Termiraptor
New member
- Jun 7, 2022
- 2
- 4
- Parrots
- Rainbow Lorikeet
Hi y'all!
I think I need some serious advice, because I'm kinda lost over here
Meet Maya:
(Don't mind the mess, cage cleaning day is coming
)
Maya was offered to me when I moved out, having never had a pet I was so happy and proud her owners deemed me responsible enough to take care of that colorful featherball! She wasn't handfed, I knew there would be a lot of work.
So I spent a lot of time doing my homework, how to deal with a bird, teaching it tricks, making it part of my own flock and so on. Of course I was delighted looking up vids of peeps interacting with their playful and loving lori's!
I've had her for almost half a year now and well, let's say reality is (painfully) different...
The more time goes by, and the more I start to think Maya just blankly hates me. I work 6 days on 7, so on those 6 days I try to interact with her as much as possible in the evening. But she just doesn't seem interested in interacting with me.
Of course it's not all bad, but I would say 90% of the time we spend together is negative (she'll squawk at me, arch her back, tremble, bite or nip when given the chance) or neutral (she'll just go to the other side of her cage of where I'm standing, or just stand perfectly still when I'm changing her food and water bowl.).
The 10% of positive interaction we have, I managed to get her on my finger (until the day she started reaaally hating my fingers), on my arm, shoulder, legs, and just the other day after a panic flight she landed on my head. She also seems to really enjoy the peek-a-boo game. Also, last week I was able to teach her to gently touch the tip of my finger before offering her food. This came after a few days of offering grape parts with the top of that finger (an attempt to make her trust my fingers again), and some comical demonstration of me doing a smooching sound while kissing my finger and then eating a grape, after what I presented her my finger probably a 100 times doing the smoochig sound, with her just cluelessly staring
.
There's also been a dozen times where she would comically bounce her head up and down before making a lightning-fast in and out motion with her tongue with which I can't compete, although I'd do my very best to imitate her.
Whenever there's food involved, there's no problem, I present her grapes (or something else, but I've noticed grapes are her favorite, so I use mostly these as treats) and she just starts eating out of my hand or when I let go of it she takes it with her.
Over to the negative 90% then...
I do my best to leave her cage open when I'm home, so she gets the chance to stretch her wings and explore the rest of the ground floor. The furthest she has gone on her own in this situation for the past 2 months was the roof of her cage. Of course I'm not in the same room all the time, but she could freely join me if she wanted to, as the doors are open and I remain in sight from where she is. Well that never happens. Most of the time, she even won't bother coming out and just remain in her cage. Sometimes I try to attract her on my arm (using treats) for a walk through the house. 2 times out of the 3, she will try grabbing the grape without stepping up, leaning her body with as less physical contact as possible, until she figures out there's no way she's grabbing it and calls it a day. The 1 time out of the 3 I will book success will be after careful consideration of my arm, trying to only step up with one leg, the other one holding for dear life to a cage bar, stretching as far as possible to be able to reach that grape, and finally giving up and reluctantly putting that second leg on my arm. Most of the times she will chicken out after one bite and return into her cage. Sometimes, I manage to take 2 to 3 steps away before she turns around and flies back. And on rare occasions, I manage to get her to my living room, before she flies off. She learned the concept of a window that way I'm sorry to say...
Apart from that, I noticed she doesn't bathe. Of course I tried to solve this in multiple ways, first with a simple water bowl at the floor of her cage (she blatantly ignored it for 2 days before I took it away), a soft water mist using a hose outside (where she would try her very best to get out of the way of said mist), countless trials to get her in the sink (she consistently flies off when my arm nears the sink, then proceeds to remain on my shower wall and mock me and poop on my bathroom's floor), same thing in bath (same result), the return of the bowl with a little food bowl in the center (by some dark magic she managed to get the food bowl to the side while I was away, so no bathing), until last week I used up my last resort solution and took her whole cage with me in the shower. While not panicking, she tried for the whole duration of it to find a dry spot where she could stay away from getting wet. Tried a few internet tricks to get her in the mood (putting on the vacuum cleaner or rainforest rain ambient), but none seemed to trigger any kind of response.
