Can we offer her more?

[Confused]

diets

This is a great link for diet. Anansi (Stephen) gave it to me when I came here, the whole site is great actually.

Thanks. This is exactly what I needed. I really appreciate you sharing it! I am surprised at the egg. I would have never considered giving her that!

I decided to shift her diet cold turkey, so we gave her bell pepper, carrots, apple, banana, celery and broccoli today. She was anxious to check out the offerings, but much more of it ended up on the bottom of her cage than in her tummy! Still, it was a start. I imagine she'll be hungry this evening. Might be a good time to offer treats for training!

 

[Confused]

Take videos of your progress with some of this. If you post them we can collectively help refine and help forward progress where necessary.

We moved a year ago, so aren’t in the house the original shower video was made. The new shower is also glass enclosed like yours. I just bought a shower rod and strung it from one wall of the shower to another, parallel to the glass wall.

Good idea on the shower bar! It will need to be out from the wall quite a bit as she will not stand on anything where her tail feather brush the wall, but we can find that.

We got a few perches today for the livingroom and for the sink in the bathroom so she can stay there when I am getting ready for work. I do know the items with fragrance are not good for her, so she will go back before the hairspray comes out!

Thanks for the idea on the shower bar! Hope she likes the water!

 

[Confused]

Take videos of your progress with some of this. If you post them we can collectively help refine and help forward progress where necessary.

We moved a year ago, so aren’t in the house the original shower video was made. The new shower is also glass enclosed like yours. I just bought a shower rod and strung it from one wall of the shower to another, parallel to the glass wall.

Oh, sorry, can't share video. No cell phone or video cameras. Yes, I know it's odd! LOL

 

[Confused]

With the foraging, they key here was that the treat was easily visible and easily reachable with a minimum of effort.

Tried this today, but no luck. She wouldn't go near anything I put the treat in. It's okay, there was some real progress in other areas and I will keep trying with this. Thanks!

 

[Confused]

diets

This is a great link for diet. Anansi (Stephen) gave it to me when I came here, the whole site is great actually.

Hi, I was looking this list over and came across something called nightshade in the poisonous column. I looked up nightshade and found this link:
https://paleoleap.com/nightshades/
(I hope it's okay to post outside links)
Anyway, it says that bell peppers are members of the nightshade family. I read a few posts where people mentioned feeding bell peppers.
Do you know; are any peppers safe? all peppers? We have a lot of varieties of peppers growning in the garden and we were looking forward to feeding them to her, if she will eat them. Now I'm worried.

Oh, also, I didn't see apple branches in the tree section. Are apple branches and leaves okay> We used to give apple twigs really, to our rabbit and she loved them. Are they safe for eclectus? How about the apple fruit? We have given her this in the past.

 

[tashawithanekkie]

diets

This is a great link for diet. Anansi (Stephen) gave it to me when I came here, the whole site is great actually.

Hi, I was looking this list over and came across something called nightshade in the poisonous column. I looked up nightshade and found this link:
https://paleoleap.com/nightshades/
(I hope it's okay to post outside links)
Anyway, it says that bell peppers are members of the nightshade family. I read a few posts where people mentioned feeding bell peppers.
Do you know; are any peppers safe? all peppers? We have a lot of varieties of peppers growning in the garden and we were looking forward to feeding them to her, if she will eat them. Now I'm worried.

Oh, also, I didn't see apple branches in the tree section. Are apple branches and leaves okay> We used to give apple twigs really, to our rabbit and she loved them. Are they safe for eclectus? How about the apple fruit? We have given her this in the past.

Peppers are okay, just no stem. Seeds and fruit are fine though. Hot peppers are especially good. Apples are okay but high in sugar, so they're more of a treat or a sweet addition to a meal. Duke loves them both.

As far as branches, I *think* they're okay but I'm not positive. I do know crab-apple is okay. But any branches are going to need to be cleaned and sanitized. There are some threads on here about that, I think some people use their oven and some use a mild bleach solution.

I hope this makes sense, it's really early in the morning here and I'm not totally awake. Need more coffee.

 

[Kentuckienne]

Apple seeds contain trace amounts of cyanide, so remove them from apples you feed the birdie. Most parrots enjoy having branches to chew, but they shouldn’t eat any of the wood. Keep an eye out for that. The branches should be cleaned and sanitized. Fruit trees are often sprayed with fungicide such as dormant oil that might not wash off easily and are hard to detect, so only take branches from unsprayed trees. Good luck!

 

[Confused]

diets

This is a great link for diet. Anansi (Stephen) gave it to me when I came here, the whole site is great actually.

Hi, I was looking this list over and came across something called nightshade in the poisonous column. I looked up nightshade and found this link:
https://paleoleap.com/nightshades/
(I hope it's okay to post outside links)
Anyway, it says that bell peppers are members of the nightshade family. I read a few posts where people mentioned feeding bell peppers.
Do you know; are any peppers safe? all peppers? We have a lot of varieties of peppers growning in the garden and we were looking forward to feeding them to her, if she will eat them. Now I'm worried.

Oh, also, I didn't see apple branches in the tree section. Are apple branches and leaves okay> We used to give apple twigs really, to our rabbit and she loved them. Are they safe for eclectus? How about the apple fruit? We have given her this in the past.

