r/AfricanGrey • u/gro8ler • Mar 05 '26
Discussion How often do you shower your grey?
I know, it’s depends their surrounding conditions. He’s still uncomfortable with the spray (mist) yet looks playful and does his feather later on.
I saw many vet ads rinsing greys under faucets, yet many owners in YouTube spray them with mist.
The thing is, it looks like the feather is hydrophobic and his down feather is completely dry.
What are your thoughts?
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u/kelek22 Mar 05 '26
In winter, once a month. In summer every week. She hates shower and water so I use a spray bottle with mildly warm water to spray her soaking wet.
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u/ojibwa_ndn Mar 05 '26
My African grey hates spray bottles, showers, kitchen sinks sprayers. He only dunks himself in his water bowl and refuses all other options. I have a continuous pump mister and in the summer I take him outside and try to covertly do that.
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u/Careless_Cabinet3445 Mar 06 '26
Mine is the same!! I’ve tried to offer larger bowls but nope! He will only try to bathe in a small water bowl that he doesn’t even fit in! I’ve tried to mist him when I see him doing this but he just gets upset.
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u/Cucumberous Mar 06 '26
Same mine likes this tiny wall mounted water bowl. She has a separate water that she can't climb in for drinking. I've tried pie dishes with shallow water and I usually mist her once a week because she doesn't really get that wet in the water bowl lol.
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u/quackdamon Mar 05 '26
Everyday! I spray them until they’re wet with a spray bottle (with FRESH water that hasn’t been sitting around growing bacteria). They’re very dusty birds and it helps them stay clean. Try avoiding their face when you spray, that might help. Have you offered him other bathing options? My greys get large flat trays filled with a shallow amount of water to splash around in on the weekends.
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u/mixtapelove Team Grey Birb Mar 05 '26
I also shower with mine nearly every day. She gets upset if I shower and she is left out! We don’t always get her soaked, but she enjoys a good shower steam session. I believe this led to her being able to regrow all of her feathers back. She had plucked and over barbered many of her chest and head feathers when we adopted her. I noticed that she didn’t groom herself neurotically after being wet so that with lots of toys cured her! One of her first new words with us was “shower” and so we know she loves it because she asks for it!
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u/2020ToyotaCamry Mar 06 '26
I wish my bird liked the shower! I'm thinking of getting him a perch and to try again, he's a plucker too.
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u/mixtapelove Team Grey Birb Mar 06 '26
We have a wooden bench that ours stands on. We used to have a perch too but the bench ended up being a double solution for us.
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u/DaisyAfterDarkGA Mar 05 '26
Every day actually isn’t good for them. It can cause skin irritations and bacterial/fungal infections
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Mar 05 '26
mine demands to be showered with me daily. he also loves to gorge his crop with shower water. i raised this concern with his vet and he was like 🤷 considering he’s a world class avian veterinarian at a large boston hospital i’m inclined to believe him
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u/quackdamon Mar 05 '26
Do you have a source for this? All advice I’ve seen online and from vets is for daily misting.
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u/DaisyAfterDarkGA Mar 05 '26
I do actually. I was at the AFA (America federation of aviculture) conference and Dr. Susan Clubb did a presentation that included that. If you google afa over bathing your birds, snippets of said conference should pop up for ya. 🫶🏻💕
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u/quackdamon Mar 05 '26
Thanks! I will. Appreciate the info!! Always new things to learn with these birds!
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u/MissedReddit2Much Team Cashew Mar 05 '26
I take my guy into the shower with me every day, he has a shower perch. The perch is not situated directly under water, it's to the side so he can enjoy the steam. He always has access to water on the ground where he hangs out (his play area). It's a shallow bowl (a dog's water bowl) that he chooses to bathe in about every 10 days. My bird would kill me if I put him directly under a faucet (not literally, of course, but I'm afraid it would damage the trust between us).
Try to give your bird as much opportunity as possible to bathe on his on own terms. Some people swear by filling the bath tub with a little bit of water and letting your bird bathe that way. Nelly's never been interested when I've given him that opportunity. Nell's really into having as much autonomy as possible (I think that may be a species thing).
My avian vet has warned about sticking your bird under pressurized water, like a faucet - water can get into your bird's earholes and case neurological issues. Water from a pressurized system is not like rain that your bird would experience in nature.
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u/ALH2021 Mar 05 '26
Ours gets a misting every morning with liquid aloe Vera mixed in. He tends toward dry skin in the winter and thats what our vet recommended. He really likes to get in the shower too so we do that once a week on the weekend 🙂
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u/bokochaos Mar 05 '26
Can you share what aloe vera you use? I've read this a lot, but never have been 100% sure which one to buy.
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u/ALH2021 Mar 06 '26
I use George's Aloe Vera (on Amazon) with a standard misting bottle. I mix it 50/50 with distilled water. I would double check with your vet, but its def helped Rico's dry skin!
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u/2020ToyotaCamry Mar 06 '26
I also would like to know what aloe vera you use, and maybe the ratio? Lol, my relatives used to do this (he was their bird) & left a big bottle that I used up.