Petting isn't even a question as she will agressively attack my finger whenever it nears her, arched back and angry noises included for free.
Overall, Maya is a very 'chill' 4-year old rainbow lorikeet. Which, from what I've read, isn't a good thing for a lorikeet. Lorikeets are supposed to be adventurous, curious, sometimes a bit stupid, and social creatures. Maya is none of that. She reminds me of myself when I was depressed (lol), and I don't want her to live like that. She should be having fun, playing, be happy. Instead, she mostly remains still in her cage. Sometimes she has a screeching outbreak, where she'll just repeat the same damn high-pitched scream. I used to think it was a scream for attention, so I would always check if she had food and water, or if she just wanted to play. Almost always there's food and water, and I've already covered the interacting... Then my mind made the connection with the mirror.
She used to have a mirror (she already had it when I got her), and I (ab)used that thing to get her a bit out of her comfort zone, as that thing was holy to her and she would follow it wherever it went. It's only recently that I noticed that she was consistently always resting in the same place in her cage, where the mirror was. So after a bit of research, I found out that mirrors can lead to obsessive and unhealthy relationships for a bird. A led to B, I took it away, much to her displeasure.
It's only been a few days, but I noticed the screeching outbreaks are happenning lesser than usual, and she's starting to rest in other places in her cage. I'll keep an eye out to see how this evolves.
So that was a 'short' introduction to my relationship with my beautiful-but-oh-sometimes-such-a-pain-in-the-butt little devil.
Thanks for sticking around up to this point, I didn't plan to write a wall of text but God I think I just needed to share and write it all down
Of course I don't consider my bird a toy or something like that, she has the right to have feelings and bad days, but aren't these supposed to only happen once in a while? I feel I'm responsible for these, and I fear I'm missing out on something but I can't figure out what... I just want to have a healthy bond and some playful interaction with her. Right now I feel I have neither of these. Am I taking the wrong approach? Any tip, take or critics, anything is welcome! I just want to grow with her and provide her a good and fun life!
Thanks a lot!
PS: gonna book a visit to the avian vet soon, as I want her to be completely checked-up so I can rule out the physical health factor.
I think I need some serious advice, because I'm kinda lost over here
Meet Maya:
(Don't mind the mess, cage cleaning day is coming
)Maya was offered to me when I moved out, having never had a pet I was so happy and proud her owners deemed me responsible enough to take care of that colorful featherball! She wasn't handfed, I knew there would be a lot of work.
So I spent a lot of time doing my homework, how to deal with a bird, teaching it tricks, making it part of my own flock and so on. Of course I was delighted looking up vids of peeps interacting with their playful and loving lori's!
I've had her for almost half a year now and well, let's say reality is (painfully) different...
The more time goes by, and the more I start to think Maya just blankly hates me. I work 6 days on 7, so on those 6 days I try to interact with her as much as possible in the evening. But she just doesn't seem interested in interacting with me.
Of course it's not all bad, but I would say 90% of the time we spend together is negative (she'll squawk at me, arch her back, tremble, bite or nip when given the chance) or neutral (she'll just go to the other side of her cage of where I'm standing, or just stand perfectly still when I'm changing her food and water bowl.).
The 10% of positive interaction we have, I managed to get her on my finger (until the day she started reaaally hating my fingers), on my arm, shoulder, legs, and just the other day after a panic flight she landed on my head. She also seems to really enjoy the peek-a-boo game. Also, last week I was able to teach her to gently touch the tip of my finger before offering her food. This came after a few days of offering grape parts with the top of that finger (an attempt to make her trust my fingers again), and some comical demonstration of me doing a smooching sound while kissing my finger and then eating a grape, after what I presented her my finger probably a 100 times doing the smoochig sound, with her just cluelessly staring
.There's also been a dozen times where she would comically bounce her head up and down before making a lightning-fast in and out motion with her tongue with which I can't compete, although I'd do my very best to imitate her.
Whenever there's food involved, there's no problem, I present her grapes (or something else, but I've noticed grapes are her favorite, so I use mostly these as treats) and she just starts eating out of my hand or when I let go of it she takes it with her.
