Congo African grey

My grey turns eight months old tomorrow, he makes all kinds of crazy noises said yellow a couple times. Question is do you think he will start talking soon or at all?

I have not researched when they start talking but, teaching them from day 1 is what they need. African Greys have an enormous ability to talk and mimic. The way I have taught other birds is to choose one word or phrase and a time and repeat it over and over again. When they learn that word or phrase, move on to another. I have had an older African Grey Congo for a couple of months and he has said 31 words and phrases so far and imitates 6 different animals. They are excellent talkers and they can learn to associate so I'm teaching him that now - for example, that Meow, meow is what a cat says and Brock, brock is what a chicken says. They are fun birds. Mine is already showing signs of association but, not regarding the animal sounds - yet. Have fun with your bird. I've not fallen so hard for one of these birds in the past as I did this one. He just melted my heart.

Each bird is an individual....Some will talk at an early age,others may never talk. Smokey was about six months old when she came home with me,and she was with me less than six months when she said her first words to my mom...HOW ARE YOU???!!! when mom uncovered her house one morning Mom almost fell on the floor lol.
After the first initial word/phrase/sounds she quickly picked up different things regularly..I didn't even have to try to "teach" her.

Greys are truly an amazing creature..but like I said...some may never talk.
Just love and enjoy your birdie for what he/she is,you will be amazed beyond belief





Jim

Like Jim said individuals vary... For all you know he's already picked up something... But is still shy to use the words... Give him time... Use words in context... You'll be surprised how he'll learn to use it in context too.
My Grey says 'over' every time she drops her toy... I started using the word to say no more treats. She says about 10 different words & phrases. Even though she's close to me she imitates my girl friend more. [emoji23]

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Greys are extremely social and vocal. I suspect if your grey is already vocalizing and saying yellow, he will be a talker. Nigel is my most vocal bird ever and it seems he has a new word or phrase every day.

One of my favorite things he does is make a "pfffft" sound when aggravated with me (you can imagine it happens a lot ha!).

What I make a practice of doing is talking to him whenever I am in the room. He now speaks in context, "Good morning" when he first comes out of cage in the morning, and "Noooooo" when he doesn't want to do something. He will ask for popcorn and tell me when he has to poop.

Sometimes we wonder if he owns us and not the other way around.

Do not under estimate ANY bird really..Even little Beebs is a smarty. When I get in from work in the morning I go right to the living room to say good morning to the kids. BB will say "hello" to me...and it is ONLY in the morning when he says this. And funny thing being, is I never tried to "teach" him to say this.
He picked it up all on his own




Jim

XHi, yes I know I have too be patient my grey is very vocal too the point he doesn't stop he makes the craziest sounds you have too laugh and think talking is just. Around the corner.

My Chico is starting to repeat everything it's just in a scratchy voice.

Right, some greys are great sound mimics, some become great talkers, some do both and rarely some will be rather quiet. But Greys never stop observing, closely studying their surroundings, their flock , etc, etc. You can try one of those repeating boxes to get him jump started with talking, thats what I did with Salty ( not a grey, but an Amazon specieis that can be good talkers). We started him off with Hello, and a few other words, and once he got the idea that he can talk back to us, whoosh , he started to pick up other words from our daily conversations, and we stopped using the box pretty quickly. Also, some parrots like learning from videos of other parrots talking or singing, from Youtube. Thats where Salty gets most of his talking now, he is partial to listening to Indian Ringnecks and other Amazons. He doesn't react to greys, cockatoos or macaws talking. SO you might try letting him listen and watch some vids of other parrots talking.