 I'm here to tell you what I know and what I would do and as you're watching this video hopefully gradually see the work that is going into just making a video with a parrot on your head. Hello my fellow snippers, flighters, and hatchlings. My name is Marlene McCohen and this is my African gray Cody. For those of you who want to know more about what it's like to have an African gray please stay with me throughout this whole video because I'm going to cover everything from what it's really like to have an African gray. If it's easy do they bite, do they talk, do they damage things, can they be potty trained, are they smart? All of those issues I'm going to cover here today along with some of your questions on Instagram. Now before we get into this video I want to go over a few things. You are being naughty, I introduced you I don't have any idea why you're being so naughty but I want to go over some exciting things for you guys. For those of you who are new here my channel is about educating you guys on parrots but also showing you how to have fun with birds and live with them in an engaged not caged manner which is my hashtag. It's really important birds are extremely forgotten about in the world and people rush out to get birds so I'm here to dispel some myths and some rumors so grab a cup of tea and stick with me. Real quick some orders of business. I want to give some shoutouts to some of my flighters. My flighters are those of you who support me making videos on Patreon. I want to know that I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. So shout out to Casey Minter, Janet Anderson, and Precious Piper. Thank you for joining us. I'm really excited to have you guys. Next order of business I want to congratulate our winners of the golden ticket from our feathered fun box last month. Tammy Derrider, Arielle's Adventures, and Renee Mills. You guys have all won a hundred dollars worth of toys from our website parrotsstation.com. I hope you guys are really enjoying that and I'm loving the videos. Some new things we're gonna do. I'm gonna feature one of your Instagram videos at the end of every episode of mine so if you want to be featured hashtag pick me Marlene and I'll show your bird at the end of the video. I love when you guys tag me and your bird eating our food watching our show in your merch. It's really exciting for me so don't forget that and some shoutouts to our hashtag early bird gang today. Those of you that comment on my videos early. Diana Beats, Madison Ramirez, and Estelle Roblox. Okay let's get into the video. All right guys clearly it is no secret that there is a popular YouTuber that just got an African Gray. I know he's a bird lover so I'm very excited for him but I am also aware that there's probably a lot of you that will want to go out and get an African Gray just because now you think it's cool, you think it's easy, or it's just kind of giving you this awareness. So I hope this video will help enlighten you a little bit more on what it's really like to have an African Gray because it's not as easy as you think but it may not also be as hard as you think. That depends on you so let's just get right into the questions and then we'll talk about it. Stay to the end guys. I really want you guys to be educated on the subject. This is very important to bring awareness to people because there's so many birds locked in cages all over the world just because people thought they could handle them, they wanted something pretty, they wanted an exotic pet, and they just did not have the skills. So yes it all is going to boil down to you so let's talk about it. Okay in no particular order I'm gonna go over some of the questions that were sent to me from you guys and they're really good questions so here we go. First question. Will my African Gray talk? I wanted to address this first because I know that a lot of you are really excited about this factor when it comes to African Grays or birds in general and a lot of people run out and get birds for this reason. Just right off the bat let me tell you there is a good chance that your African Gray will not talk. I have had three African Grays, no four. I've actually had four African Grays. My first African Gray George was an amazing speaker. Hi. Hi. Yeah that's George. George could apply words to sentences. George could tell you colors, animals, what's gonna happen, just full-on conversation. It was unbelievable and that intellectual stimulation was exactly what made African Grays my favorite bird. But since then I've had a few more African Grays, most notably Cody who's here on my shoulder and also Merlin who is currently downstairs. If you guys are interested in how I got Merlin and want to watch The Journey of Merlin don't forget to check out that series on my channel. I'll put the link below. They are not the greatest talkers. If you had an African Gray like George or some of the Grays that I see you know these guys just don't really compare and you have to love them anyway. You cannot get a bird to talk. You hear that noise right there that she's making? Well a lot of them even if they don't talk they will make really interesting noises, microwaves beeping, camera shutters, water running is some of the amazing fun things. A lot of people in my house love hearing them do water running and all those kind of things you know just like it's amazing. It's like they're a computer so yeah that is very entertaining but it's not enough to take on the workload of what it is to have a bird because that's gonna be up to you. Okay so um this kind of leads me into the next question. Yeah you see already this is like you know this one is rambunctious and I loved African Grays because my George was not rambunctious so I'm just gonna sit here like this so you guys can see her. Well she just messes up my hair. Fact, okay the elephant in the room the YouTuber that we're speaking about is obviously Logan Paul. Logan Paul just got a baby African Gray and you know he's a bird guy so I know he loves birds and um he has experience with birds so congratulations to him. I wish him all the best but there are some things in the video that I feel we need to address not not in a way against him or anything like that just because he's not a bird YouTuber so really maybe he doesn't really owe it to anyone to speak on these things or he's not he's not that kind of YouTuber so he's not really aware of what he's showing so I just want to um you know say the things for him that he probably didn't get to say which I hope he knows and I'm sure that he does but so the first thing is you saw that he got a very young African Gray now again guys I'm really big on not judging on YouTube because you never know the behind the scenes and also some people are great at entertainment so uh they just know what is going to be entertaining just like how I know that Vinny dive bombing is something that you guys absolutely love but that's not really what it's like to live in the house with Vinny he's actually the sweetest bird which I tell you guys all the time so you know there's like this balance between entertainment and um reality a lot of people I'm afraid might go out and want to get a baby African Gray sometimes you'll see that if you get a baby and it's really young then you're gonna have to hand feed the baby it's formula and personally I do not advise that I'm not speaking to those of you who are experienced with that I'm not speaking to those of you who know how to do that I'm speaking to those of you who have never had a bird and even those of you who are very experienced with birds but not with hand feeding like myself and I've had some training from Lou actually and I just still wouldn't take the chance there's a lot of things that you can do to damage a bird if you hand feed a baby bird you can burn their crop you can cause them an infection do you think that's funny Cody you see they like laugh even if they're not great talkers and and Cody does talk you can cause aspiration pneumonia yeah you just just destroy my hair why don't you um and also if you don't do it right there you know you could just have a malnourished bird so I feel my personal opinion that you'd have to be really experienced again with the video um that you guys saw you don't know someone experienced maybe feeding the bird don't ever take any of that and then just attack people I'm here to tell you what I know and what I would do and as you're watching this video hopefully you gradually see the work that is going into just making a video with a parrot on your head so maybe not all easy right so that's just my uh personal opinion on that again if you guys are experienced with any of this don't just ignore it and move on I'm just talking about myself and what I would advise on a different note should you get a rescue or a baby listen guys I always promote rescues most of my birds are rescues there are so many birds that needs home but I also feel it's important to stress responsible rescue I get a lot of emails from people who ran out and rescued a cockatoo and they're just that was just not a good idea for them maybe a different bird would have worked but like they didn't know about cockatoos and their issues so I think we're gonna have to talk a lot more about responsible rescue because a lot of people are like rescue rescue rescue listen I love bird lovers so um I don't I'm not here to judge I have a baby bird and I have a bunch of rescues and for me it's the same I love them all the same even more so my rescues because I feel like I'm giving them something like a home and that's really important to me so I do encourage you guys to rescue birds but to rescue responsibly you know some of my past experiences with my first bird who was clearly not a rescue as a cockatiel that made me who I am today and it made me go out and rescue a lot of birds throughout my lifetime so try not to judge people because you never know what they're going to become and um that's important too because the bird world has a lot of that kind of drama that's just like you know I'm here to help not to judge and on that note can you bond more with a baby listen I think there is a different kinds of bonding but not one is better than the other you guys know I'm obsessed with Brando but it's not because Brando is my baby bird it's because I think I'm obsessed with mustache parakeets in general they're just so amazing okay next are african greys an easy bird to have okay this all depends on you guys you know one time I got this nasty email from someone going you make it look so easy and I'm like listen I'm not gonna lie everybody knows that you know I show the crazy things I show the hard and I show some other things that I may make look easy and it may be hard for you you want to step up I was honestly a little hesitant because he kind of hit Jordan he we have learned that he will bite the hand that he's on and that may just be because I've had birds my entire life so I can live and accept a certain amount of crazy that maybe you can't maybe you have a full-time job maybe you have school but yes I just show my truth so here's the thing if you've never had a bird my first african gray did not chew walls yet Merlin chews all of the baseboards and that is a lot that might be something that an inexperienced bird owner might say oh my god I don't know what to do I'm gonna lock this bird in the cage and then that is not for you you have to be aware of how much work you're willing to put into things I don't get to relax much like even if I sit and watch tv if one wants to come to me if one wants something there's always the getting up and and and and you know there's just a lot of things you guys don't think about if you don't have birds that you might not know is work look at this one being all like aggressive right now excuse me okay um this question can only be answered by you with some experience Michael a lot cockatoo Vinny he loves to dive bomb he loves to chew up boxes that could be a lot of work for somebody and that's like a lot of added work with the amount of birds I have so everything depends on you and your situation but I will say is you should never go into getting a bird thinking it's gonna be easy and I'll tell you the main reason why besides however rambunctious the bird is besides however loud the bird is besides how much they destroy and chew up which is something you think that's funny that is something you're gonna have to really be aware of you have this factor that if you cannot deal with it and your solution is putting the bird in the cage and never letting the bird out oh the bird bit me the bird destroyed something then you are just becoming part of the problem of those people that have birds in cages and think it's okay and they just say the bird doesn't want to come out because you know I tried to work with it that is the problem that we have here especially in the united states and everywhere so you may become part of the problem because you think when you're excited about something that you're gonna be willing to deal with a lot of things that in reality you won't have the patience for I have an incredible amount of patience for birds because I grew up with them it's like ingrained in my lifestyle if you are 30 years old or 40 years old or even 18 and you've got your whole life changes coming up it may not be for you try not to expose that my hair is not colored cody next big question can I potty train in african gray absolutely you can body train in african gray you can potty train almost any bird however a lot of that is gonna depend on you your sensitivity and how it tunes you are to your bird so it's not going to be a magical like oh my god the bird just went somewhere to go potty and then flew back to me like we'll say a lot of my birds are like that and it's just kind of being family with the birds but i'm not saying that's going to be easy for you so the first thing is gonna have to be about how tuned in you are to your bird to say okay I think right now the bird needs to go potty and then you putting the bird somewhere where the bird can go potty and there will be accidents and there will be mistakes and you will have to clean up sometimes on the couches and on the floor and that's just going to be how it is but yes they are potty trainable but it's not going to be magical and it's not going to be perfect a lot of that is going to depend on you right like when you get a dog like either they can pee in the house or you could be a good trainer and show them where they need to go how much work did you have to put into that you have to put the same into a bird but more often right so that's where it gets a little bit difficult that is also work on your part right cody cody do you mind I put this question down for obvious reasons if you guys know what i'm talking about and funny enough we also have a similar situation in our house so should you get a bird if you have a dangerous dog in the house maybe a dog or cat or something that is going to be harmful to animals probably not you guys saw that we now have a belchin melinois with us temporarily he used to be in the u.s. army and then we got him he said do you want to be in the army or do you want to come live with us with cuddles and he said i'll come for the cuddles again i would never say to trust that dog 100% but that dog has now lived with ty for two years and as my brother describes it has ty in the witness protection program and is very protective over the bird as well but again that doesn't mean like put 100% trust that also doesn't mean that i would say oh yeah he's safe with ty then all my birds are safe i really you take the time to gauge things and make your own intellectual decision but generally if you're going to have one kind of animal and then that's going to cause another animal to have to be locked up when one is out in vice versa not a good idea i would rethink that mostly because it's going to be a lot of work for you and you have to have an extreme hypersensitivity to all the things that can go wrong all the time with birds and let's be honest we're not born with those instincts you know the younger you are when you have a bird or the longer you've had a bird the more different types of birds you have and the more hypersensitive you are then the more problems you'll be aware of that could arise i think it's my obsessive compulsive disorder that really and i'm not joking when i say that like literally diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder i know a lot of people are like i'm organized but no like i am traumatized legally disturbed like things are out of place i am crippled it's stupid rules i make up for myself sometimes i'm better sometimes i'm not doesn't matter um i think that kind of hypersensitivity has made me great with birds but also that can stress people out as an african gray good for a first time bird owner my god this is such a difficult thing to answer because honestly you know people talk about starter birds and having a smaller bird before having a bigger bird and then people are sensitive about the term starter bird but sometimes there is no other way to explain it here's what i think 100% honestly first of all the whole thing about having a smaller bird before a bigger bird doesn't devalue a smaller bird it's just like kind of getting you used to all the crazy things they can do so for example you might have a cockatiel and it might chew up your notebook and you're like oh i need to like hide my notebook so that the bird doesn't chew it and you might have a kinder and it chews all the wires in your house and you're like oh my god i have to pay 70 dollars to get a new macbook charger or all these phone chargers and that may be shocking to you yeah but what if you like started off with a macaw and they could take out the whole siding of your door you know what i mean these are these are the small reasons people don't think of it's like are you prepared for the amount of damage or do you just go out and get something because it's beautiful or cool or exciting or your friend has one or you saw it in a youtube video and then it eats your door and then someone in your family is like absolutely not no way we have a nice house we have this like whatever it is like i can't afford all these damages it's just kind of like sometimes people that started with different birds they kind of get used to it on that note can you be a first time macaw owner and be a great first time macaw owner absolutely only you know that that's up to you but i'd advise you to do a lot of research and i don't even think it's possible i don't think enough research is ever going to do you i don't think enough videos even my videos like where we show you things that are entertaining it could make you want a bird but at the same time i try to show you things that are overwhelming so then you don't want a bird and i'm more pleased with the emails that i get that say i wanted a bird and you talked me out of it and that makes me happier than anything in this world because that's just somebody admitting to themselves that they probably would not be great for the workload of a parrot so yes can there be people that would be great with an african gray as a first time bird absolutely are you that person i have no idea but i could tell you what you should be prepared for having a toddler having to chase somebody all the time with merlin specifically he goes and choose the baseboards he gets himself stuck in the garbage oh my god what are you doing in the trash every second when i think i could relax i have to go see what else he's damaging or destroying or knocking over or spilling and it's not because of any irresponsibility on my part like oh i left him alone it's because they want to have fun they're their birds they're animals they like to forage they like to do stuff and there's a certain amount of area that i give them to do that you know um because i i don't want to just put a bird in a cage take everything away from them and also my birds are flighted right so that's another kind of ability you have to have when you commit to a bird like do you want them to be flighted i do um but some people don't some people can't night and i also respect that you know it just depends i prefer flighted birds i think it's healthier so even if you can manage a parrot can you manage a flying parrot can you train them to fly to you and not fly into a wall can you handle them flying around the house can you make sure that they're not going to be in any danger can you make sure they don't run into windows like how do you do all this training do you guys know yeah this is something that you'd really have to think about because the amount of accidents i get emails about you have to really be in tune with you and the bird and do what's best for you guys i love to promote the goal of having a flighted bird because clearly my first bird was not flighted at first you know you get you go get a bird at a breeder a bird store they send it home with clipped wings and that's what you get right but uh i know birds well enough to know how happy my birds are flighted that's just me but it does add some extra work to you to give the bird a certain kind of life that you might want to get the bird odi is a little more weary we call her like a super ninja that she's like a little more protective she's territorial which is another thing what if your bird gets territorial over a certain spot let's say in the kitchen just only guys know all the things that could happen so that you're aware where are you going are you going into the office do you want to do some paperwork you're gonna get a few things done write a memo all right see ya