Hello everyone, and can you answer a couple of questions?

[JayJay]

Hi everyone from a new member.

I became a first time owner of an IRN about Christmas 2016, and it's the first time I've ever owned a parrot. I've had her for over a year now. The forum has been very helpful and an interesting read.

I was hoping members might be able to answer a couple of things;

- Would you be able to identify roughly the age from watching the start of the video? This was the first time bath and a month after I received her.

- taking a guess at the sex from some of the behaviour in the video where she's looking at the spray can on the table, and her heart shaped wing dance with the feet. From what I've read so far, it's likely a girl, mainly from the shape of her head, and possibly the absence of a ring, but it might be too early too tell. Do girls heart their wings?

- what's the behaviour with our dogs tennis ball? She often does the same with the blue spray can too.

Thanks for your time and help, and look forward to your thoughts.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV-SZhOZaOM[/ame]

Jay

 

[Flboy]

Hi! No idea, but really cool!

 

[itchyfeet]

Hi JayJay,
Beautiful IRN

My pair both do heart wings, and it's predominately male display behaviour. My green is all ringed up but my blue is still anyones guess really. Clarke also has some predominately female behaviours, so who knows? A DNA test is the only real way to be sure.

In my opinion, in the video s/he has a reasonably juvenile body shape, maybe 6 months ish? But both of mine are rehomes not breeder babes, so I don't really know

Silversage will come along She's an IRN breeder and will have an actual useful reply for you!

Would love to see more. What is his/her name?

 

[GaleriaGila]

Very sweet! Cute bird, cute video!
Let's see what the sage Sage says.

 

[JayJay]

Hi Flboy, Itchyfeet and galeriaGila - thank you, sorry for the late reply and thank you for responding. Yes it would be great to find out a bit more from an experienced IRN owner.

I too think she might have only been months old, she is kind of a rescued bird too.

She initially was very gentle but about 2 months after she settled in she became very agressive towards me in particular (lurching out toward me to bite, wanting to climb on my hands then suddenly pinning eyes and vicious biting with blood for no reason), which was odd because I was originally the one she seemed to be most gentle with. This happened almost overnight - bluffing?

So about 6 months later, she suddenly bacame her original self again, just literally over a period of a few days. If I hadn't read about persisting through the bluffing stage I probably would have given up. I've got several extra scars on my hands as a result, we seem to have got there in the end.

We have a cage for her, but it's never closed and is really just a a place to sit on top of (rarely goes inside) until at night where she just enters herself when she's ready, and comes out in the morning whenever she wants. She lives anywhere in the kitchen and back porch, or often walk across the yard to where I'm gardening. She's free to come and go inside and out while we are home but close her in the kitchen if we leave the house and overnight. So far we've been extremely fortunate as she hasn't chewed any furniture, but she has chewed a couple of bits of clothing, steel plastic coated drying rack, and flip flops.

As much as she dislikes it, she does seem to have come to understand the word no. Her eyes pin and she grumbles in her robotic sounding voice, but she does sheeplishly stop what she's doing. She certainly is like a rebellious child some times lol.

Sorry for posting the photo of her with our dog and understand it being removed. It didn't come to mind that it might be a risk to new parrot owners. Our golden retrievers have always been quite gentle.

Hope to get some more advice and thanks again

 

[LordTriggs]

it could very well be bluffing or she could be a little older and be going through her hormone period. No idea on her age, I see very little difference between juvenile and adult ringnecks. The behavior could also be to do with her being clipped, from what I have seen on ringnecks they don't do well with clips compared to other species and become very hand-shy/aggressive

Also just a thing to note even though she has her wings clipped don't let her outside without being in a cage or on a harness. Even with wings clipped she can very easily fly off if a gust of wind happens or something spooks her. Plus her flight feathers will start growing in without you noticing and she may just fly off one day not knowing how to get back to you. It's for the best to keep her inside with the doors and windows shut when she's out for her own safety

 

[JayJay]

Thanks for your advice LordTriggs.

I've read so much online advice about clipping. It's hard to decide which way to go as there seems to be a 50/50 split with advice. What's interesting is the local bird sanctuaries here are strongly for clipping pet bird wings, but I can appreciate the pros and cons of it.

 

[JayJay]

I forgot to mention I've had to replace our laptop keyboard twice in 12 months:34:after walking away for a few moments while she was playing on the table

I'm still thinking she might turn out to be a he