I adopted a parrot

[DRB]

She did start out just beaking around, I thought.

She continues to be talkative and varied in her vocalizations. Unfortunately, I accidentally scared her today. While trying to give her her favourite treat (a peanut, per her previous owners) as a reward for tolerating some cleaning, I accidentally knocked over a toy sitting on a table next to her cage, and she freaked. Now she won't take peanuts from me and has ignored the peanut (which I left in her cage). Not the way I wanted to wean her off them... she still takes pistachios from me though.

I've done that 20 times, Perjo is fine soon after. This past week I sneezed really hard and she flew off the cage across the house, despite me being in another room when I sneezed. I think the sudden nature of loud noises catches them off guard b/c they are so in tune with their surroundings and what is normal goings on.

 

[Bryce]

Ruby is doing okay. I gave her a new forgaging toy yesterday but I think it might not be in a good position for her because she hasn't gotten the food yet and it's very simple in comparison to her others. Unfortunately she has learned an irritating squeaky door sound from the upstairs bathroom door, and while I've been ignoring it, the door keeps reenforcing it. Oh well. She's been repeating some of the things I say to her as well (still no "pretty bird" yet, I guess she's not one for the classics, or maybe she has seen macaws and internalized some kind of plumage inferiority complex or something... )

So yeah, parrot day 7, still going fine, glad she isn't holding too much of a grudge from being scared yesterday by that falling toy.

 

[bigfellasdad]

oil the hinges

 

[wrench13]

Basic concept. If you own a parrot, you will get bitten. Maybe not the needing stitches kind, but certainly the drawing blood kind. It's likely we do not see the impending bites visual precursor, how can we - we aren't parrots. Most owners know their birds visual signs, but theres always that one missed cue. Ahh scars are interesting to chat about, right?

 

[bigfellasdad]

My Bella will push my had away when I am trying to pick her up and she want's no part of it.
If pushing my hand away doesn't work she moves/fly's out of my reach.
Recently she uses kindness instead of force. When pushing does not work she fluffs up her neck feathers and asks for a scratch. I guess she knows that's something I cant resist.
Bella has bitten hard a few times with me but never broken the skin.
She did break skin with my son.
My take on it is she did not want that perch and was trying to push it away. Because pushing did not work she went to the source of the problem, your hand.
You are dealing with a VERY smart bird.

this makes sense to me. to be honest if she moves my hand away, I will move my hand totally away, generally give her a few minutes to finish what she is doing then when I return ill give a more forceful 'step up' and she will usually oblige. She mostly does this in the morning when she knows im soon to go to work.

Ive not had a strong bite yet, certainly no blood, but i know it will come.... its like a biker saying ive never fell off 'YET'!

 

[Bryce]

Ruby has been good, no more bites so far though she is still uninterested in stepping onto my arm and I haven't been pushing the issue. She said "pretty bird" for the first time today in her morning warm-up ("The industrious grey parrot wakes up at the crack of dawn to work on her sound-effects reel...") so that was nice to hear.

She did startle me a bit by flying from her cage floor to the cage wall. I didn't realize the current cage was large enough for her to do that, I guess so.

 

[LeaKP]

Congratulations! Greys are the most interesting birds. Nigel is potty trained however he bombs me whenever he sees fit. This means if I have not conformed to his standards. He is quite the character as all greys are. Can’t wait to hear how this one opens up!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bryce]

Ruby is still doing well. I have been slowly moving the cleaning implements toward her cage in the mornings so she won't freak out when I try to clean the bottom of her cage this weekend as she did last sunday. She hasn't bitten me anymore though she still shows no inclination to get on my arm or a handheld stick. She talks a lot and is repeating things I say to her that weren't in her original repertoire ("pretty bird," "bye bye", and many of her existing phrases in my voice.)

Really need to oil the hinges on that door, though. She seems to love that sound; it has even replaced her formerly-beloved cellphone beeps.

