Anxiety and Screaming

[kfinklea1]

Hello All!

My boyfriend and I currently have a blue headed pionus and a cockatiel, both males. We are starting to experience anxiety with both birds and are unsure about what to do. A few things trigger the anxiety.

-Mainly leaving the room at all even for a second. Usually one or both birds will start screaming if we do this. I think this all started because my boyfriend is home all day for the most part working on his thesis and has been this way since we got both birds. They have not come to expect him to be in the room with them at all times. We do have a room upstairs with a second set of cages for the times when their need for attention constantly is too distracting for him and he has to put them up there. The cockatiel normally does fine up there but the pionus paces back and forth on the bottom of the cages and screams. We live in a duplex so we can't have him doing this all the time.

-Also the air conditioner. We have a wall unit which is fairly loud compared to central air. We just started needing to use this so its a sound the pionus is not used to as we got him in October when we were not using it. I'm not sure if he is scared of the sound or if the loudness just gets him going because he will beep and scream when it gets turned on. We are hoping he will get used to this as we continue to run it. We have also thought about just leaving it on fan mode when not running the ac so he can become accustomed to the noise.

Had anyone experienced either issue with anxiety or ave any advice. I know my boyfriend is at his whits end as he tries to write his thesis and deal with screaming birds.

 

[SailBoat]

The Screaming is all on the Humans!!!

So, being mean here!

You need to start communicating with your Parrots and the one at home is just as much to blame and the Human that disappears for longer periods of time!

In the Parrots natural range, they are in near constant communication with their peers - all day long and into the early evening!

Its like: I'm Okay are you Okay! I'm over here, where the heck are you? I just found a huge supply of great stuff, you should come here now! Okay, so where are you? Etc, etc, etc..... Hour after hour after hour.

Does there have to be that much chatter, well no, but I'm guess that the two of you are not keeping up your part of the communication here.

Start frist thing in the morning with lots of: Great to see you guys, did you sleep well, etc...

About 10 - 15 minutes before you leave, you should be activity letting them know that you are leaving and will be back in 'X' amount of time! When you come back home - its like the morning thing all over again! Lots of talk, talk, talk!

For the luck Human that is staying home! I'm going to bet that you are there working away and in the background the Parrots are 'communicating' and along comes a point where you simply scream back at them 'sorry, softly' communication your dislike for the screaming they are doing and a life just continues to spin out of control.

Here I am, answering your question while my big Amazon is eyeing me as to what can be more important then he? So, I will every few minutes just push a couple of words his way!

First: Communication with your Parrots needs to grow much larger than it currently is and the scream back stops also! Normal voice works.

Second: Do not react to the screaming, it only reinforces it!

If your home has ground level windows or windows that the individual outside can be seen from, try this: Complete your Good Byes, and I will be backs! Now the easy part, leave! Next step is to place yourself so that you can be seen from the window. The luck person inside now gets to place Parrots so they can see out the window and point at you! At that point you wave back to your Parrots! Do this several times and try ti with your return! They very quickly determine that you are outside and are Okay!

It has taken time to get to this point and will take time to back it out!

Wall Unit Air Conditioners!!! What a pain they can be. That said, does it belong to you or is it the property of the landlord?

If its yours, i.e. you as a home owner or condo owner and in some cases renter are responsible for the care and maintenance of the 'thing!' REPLACE IT! Its likely very old and long ago needed to be replaces. The fan is shot or overloaded with build-up and out of balance. The gas charge has long ago fallen below effective operating range, etc, etc, etc... You are now to a point that you are paying the Utility a premium every time you turn it on!

FYI: Most wall units are little more than a Window Unit mounted in the Wall! There are some that are specialties and those where junk to begin with! With the specialities: Reconfigure the opening to allow for a 'new' standard window unit to replace it!

You can have it done, or if you have 'good' DYI Skills you can do it yourself! If at all possible, target one that is the same physical size! When you buy at the store - it means opening the box-up to physically measure it! This will commonly get you into a larger unit. So, double check the electrical requirements and needed electrical plug!