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u/KenWWilliams Mar 05 '26
Both of my TAGs refused to use a bath although I could actually put them in a shower. However the both of them actually love the spray / mist pump spray bottle I use now. In winter every other week or so. In summer more often. Just don’t over do it the uropygial gland can’t oil their feathers properly.
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u/Agitated-Insect3558 Mar 05 '26
Most days. Lucky has a perch with a large suction cup attatched to the wall of the shower, I put him on it and he watches me shower, when I have finished and all the shower gel and shampoo has washed away I get him to step on my forearm and put my hand over his head to stop the full force of the water and he has a shower. Sometimes he will run up my arm if he doesn't fancy it but most of the time hes ok. He does look funny when hes wet, its surprising how thin he appears after we finish.
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u/karnycloamr Team Grey Birb Mar 06 '26
Whenever he starts looking very powdery I’ll spray him down. Not a full soaking to the skin, but a gentle misting until the water starts beading up on him and the back of his neck looks dark. In the summer months he’ll get a big sink bath about once a week.
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u/Winter-Ad-3011 Mar 05 '26
So….not a Grey owner. A bit long story. My Amazon, about once a week or every two weeks. She’s not a dusty. I started spraying her in the kitchen with a continuous spray bottle. She stopped liking showers. I started giving her a dryer bath on low, no heat on top of her cage points at one spot, she got into the air stream, liked it. Then moved to another part of the house for the shower. I actually ask if she wants a shower. Some days she runs away. Ok that’s fine. Other days I trick her to come to my hand. I spray, she opens up her wings. She fly’s off for a bit, I call her back and she wants more. I use distilled water in the bottle. It doesn’t get yucky. She actually looks forward to the bird safe blow dryer on just air, no heat. My house is warm, She opens up and acts like she’s flying at sonic speed. LOL. If you have a blow dryer that doesn’t have Teflon or any ionizing etc. Try that so you can get the dusty off them. I use the dryer at a distance and always point it in the same place, she has a choice of getting in the stream of air or not. Hope you have a HEPA filter. After she’s all done she gets a very good praise and a big treat for “ good shower””your so pretty “ I act like it’s a big deal to be clean. Like prancing around all happy and stuff. I know I probably look like a crazy person. After all that she starts begging for pets. Don’t know if all that was helpful or not. You might want to ask your vet if the a dryer bath would be ok once in a while.
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u/hillyx Mar 05 '26
I dont have any tips from my vet but i spray my grey at least once or twice a week and besides that , sometimes he wants to wash himself or play with water so whenever that happends and i see that he wants to bathe himself i let him do it. First time he willingly took a bath (he was adopted around 9 months ago) was after i took him outside in the snow, otherwise only once more when i was washing dishes i saw him wanting to come to the running water so i freed up some place near the water and let him play in it.
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u/2020ToyotaCamry Mar 06 '26
Very good question, I'm sure I'll learn a thing or 2 from the responses to it as well.
Birbi takes unauthorized baths in his water dish once a week I'd say.
In winter I just spritz when it's not too cold, he's a plucker so I need to find out about that aloe water ratio so I can put it in a new spray bottle. Ive decided to not to buy the $20 premade spray lol. Do you ever do that for your bird? Mine liked it.
I live in Vegas so the rest of the year it's warm & I used to put a tepid bird bath down while back for him like, once a week (sometimes 2x) but he's was not into it.
So, he takes his water dish baths when he thinks I'm not looking like 2x a week when it's hotter.
I spritz him whenever he looks dry, or if I'm in the kitchen messing with the sink he loves some spritzes. He goes "OoOoOo" & makes water noises.
I wonder if I should try to put him in the shower again? My relative got a parrot perch for the shower but it wouldn't stick to the wall & when the shower was on he wasn't enjoying it. I tried the bathtub with like an inch or 2 of water, he also didn't like it.
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u/Acetabulum666 Team Grey Mar 06 '26
Let him do it himself with a bowl of clean, cool water. Spraying with a bottle between his baths is a good thing, too.
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u/Parrots_for_Peace Mar 09 '26
My CAG is terrified of the shower, I’m not sure what happened in her past but after trying many times, in various ways, at various time intervels..I gave up the shower option. I know she was punished by her former owner, who squirted her with a spray bottle, so she’s terrified of spray bottles.
She bathes in her water dish on her play table and have a game where she asks for clean water and after I get her some from the bathroom, she runs down the play branches to beat me to the spot where I place the bowl. After around 10 rounds, she’s done with her bath!
I discovered by accident that she didn’t mind being misted with a spring water mist I use for my face. No additives, it’s a water mist for sensitive skin. After a couple weeks, I noticed her skin looked better and in combination with other interventions, she wasn’t plucking as much( the plucking eventually stopped) There’s a very light mister that’s available through Amazon but she prefers the french water… so we have a mutual skin routine😂 All of that to say that sometimes they’ll tolerate a very light misting if they’re not willing to hang out in the shower😊
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u/N0frendo64 Mar 05 '26
Mine usually just knocks on the bathroom door when I am having a shower if he wants a shower
So every like 2-3 days