Do African Grey Parrots Talk? 7 Facts You Should Know

The African Grey parrot is also known by the name Congo African Grey. It is an Old World parrot from the Psittacidae family. Let us know about their unique characteristics.

African grey parrots can talk. African grey parrots are frequently regarded as among the best talkers by owners and aviculturists. Most of them are experts in mimicking their owners or others. This is a medium-sized parrot, which can talk great.

Many of these species have great skills for mimicking. If they get trained well, they display those sheer skills. The talking ability is not everything, but there are some more significances we can learn in the rest of the article.

Do All African Grey Parrots Talk?

African grey parrots have some general features similar to other parrots. Talking is one of those features. Let us learn whether all of them exhibit this property or not.

All African grey parrots are not talkers. The talker ones also have different abilities. Some can talk great, some cannot. The champion budgie Puck, who passed away in 1974, knew 1700 words. However, the budgerigar’s voice is piping high and difficult to comprehend.

The talking ability of this bird is not always found at birth. The great talkers or small talkers, all seem to have some certain timeframe of their talking ability to grow or establish.

When Do African Grey Parrots Start Talking?

African greys typically start talking seriously between the ages of 12 and 18 months. Many speak their first words far sooner than this, although genuine talking and chattering begin later. The most vocal African grey parrots can be found, however, they do not begin talking until they are older than a year.

Do Male Or Female African Grey Parrots Talk Better?

Male African grey parrots are known as better talkers than female ones. In the case of socialism, the male ones are better than females. Though, there is no proven difference in the ability of male or female grey parrots learning the human languages.

How To Train African Grey To Talk?

All talking birds cannot learn much vocabulary without any help. They can mimic others by observing, but they learn some things through training. Let us know more.

There are some techniques that can be made to train an African grey parrot to talk. The techniques are listed below:

1. Giving Reward

The first easy technique to educate a parrot talk is to give it a treat. Not only treat, any reward that it likes can appreciate the bird to speak even the smallest portion of a word.

The trainer must then gradually raise the bar to train the bird to fully utter the word. The more it gets a reward, its interest in talking will increase.

2. Talking To It

To encourage the bird to talk, the owner can start with talking to it everyday with an enthusiastic tone. Small talks can help that bird to initiate to talk and increase its tendency to mimic the owner.

3. Using One Or Two Syllables

Small words like one or two syllable long words can help the parrot to initiate talking. For example, if the owner picks a word like “Ross” and says repeatedly with enthusiasm, the grey parrots will start to picking it faster.

Using an encouraging tone, energy, and excitement can help the bird to start talking faster. Birds match the energy level of the owner. African greys often capture the common household sounds like the doorbell, phone ringing, or many other sounds like other pets’ voices as those they can hear repeatedly.

What Causes An African Grey To Stop Talking?

Any kind of illness in the trachea or syringeal region may cause a bird to stop vocalizing or cause its vocalization to shift. One of the most prevalent respiratory conditions that alter vocalization is aspergillosis. Birds that abruptly stop vocalizing could be under stress, unhappy, bored, or even unwell.

Are African Grey Parrots Talkative?

African grey parrots are talkative and can repeat words and sentences after hearing them just one or two times. Around a year old, this bird develops its complete speaking capacity, however, most individuals can mimic sounds considerably earlier.

The grey’s capacity to communicate contributes much to its popularity. These birds talk throughout the day, despite not being well-known for being noisy screamers. And when they want to, they can be incredibly loud.

Conclusion

African Grey parrots, also known as Congo African grey parrot, are very talkative birds. They are unique for their imitating and mimicking behavior which start developing from the age of one year. They can be trained for better ability. Male parrots of this species are more social than females.

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