Hi Terri,
T perches can be a bit scary to a bird. I personally don't use them. Have in past, but what you have to do is familiarize the T perch to him.
By that, I mean leave on top of cage. He sees it and realized it won't attack him or hurt him. 2-3 days would be good. Play with perch to show it's not hurting you either. Show that it's fun. My birds were terrified of the broom. Not so much now.
Paco is wild caught, his nature will be slightly different in his trust vs a hand fed baby cag growing up apart from the wild. Each grey is unique in its personality. You will be hard pressed to find two greys with exact identical personalities.
Grey's tend to be in control, it's always on "their" terms. Not yours. For instance, My grey will sit inside his cage in morning when I wake up. I never shut my birds in their cages, and most of time, never shut bird room door at night.
They wait till I'm up to get them freakfast.
My grey will sometimes not be ready to come out for breakfast, he'll put his head down and push my hand away. His way of saying "not now" , if I persist, then he'll give a little nip, not hard, but again his way of saying " I told you not now!!!"...
That's my cue to know he's not ready, and take rest of birds, and leave him behind, saying " ok greyson, your going to miss breakfast" .....
After about 10 minutes I go back in
Lean on cage with my arm on it and say, " breakfast, are you coming? It's good yum yum"
He'll them climb out up to top of cage, then step up on my arm. I don't reach for him, I let Him come to me.
Bites are painful, yes, but don't ever show fear, birds sense that and can play the scare you card,
To be in control. Silly as it sounds, don't even say ouch!! They find that amusing. Saying NO is perfectly fine. They come to understand that perfectly well. All my birds know that word and if I say no, they stop.
If they are on my arm or hand and want to bite, I drop my arm to my side real fast, they have one place to go, off me. They come to learn, if they want on me they don't bite, plain and simple.
Your bird will take a good 6 months or even longer to fully bond and trust, normal length of time. Don't rush it, because rushing solves nothing. Many will say train them to do this train them to do that, that's fine if your going to be showing them off on America's got talent.
My philosophy, let the bird be a bird, go to their level, see what they see. Trust is earned with a bird. If they can't trust you, there will never be a true bond.
Last but not least, daily routine....keep it simple, but keep it persistant. A regular routine a bird understands. An irregular routine and your bird becomes confused and frusterated.
Last edited:
