Two Greys together

I was trying to take the photo of the two together with no success. One day, I had an excellent idea! Why not take photos of them in shower? And it worked! Hoy (left) and Dee Dee (right) happily taking a shower together.

Our Greys (2)

This is Dee Dee, who came to our home 2 & a half months ago. After having lived with Hoy for almost 2 years, I wanted to have a companion for her (up to this time, we'd believed Hoy was a male). I had an opportunity to go to Tokyo area where there are several shops with desirable Greys. In one of the pet shops, I met Dee Dee. She was not in a good shape. Her plumage was so damaged from plucking and she looked so frightened. There was another female Grey looking very healthy and active. After thinking which to choose a while, I decided on Dee Dee. She is tame and really a nice girl. Only thing is that she still imitates the calls of Macaws and other large parrots at times and it can get VERY NOISY. Hoy tells Dee Dee to hush.

The pet shop clerk said that Dee Dee's feather plucking started after her flight feathers were clipped for safety. I am hoping the her plumage will grow back soon. By the way, she hasn't plucked feathers as she used to since she arrived in our home.

Our Greys

I am a ardent parrot lover. I have been one for all my life but hadn't have the chance to be an owner of them (or to be more precise, be owned by them) until 2 years ago. My husband and I happened to visit a pet shop in October, 2008 to find that the shop was closing down and a few parrots were left unsold. The woman at the shop told us that the parrots would be taken to another affiliated pet shop which was less spacious (to say the least). I felt really sorry for them but couldn't take all of them home. So, we decided to get the African Grey, who looked so bored and sleepy. This is how we encountered our first Grey, Hoy.

The pet shop clerk said to us, "He's pretty tame..." It turned out that he was tame so long as he was in the cage. It took him a while (almost a year) to get adjusted to our home and to become really tame and a member of our family in a true sense. (We had to go through quite a bit of bleeding incidents and other disasters.)

Now she (We found out it was a she recently, but I'll tell this whole story later on) is basically toilet-trained. She tells us when she wants to poo, or she goes to the certain spot in our kitchen to do so, where we spread newspaper for that purpose. How does she tell us when? By pulling our clothes or ears when she wants to "go to the bathroom."

It is said that you shouldn't put your parrots on your shoulders. However, our Greys do not seem to pose any problems by doing so. We do not clip her flight feathers so she can go wherever she wants when she's let out of the cage, of course, under our supervision.