Over to the negative 90% then...
I do my best to leave her cage open when I'm home, so she gets the chance to stretch her wings and explore the rest of the ground floor. The furthest she has gone on her own in this situation for the past 2 months was the roof of her cage. Of course I'm not in the same room all the time, but she could freely join me if she wanted to, as the doors are open and I remain in sight from where she is. Well that never happens. Most of the time, she even won't bother coming out and just remain in her cage. Sometimes I try to attract her on my arm (using treats) for a walk through the house. 2 times out of the 3, she will try grabbing the grape without stepping up, leaning her body with as less physical contact as possible, until she figures out there's no way she's grabbing it and calls it a day. The 1 time out of the 3 I will book success will be after careful consideration of my arm, trying to only step up with one leg, the other one holding for dear life to a cage bar, stretching as far as possible to be able to reach that grape, and finally giving up and reluctantly putting that second leg on my arm. Most of the times she will chicken out after one bite and return into her cage. Sometimes, I manage to take 2 to 3 steps away before she turns around and flies back. And on rare occasions, I manage to get her to my living room, before she flies off. She learned the concept of a window that way I'm sorry to say...
Apart from that, I noticed she doesn't bathe. Of course I tried to solve this in multiple ways, first with a simple water bowl at the floor of her cage (she blatantly ignored it for 2 days before I took it away), a soft water mist using a hose outside (where she would try her very best to get out of the way of said mist), countless trials to get her in the sink (she consistently flies off when my arm nears the sink, then proceeds to remain on my shower wall and mock me and poop on my bathroom's floor), same thing in bath (same result), the return of the bowl with a little food bowl in the center (by some dark magic she managed to get the food bowl to the side while I was away, so no bathing), until last week I used up my last resort solution and took her whole cage with me in the shower. While not panicking, she tried for the whole duration of it to find a dry spot where she could stay away from getting wet. Tried a few internet tricks to get her in the mood (putting on the vacuum cleaner or rainforest rain ambient), but none seemed to trigger any kind of response.
Petting isn't even a question as she will agressively attack my finger whenever it nears her, arched back and angry noises included for free.
Overall, Maya is a very 'chill' 4-year old rainbow lorikeet. Which, from what I've read, isn't a good thing for a lorikeet. Lorikeets are supposed to be adventurous, curious, sometimes a bit stupid, and social creatures. Maya is none of that. She reminds me of myself when I was depressed (lol), and I don't want her to live like that. She should be having fun, playing, be happy. Instead, she mostly remains still in her cage. Sometimes she has a screeching outbreak, where she'll just repeat the same damn high-pitched scream. I used to think it was a scream for attention, so I would always check if she had food and water, or if she just wanted to play. Almost always there's food and water, and I've already covered the interacting... Then my mind made the connection with the mirror.
She used to have a mirror (she already had it when I got her), and I (ab)used that thing to get her a bit out of her comfort zone, as that thing was holy to her and she would follow it wherever it went. It's only recently that I noticed that she was consistently always resting in the same place in her cage, where the mirror was. So after a bit of research, I found out that mirrors can lead to obsessive and unhealthy relationships for a bird. A led to B, I took it away, much to her displeasure.
It's only been a few days, but I noticed the screeching outbreaks are happenning lesser than usual, and she's starting to rest in other places in her cage. I'll keep an eye out to see how this evolves.
So that was a 'short' introduction to my relationship with my beautiful-but-oh-sometimes-such-a-pain-in-the-butt little devil.
Thanks for sticking around up to this point, I didn't plan to write a wall of text but God I think I just needed to share and write it all down
Of course I don't consider my bird a toy or something like that, she has the right to have feelings and bad days, but aren't these supposed to only happen once in a while? I feel I'm responsible for these, and I fear I'm missing out on something but I can't figure out what... I just want to have a healthy bond and some playful interaction with her. Right now I feel I have neither of these. Am I taking the wrong approach? Any tip, take or critics, anything is welcome! I just want to grow with her and provide her a good and fun life!
Thanks a lot!
PS: gonna book a visit to the avian vet soon, as I want her to be completely checked-up so I can rule out the physical health factor.
