i think my bird is unhealthily attached to me

[bonitabird59]

my conure jello is the love of my life. he saved me from a pretty dark part of my life when i lost my life long companion, bonita. however, i think he may be a bit too bonded to me.

note: ive never touched below the neck, i do not encourage his horomonal behaviors but they continue to happen. he is about 6 months old.

when im not in the room, he PANIC flies to me. i cant even turn my back to him without him anxiously fluttering over and landing pretty badly on me or near me.

he constantly steals my food. i dont mind as i share my food with all my birds if its safe for them but i literally cannot eat around him- if i dont immediately let him have what he wants its blood curdling screams and regurgitation. sometimes he'll start humping on his perch/toys, or even on me. when its on me i put him down and turn away- which just makes him fly to me and demand more attention. when the attention is back, so is the humpyness.

he does not play with toys. i work, and ill check his camera and he just sits on the cage door waiting for me to come back. its really depressing. he has plenty of different toys that he likes, he'll play if im watching- the moment im not hes clung waiting for me to come back.

he is free out of the cage all day except from 9pm-10am. ive changed his daylight hours to hopefully fix this but it has not helped. he attacks my boyfriend if he even talks to me. when my boyfriend is alone with him, he's relatively nice but shows no patience and seemingly bites him at random.

basically i dont know what to do. i want him to have a great quality of life but it seems he sees me as his mate or something and i dont know how to handle this. ive had large birds my whole life and never thought a little gcc would be the one to make me question my sanity. ill answer questions and take all the advice i can get in the replies. tysm for everything in advance.

 

[bonitabird59]

*while im at work my boyfriend hangs with him- hes never alone unsupervised out of the cage. when my boyfriend works, theres abt a 2 hr period where he is caged until im home. this is when the door sitting happens

 

[Cottonoid]

I know you already know and are doing most of the things in this article but I'll post it for others with this problem too just in case -
https://blogpamelaclarkonline.com/2018/04/10/avoid-the-pair-bond-social-relationships-with-parrots/

Pamela Clark suggests daily training as a way to change the relationship to teacher/student and ive started seeing this a bit with my baby.

My Quaker is just over 5 months and he still flies to me immediately if I seem to be leaving the room. It's just in the last couple weeks that he'll keep playing for a few minutes, and he's just this week starting to stay behind and squawk to see if I notice So maybe some of Jello's behavior is still juvenile?

I don't know how much is coincidence with Opie but his starting to have more independence was about a week after he was target training well enough to ask him to target *away* from me onto a perch or windowsill, then I'd walk away, then ask him to fly to my hand.

I also made a big deal out of him landing on my hand or arm instead of head or shoulder - I have a song lol - and he really responded to that too, to the point he's flown down to cling to my wrist while I'm walking once or twice, ha. He'll do just about anything for a bit of praise and will 100% do anything for a pine nut, though, so the big Good Boy! So smart! reactions work well with him.

I've had a lot of experience working with dogs who lack confidence so I've kind of just taken that same idea (that Opie needs to learn what TO do when I'm not going to just be there for cuddles) and it does seem to slowly be working. He hasn't been quite as enthusiastic as Jello, though, I admit.

 

[SailBoat]

For all the issues that one can be faced with, most find it hard to believe that being the center of attention by a Parrot is their current status. The advice provided above is excellent and I strongly agree with what is provided.

Bring more into the life of your Parrot will not be easy, but is the task before you. Whether it is additional Humans or tasks like tricks, foraging have merit and doing them all is recommended. Just understand that it is a potential that your Parrot may find something more interesting than you, leaving you as the odd-one-out!

 

[bonitabird59]

For all the issues that one can be faced with, most find it hard to believe that being the center of attention by a Parrot is their current status. The advice provided above is excellent and I strongly agree with what is provided.

Bring more into the life of your Parrot will not be easy, but is the task before you. Whether it is additional Humans or tasks like tricks, foraging have merit and doing them all is recommended. Just understand that it is a potential that you Parrot may find something more interesting than you, leaving you as the odd-one-out!

ive tried all of these and am still currently doing them. hes not super interested in training, even when im using his favorite seed treats as a reward. i think because of how i got him, he was delivered to my store and i was the only one who ever interacted w him then i bought him and got him home, hes just obsessed w me. hes gone from being friendly w my boyfriend to downright hating him. my bf just lets him out but he gets very jealous of him interacting with me. he shows no interest in anything except being with me which is sweet at first but now its becoming a lot to deal with mentally. im going to read the articles from cottonoid's post! thank u both!

 

[bonitabird59]

how do yall recommend i deal with his humping though? thats the bigger issue i need help with..

 

[Cottonoid]

From what I remember reading, you can try to give him a toy to hump instead and redirect him to the toy each time.

Hopefully once this rush of puberty hormones passes he'll settle down a bit, poor guy!