Hi Maggie,
I have my first parrot, a Timneh I got in July. I had been considering getting a parrot who needed a new home for several months and saw an add for an "aggressive" african grey who "could be used as breeder."
Turns out that the owner had her since 2mo. age and said that the bird had "always hated her." So the owner put her in the backyard with another Timneh and left her there, feeding only seeds and NEVER allowing her out. This woman was pretty loud and chatty; I don't think she ever calmed down enough for the Grey. Oh and she separated her from her plucked mate the day I bought her! I didn't know this until after I brought her home!!!
Well, we've been doing pretty well I think. She is NOT aggressive, just overly fearful of hands and people. She does not bite. She lives in a new 30"x24"x38" cage next to a window. In the mornings I open the screenless window so it's like being outside. She seems to like this. Around noon I roll her cage over to her climbing tree and she now scrambles out like a pro. She spends the rest of the day in or out as she pleases. She eats Harrison's High Potency and LOVES it. We're trying very hard to work on the veggies!
However, she has been preening very rough and aggressively since I got her. There were a few weeks initially when this got better, but shortly after the new cage arrived it got worse again. I can hear her snapping the calamus on the feather as she goes over and she will preen, or "prune" as I call it, like the repeatively and wildly. I've watched wild birds my whole life and this doesn't look like healthy preening to me. Some of her breast feathers are turning brown, i.e. damaged? She loses several down feathers per day.
She is flighted and the room is parrot proofed for her. She mostly flies when startled but also flies for the fun of it now. She usually wags her tail when I pick her up from the floor afterwards. She has just this week started steppingn up on command from her playtop cage top! I'm so proud of her. Now she goes back in her cage in the evening when I turn on the lights and say, "go home." She prefers to do things on her own and not be handled. I allow her this. She does like my company as she will scoot across her tree to the branch overhanging me on the couch or will follow me around her cage top. She just won't let me touch her. I do blow on her some and she likes that.
One thing that may be unusual is that I live alone in a studio apartment and I'm disabled. It's me, my cat, and my bird together in one room all day long. She does seem happier when visitors come, not that she wants their attention, I think it's just the flock-thing. She's more active. I wonder if the feather damaging has anything to do with this. However, seh seems to do it almost always when I talk on the phone, and sometimes when I talk to my visiting mother, who she doesn't like.
Help !! Thank you!!
Alison