If you are fortunate enough to purchase a young, hand-fed African Grey parrot, training your new companion, for the most part, will become nothing more then showing him the do’s and don’ts of living in your household, re-enforcing certain patterns, repetition and lots of patience and love

Beyond this, “training” becomes a personal choice and as I mentioned before African Greys are quite different then other exotic birds in that you can never really domesticate them. It is best to train yourself to honor and respect these little guys and learn to understand their needs and behavior. This will come in time, as you get use to your new friend and he gets use to you, AND your routine.

As far as talking goes, African Greys, in my opinion, are by far the best talkers of all of the so called ‘parrots’. Their ability to talk and communicate comes from their superior intelligence.

Greys WANT to communicate with you. They will often tell you of their needs, their feelings/emotions, something they might see or even something that is funny to them.

Generally the best way to train a grey is to simply show him or her what you would like them to do and repeat this until they understand your intentions.

Speaking to them as you would speak to any other encourages them to begin to talk. Start by using simple words or small phrases and try to relate the word or phrase to something that you are doing or to some event that might have meaning to the bird.

It boils down to a matter of trust, love and technique. Once you have established a bond with your bird, and he loves and trust you, all else is fairly easy.

For those who are interested in a more structured and proven way to train an African Grey, you should check out Chet Womachs intensive course on Parrot Training. He shows you methods and tricks that even the professional trainers don’t know exist.

The couple in the video to the left have used Chet’s training methods.  Listen to what they have to say.

Check the course out here: Parrot Training.

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