She comes out of her cage and walks on the debris-catching skirt, will take treats there etc, but she doesn't seem to want to climb on top of her cage or get down on the floor even though that's where the treat bag is. She just looks at the treat bag and then me, pointedly, haha. She's eating all sorts of treats, including many novel fresh foods, and will take food from people other than me with minimal habituation to them. (Though sometimes she seems to need food to be "demoed" to her still, by eating some while she watches.)

 

[DRB]

Ruby is still doing well. I have been slowly moving the cleaning implements toward her cage in the mornings so she won't freak out when I try to clean the bottom of her cage this weekend as she did last sunday. She hasn't bitten me anymore though she still shows no inclination to get on my arm or a handheld stick. She talks a lot and is repeating things I say to her that weren't in her original repertoire ("pretty bird," "bye bye", and many of her existing phrases in my voice.)

Really need to oil the hinges on that door, though. She seems to love that sound; it has even replaced her formerly-beloved cellphone beeps.

She comes out of her cage and walks on the debris-catching skirt, will take treats there etc, but she doesn't seem to want to climb on top of her cage or get down on the floor even though that's where the treat bag is. She just looks at the treat bag and then me, pointedly, haha. She's eating all sorts of treats, including many novel fresh foods, and will take food from people other than me with minimal habituation to them. (Though sometimes she seems to need food to be "demoed" to her still, by eating some while she watches.)

For me it's all those litte weird sublte sounds they pick up that make my day, b/c it's stuff they totally pick up on their own as opposed to the phrases we repeat to them everyday with a purpose. As long as it isn't loud screaming, which Perjo rarely does, I love those unsuspecting sounds that I have to take two weeks to figure out what they are.

Perjo mimics the sound of the Iphone when you tap the video button. That's her new thing that she does 60 times a day. She will mimic the sound of the chain pull on the light in the room soon I suspect, she's heard it every morning and night her whole life. It's not a higher pitched click or squeak though so maybe she doesn't like the sound.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Ruby is still doing well. I have been slowly moving the cleaning implements toward her cage in the mornings so she won't freak out when I try to clean the bottom of her cage this weekend as she did last sunday. She hasn't bitten me anymore though she still shows no inclination to get on my arm or a handheld stick. She talks a lot and is repeating things I say to her that weren't in her original repertoire ("pretty bird," "bye bye", and many of her existing phrases in my voice.)

Really need to oil the hinges on that door, though. She seems to love that sound; it has even replaced her formerly-beloved cellphone beeps.

She comes out of her cage and walks on the debris-catching skirt, will take treats there etc, but she doesn't seem to want to climb on top of her cage or get down on the floor even though that's where the treat bag is. She just looks at the treat bag and then me, pointedly, haha. She's eating all sorts of treats, including many novel fresh foods, and will take food from people other than me with minimal habituation to them. (Though sometimes she seems to need food to be "demoed" to her still, by eating some while she watches.)

For me it's all those litte weird sublte sounds they pick up that make my day, b/c it's stuff they totally pick up on their own as opposed to the phrases we repeat to them everyday with a purpose. As long as it isn't loud screaming, which Perjo rarely does, I love those unsuspecting sounds that I have to take two weeks to figure out what they are.

Perjo mimics the sound of the Iphone when you tap the video button. That's her new thing that she does 60 times a day. She will mimic the sound of the chain pull on the light in the room soon I suspect, she's heard it every morning and night her whole life. It's not a higher pitched click or squeak though so maybe she doesn't like the sound.

The gurgling of the coffee pot as the last dregs go into the carafe'...microwave beep..alarm clock beep...phone ringing..the list goes on with Smokey,oh...and "someone" snoring!


Jim

 

[Bryce]

Ruby finally came out of her cage beyond a brief foray onto the debris-catching skirt, somewhat unexpectedly while I was changing her newspapers and feeding her. She climbed on top of the cage and preened and enjoyed a shower there. Then she jumped on the railing near her cage. I had to go to work so I encouraged her to go back in; I didn't have to towel her at least. I rewarded her for her little adventure with a treat. Fortunately I didn't have to be to work at a specific time today.

