Ask Lafeber

Adopted CAG – 16 Years Old

I recently adopted a 16 year old male CAG (Gary) from a man who had a terminal illness and couldn’t keep him. My family visited him once a week for over a month before I brought him home, and I have now had him for about 5 weeks. Gary has only come out of his cage 4 times since he came to live with us. We are constantly offering treats and he will take them in the cage, but that does not mean he agrees to come out. He instead climbs on the inside of the cage to the middle where his rope swing is and “bows up” at whoever is attempting the step up. I grew up with birds and have birds now, but I’ve never had one just stop wanting to come out nor do I know how to help him want come out other than the sweet talking and treats. I am tired of watching youtube videos and reading articles that don’t exactly describe our situation and would like to hear from a real human on my problem. Thank you!

Hi Roberta,

Given the circumstances, Gary’s behavior is perfectly normal, especially for a Grey. Greys can take a long time to accept changes. The fact that he has come out of the cage at all for you already is quite an achievement. Keep being patient with him, talk softly to him and keep offering treats. He needs to feel secure in his new home and he needs time to grieve and accept that this is where he will be living and that he will not be moved to yet another home. Talk to him as much as you can – just normal one sided conversation. He will become more interested in participating in what he is missing out on. Right now he feels safe in his cage. He will eventually feel safe in his new house. While I generally don’t recommend letting a bird come out on its own to sit on a cage, this is a different case. Try leaving the cage door open and sit near the cage, Read to him or have a snack that he can share. Get him curious about what you are doing. Instead of “invading” his space, let him come to you. Let him bond with you outside of his cage. Later on, you can work on getting him to step up in the cage. But for now, he needs to feel secure and needs to trust the people around him. This may take several more weeks or even months. Let Gary set the timeline. He will potentially live another 60 or more years, so a few months is not long in the big picture. The important thing is to engage him while not pressuring him and definitely do not ignore him. He probably has some sense of abandonment if he was very close with his first owner, so he needs love and reassurance so that he can feel like it is OK to bond with someone else.

Good luck and let us know how Gary progresses.

Brenda