Keeping Gray Parrots: Smart, heartfelt and passionate care

By Klaus Beckmann

This book provides helpful tips and advice to both, new parrot owners and those who already have advanced knowledge and want to know more about species compatible parrot care. It provides detailed, easy - to- understand and transparent insights into the acquisition, optimum living conditions, the diet, socialization as well as the raising of Gray Parrots.

• Language: English
• Publisher: XinXii
• Release date: Mar 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9783754953990

Book preview

Table of Contents

Foreword

Klaus Beckmann

Martina Beckmann

The early days

Things to consider before acquiring parrots

Acquiring Gray Parrots

Accommodations

Our bird habitat

Diet and nutrition

Pellet food

Nutritional supplements

My feeding patterns

Annotations regarding fruit and vegetables

Household hazards

Hygiene and Precautions

Pests in Birdseed

Mice

Martens

Peanuts

Improper focus on humans

Socialization

The socialization process

Trust between humans and animals

Raising Parrots

Talking Gray Parrots

Biting parrots

Body language

Plucking

Our approach to breeding

Breeding Gray Parrots

Diseases

Strengthening the immune system

Happy parrots

Theory & real life

Sexual characteristics

How much should Gray Parrots weigh?

Closing Statement

Foreword

Countless parrots lead miserable lives. Many of their keepers lack fundamental essentials and do not have sufficient expertise to give their birds a life that is at least somewhat tolerable.

Anyone who owns such wonderful beings should be aware of the responsibilities that go hand in hand with keeping these amazing birds. We have been advocates for fostering the welfare of parrots for many years and share our knowledge with interested enthusiasts.

After receiving innumerable requests and upon thoroughly contemplating the objective, we have decided to write a book that summarizes all of our experiences gained in more than 30 years of keeping and breeding Gray Parrots.

Given that we prefer to talk about the practical side of bird keeping over theoretical essays, this guidebook covers only experiences and advice that is based on our own practices and life with parrots. Hence, with the aim of making this book as easy to understand as possible, we intentionally did not include any scientific explanations.

Mönchengladbach May 2021

Our Gray Parrots

Frodo - Kim - Tino - Abby - Rico - Maja

Klaus Beckmann

I grew up on a farm and have consequently had interactions with animals all of my life. I was taught to respect animals at a very early age and to never be fearful of them. Hence, I learned how to live with animals and to interpret their verbal and body language as a small child. No animal ever bit or attacked me, because we understood each other and my body language worked in harmony with theirs.

I have been keeping animals throughout my entire life and I am particularly partial to birds.

Just once and only for a few years I stopped keeping animals.

Soccer has been my second great passion besides my love for animals. Consequently, when legendary trainer and coach Hennes Weisweiler observed me during a youth tournament, he discovered my talent. At the age of 15, he eventually encouraged me to leave the club in the village and join the great Borussia team, where I could hone my skills and began my life as a competitive athlete. From 1972 - 1975 I played for Germany in 22 international youth matches. In 1975, I signed a contract as a professional player for the Borussia Mönchengladbach team.

Unfortunately, my hopes for a soccer career were shattered by an irreparable knee injury before it even began. However, this meant that I could once again dedicate my life to animals.

I have been keeping and breeding Gray Parrots since 1988. I also tended to Sulphur-crested Cockatoos for a few years. Sometimes we kept up to 28 parrots, which obviously was a lot of work and costly. Since, as a result of competitive sports, my bones and joints are not functioning as well as I’d like them to, we drastically reduced our flock.

Now we have just three pairs of Gray Parrots and keeping them is just a hobby.

I am now trying to share my knowledge with others who have an interest in parrots to give them the best life possible.

Martina Beckmann

I grew up in the Baden Region of Germany and have had a loving relationship with animals since early childhood. As a little girl I was already fascinated with parrots. Yet, I always knew that I would never be able to offer these wonderful animals a life worth living on my own. I simply lacked the expertise, did not have the room or support to engage in this time consuming hobby. However, fate eventually intervened, and I met the man who is now my husband. In our initial conversations, we ended up talking about parrots. Just 14 months later, we exchanged rings and began our lives as rooster and hen. At the time, my husband had been keeping parrots for 20 years already and we built our breeding facility step by step. Although my husband has taught me a lot about our past time, I am amazed, time and again, how much I still don’t know, and I am learning more every day. Given that I had an increasing notion to document our collective knowledge, I encouraged my husband to go ahead with this project and so, finally, we wrote this book as a team effort.

The early days

When I began keeping parrots in 1988, it proved to be an extremely difficult undertaking to obtain husbandry information for these wonderful sentient beings.

Breeders made immense efforts to keep their science secret. In fact, some of them still do that today. It was hard to find any informative literature on the market. Back then, the Internet did not exist yet and consequently, parrot forums were not accessible either. I am completely serious when I claim to have learned all that I know today entirely on my own.

I analyzed and studied the behavior patterns of my birds through intense observation. I watched how they acted in specific situations. For years, I documented the behavior and the body language of our birds in statistics.

I am familiar with every act and every emotion. Obviously, I made mistakes in the early days of keeping parrots, but I never made the same mistake twice. My utmost priority was always the welfare of the birds and I made sure not to engage in any experiments.

Nowadays, a few clicks online is all it takes to get all the necessary information to provide the animals with a life that fosters their wellbeing. Of course it is important to ascertain that the information is actually helpful and beneficial. That’s definitely not an easy feat. Especially those who are new parrot keepers are literally swamped with information and obviously have a tough time determining which sources are trustworthy and which ones are not. Time and again, I am flabbergasted by the hair raising advice given in most forums. The welfare of the animal is clearly considered less important than the human ego, which reigns supreme.

Experiments are common-place, and armchair veterinarians share their collective, of course non-existent, expertise. The victims are almost always the birds.

Over the decades of pursuing my hobby, I met a lot of people. Through the years, I built a network of veterinarians, professors as well as animal nutrition scientists, etc. I can consult these individuals any time I need assistance. As a result, true and lasting friendships have evolved from these relationships.

On the other hand, I have gotten to know quite a few experts who procure their knowledge exclusively from the Internet. They peruse one study after another and demand evidence for everything. They have never kept their own birds and possess merely theoretical knowledge. Without a doubt they have never actually used their theoretical knowledge on live birds.

I prefer the practical interaction

Tino

Things to consider before acquiring parrots

Quite a lot of people eventually consider owning a parrot. However, most of them do not find out about the responsibilities they are assuming ahead of time.

If tended to properly, Gray Parrots have a life expectancy of 40 - 60 years. At a minimum, they must be kept in pairs since they are