 

[DRB]

To show just how unpredictable they can be at times or moody anyway. I have a King Cage with a round top, doesn't open. Perjo spends time up there a everyday, some days more some days less. Yesterday I had to leave the house and she was on top of the cage, and she did not want to go back inside. I'm pretty tall but I cannot reach her if she moves about up there, and she knows it. She knows the exact limit of my reach, so as I go around the cage she must scurries along to the other side. Without scaring her this is a winless battle. So for the first time ever yesterday I had to grab something to coax/force her to my reach. I used a empty paper towel roll. She plays with them when I cut them up, but at full length they scare her. She ended up flying off the cage across the room. I wanted to avoid that, but it was what it was.

Typically a treat or two in her bowl gets her down from the top.

 

[Bryce]

Yeah, I can reach her on top of her cage, but I'm sure she'd bite me if I just tried to collect her at this point. When I build her new cage I'm just going to make it high enough that it doesn't have a "top" for her to get on and be hard to remove from. (Since I can build it to exactly match the space available for it.)

Anyway, here she is, standing imperiously on top of her cage:

 

[Bryce]

Ruby came out of her cage today and stood on a non-handheld outside perch while I steam cleaned the cage. She did not like the steam cleaner in use despite my efforts to habituate her to it and her distance from the offending machine, definitely the loudest I have heard her, but the bottom bars were getting droppings on them and it had to be done somehow. I guess she did a good job of warning the flock that the terrible poop-seeking steam-exhaling snake of doom was in the roosting area. Anyway, she seems to be in a fine mood now and is exploring her cleaned cage, to which I've added a new natural branch with a somewhat larger diameter than the others, since I noticed she didn't really care for the smaller-diameter branches. She's breaking in the new branch now with a good beaking. I also removed some toys and perches for rotation and to give her a little more room to stretch her wings in her cage.

 

[psychocircus91]

Sounds like you guys are learning more and more about each other. Keep it up!

 

[bigfellasdad]

Your lucky she chews toys. My house is officially chewed to pieces. .....

 

[Bryce]

Ruby let me pet her head today while she ate a treat. She still shows no interest in stepping up. On the other hand I had to towel her again to get her back into her cage after I accidentally let her out while cleaning this morning and she really didn't seem to mind. Is it okay to towel her just to take her to a neutral place for step up training, or should I use it only when absolutely necessary to move her and try to train her to step up in her cage or from off of it?

 

[Bryce]

Ruby stepped up onto my arm repeatedly today. She still won't go for a handheld perch for whatever reason, but she'll step onto my forearm and has stopped trying to bite it, so I'm pretty happy. Unfortunately though she wouldn't take rewards for stepping up, I guess maybe she was still to preoccupied with the "risk" of it and wanted to have her beak free to grab on if she started to fall, maybe? So I praised her a lot.

She keeps trying to get under her cage though to shred the newspapers when she's out of her cage. I'd really rather she didn't (I mean, gross), so I gave her some nice clean kraft paper to shred in her cage. I'll try working it into her toys in the future since she seems to enjoy destroying it.

I gave her a piece of chayote, which she turned into tiny minced pieces in the food bowl. Never has chopping up food for parrots seemed more redundant, haha, it looks like it's been chopped with a knife almost now, and it was a solid chunk when I put it in this morning...

 

[bigfellasdad]

Sounds like you guys are well on the way to bonding and building the trust, well done you two

Enzo doesnt get treats either, praise and or a head scratch is all she wants. Enzo LOVES to shred paper, she will do it for hours if allowed. I still dont know if its just fun or nest building, she popped egg number 5 this morning as she sat on my shoulder, i was undressing for the shower....smash on the floor it went! She's been a busy hen recently.

Anyway, you two keep it up

 

[bigfellasdad]

out of interest, does she regurjatate for you, or do the chicken dance? (wings held out and low, clucking away), does she try and find high or dark corners? if she does try and get her to stop, its currently breeding season.