Do All African Greys Talk? (Find Out!!)

When comparing parrots breeds to each other regarding talking abilities, the African grey parrot will stand out as the best talking parrot in regard to clarity and the wide vocabulary. African grey might use words to express their feeling and desires just like what happened with Alex the African grey.

But, Do All African Greys Talk?

African greys have a great ability to talk and mimic every sound they hear in their surrounding area. However, some greys may lack this ability because they are too old and couldn’t learn at a young age, or because of the discouraging environment that prevents the bird from talking and mimicking sounds.

Apart from that, there are more reasons for an African grey not talking, and this may include:

Do African Greys Talk

Lack Of Safety

Some African greys may already be tamed and gentle with people, but they still can’t pronounce a single word because they are afraid of something that is around them. And this can even lead African grey to lose focus on learning extra words they repeatedly hear.

Safety is the number one factor that every parrot should get when raised as a pet, and the absence of it can make the bird live a stressful life that will cause them to develop the desire to fly away.

Sickness

Sickness is an important reason that could prevent African greys from talking and mimicking sounds and, by sickness, I mean anything that their body needs from food, care, and medication. Besides that, and after recovery, the sick African Grey might forget words it used to say previously, just like what happened with one of my African greys. However, my bird got back to normal after a few weeks.

Shyness

Sometimes African greys won’t talk just because they feel shy, yes African greys are shy parrots and this feeling can cause them to stay quiet even if they are bonded to their owners. The place of the cage can cause this feeling with your African grey, and if the bird is new, give it at least 2 weeks to get used to its new place.


These are the common reasons an African grey won’t talk, but there are more few reasons like the bird is feeling bad, sometimes greys won’t talk for days because the owner did something they hate, and sometimes they won’t talk because they just don’t want to talk.

What Is The Best Environment For Talking Greys?

If You want to raise an African grey that talks often then you have to provide the best environment for the bird, and the most important thing is to pin the cage in a high area in the living room, you have to make the grey feel that he is on the observation point and not being observed by you or any other family member.

Putting the cage in a high area will provide safety, and it will help with the natural shyness of African greys. Yet, make sure that the living room gets night’s quietness for the bird to sleep, especially when you have few family members.

Besides that, putting the grey in the observation point in the living room will provide mental stimulation which will keep the bird entertained and will prevent any bad temper that could lead to aggression and depression. Basically, the grey shouldn’t feel lonely.

Spending time playing and training new simple tricks is also a good idea for lone owners.

One important thing is the diversified diet system that every African grey need to stay healthy, both mentally and physically.

What Age Does African Grey Talk?

African grey can start talking after 12 months old, and this can go up to 18 months. And they can keep learning unfamiliar words until they reach 12-15 years of age. After that, they will be more likely to mimic the word they already have.

How To Teach Your African Grey To Talk?

The easiest parrot to learn to talk and mimic is the African grey parrot, and for owners, all they have to do is to place their greys in a safe place where most of the speech is happening with providing the previous condition for the bird. 2-3 weeks later, the bird will start saying some random words with the same clarity the bird heard the word for the first time, so remember to place the parrot in a place where everything is being heard quite clearly.

Another way is to say words when you play with your grey, this will help the bird learn faster and it also going to make the bird recognize the names of different objects in the house, and with advanced practice, the bird may say the names of the stuff he wants like food, toys, etc.

Are African Greys Good Talkers?

Yes, African greys are the best talkers at least, in my opinion, the only breeds that can beat African grey in regard to talking are the macaws, but macaw won’t beat the greys in the speech’s clarity or the wide vocabulary, no. The only thing macaws are better in is the sentence length. Macaws can mimic long sentences, but with a bad clarity that owners might not understand what their macaws are saying.

How Long Does An African Grey Take To Talk?

African greys are not exceptional in just talking and mimicking, they are also exceptional in the speed of learning unfamiliar words, and some greys can pronounce unfamiliar words after hearing them only once or twice.

How Many Words Can An African GREY Parrot Say?

African greys can say a lot of words no matter how hard it is to pronounce, the most important thing is that the bird is familiar with the word and it’s included in their vocabulary, which can be as much as a list of 800-1000 words.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Although African greys have an exceptional ability to talk, not all of them will show this ability and some of them will never say a word even if the owners trained them, and this is mostly because of a previous mental issue they had like trauma or bad experience with a human being.

Sometimes African greys can forget words because of mental issues which they are sensitive to.

And yes, that’s about African grey talking ability. I hope you found this article informative and easy to digest. Thank you for reading…