Peppers are okay, just no stem. Seeds and fruit are fine though. Hot peppers are especially good. Apples are okay but high in sugar, so they're more of a treat or a sweet addition to a meal. Duke loves them both.

As far as branches, I *think* they're okay but I'm not positive. I do know crab-apple is okay. But any branches are going to need to be cleaned and sanitized. There are some threads on here about that, I think some people use their oven and some use a mild bleach solution.

I hope this makes sense, it's really early in the morning here and I'm not totally awake. Need more coffee.

Thanks! I am glad because we have a lot of varieties of peppers growing around the yard and it's nice that we can give them to her.

 

[Confused]

Apple seeds contain trace amounts of cyanide, so remove them from apples you feed the birdie. Most parrots enjoy having branches to chew, but they shouldn’t eat any of the wood. Keep an eye out for that. The branches should be cleaned and sanitized. Fruit trees are often sprayed with fungicide such as dormant oil that might not wash off easily and are hard to detect, so only take branches from unsprayed trees. Good luck!

Hi, Yes, thank you. I did know about the seeds form our rabbit. So glad you mentioned that they shouldn't eat the wood as I wouldn't have realized that. I wonder if it's tough to tell chewing from eating?:06:
Anything we would give her would be from out garden and that is all pesticide free.

 

[Confused]

Okay, so I want to thank all of you magicians out there! I don't have much time so I need to be brief, but I will tell you that in 3 days our bird's behavior has changed more than it has in years.

I spent the whole weekend either asking you good folk for answers or handling her. I took the cage door off all day. We switched her diet cold turkey to lots of greens and some fruit with walnuts for treats. I sang to her, I put her on top of the cage, we got her some perches and had her out on them around the house. Well it was totally worth it!

Last night after work I went right in and took the cage door off and went back to make dinner. Next thing I knew I heard her flapping around and I looked down the hall and here she came running out of the room and down the hall to meet us! She came right to the kitchen. So that we didn't accidentally step on her I put her on one of the new perches off to the side. Well I guess she didn't like being out of the action because she flew off the perch and made it about 5 feet in the air! WoW, that was amazing. Over the chair to a soft landing and came running back to the kitchen. I put her on my arm for the rest of the time getting food and then we went to her room, had dinner and she got lots of walnut treats which she came out of her cage for and climbed onto a towel over the couch arm to get, then went all the way back to her water dish in the cage and came back for more when she was done.
It was more exercise than she has had in the last month combined!

Thank you all for all the great ideas and motivation! It has really made such a hug difference for her!

I know there are many more questions, but this also takes time, but this is so wonderful to see such fast progress. Part of the issue here is that I am not the most patient person and there is no doubt that you must be patient with her.
Even my spouse was able to give her a treat without being bit, and she was playing with her using a paper towel roll and was able to rub her beak with it. Truly amazing!

Thank you, thank you, thank you all!

 

[tashawithanekkie]

Hooray, what a great update!

 

[chris-md]

That is fantastic! Keep this up and it only gets better! Wonderful job!

Point of training order, however! You made a bit of a mistake where it comes to the flying that will quickly create problems for you if you don't recognize it. You put her down on a perch with the expectation that she stay put. She didn't. She fly to you, and rewarded her with human time! You are rewarding her for disobeying you! Keep this up and in no time flat you'll have a pest flying to you at all the wrong times, which can create a dangerous environment for her.

If she does that again, she gets put right back on the perch she flew off from. Disappear out of sight for 10 seconds, and come back with a treat, rewarding her for staying put.

Every interaction now needs to be thought of as a training exercise. With her world opening up, she needs to know exactly what the boundaries of this new world are. Everything you do in response to something she does needs to be scrutinized because something as simple as accepting a flyoff like you did is considered a reward, and reinforces unwanted behavior.

Given that shes showing a readiness to fly, this is another reason why I tell you clicker and target training is important. Using target training, you can easily teach her flighted recall (flying to you on command). This sets up this dynamic of "I called you, you flew to me, you get rewarded for coming. I don't call you and you STILL fly to me? No reward, put right back where you were".

This creates boundaries she understands: I'm being put back because I wasn't called, just like I was trained. If I sit here and wait patiently, he will call me, I'll fly to him, and I'll get a reward! YIPPEEE!

Really, at this point, it really helps to keep little training treats on or around your person at all times. BOUNDARIES, BOUNDARIES, BOUNDARIES.

 

[Oliver17]

That's fantastic, congratulations.

I'm seeing hope on my future

 

[Oliver17]

I feel like Oliver is bored or going through life sitting on a perch, eating and pooping. He will come to the bottom of the cage where I sit on the outside with the door open, I offer him snacks and I place my fingers near his chest so he has to reach for the treats. The first time
I said step up he took off, he was done. Now when he comes down I can pet his chest, if I begin to move torwards his feet more , he runs away. I can pet his beak also. I figure there is some trust building,
He doesn't play with any toys, I tried to hide a few treats in the toys and got nothing.
I can leave his door open for hours, today I put his treat on the floor where he could see it,
nothing, I'm not looking for a cuddle bug, just someone who wants to hang out with me when I'm doing dishes or watching tv.

Thank you