks, all!