Need more help with my Amazon :(

[Beako_N_Kiwi]

Kiwi is one of my girls I rescued about 3 months ago. Her big thing was biting and doing fly attacks on me. Since then we have worked with stepping her up and petting her. Now we have a whole new issue. For some reason, out of nowhere, while she is on her playtop, or even in her cage, she will raise her voice and yell a few times, and then just start screaming. It's when we are not in the room. We were told that she was shy and quiet and suitable for an apartment, but this screaming is ridiculous. We keep the windows and doors closed when she starts doing it. I've read to totally ignore the screams because then she won't relate it getting my attention, but she just keeps going and I need to quiet her down. I've covered her and that has worked but I read online not to do that because birds don't understand punishment. Someone please help me

 

[henpecked]

I can offer some things to try, when she screams ,leave the house,go away. Or when she screams ,send in someone she doesn't like to stand by her cage. She has started to scream because it gets what ever it is she wants. Ther's some reason that she started to do this,(because it got results). Sometimes it's as much about changing your behavior as it is about changing their;s.

 

[GregPara]

I have found that parrots are so intelligent that as much human interaction as possible is required and when you are unable to do this then you need to give the bird intricate things to occupy their mind like toys that have food inside that they need to work at and figure out how to get to it. I also found that a combination lock with a colorful face will keep my parrot busy for weeks as she tries to take it apart which she eventually does. The main point is birds love to be busy, playing, moving, interacting, figuring things out. A ton of stimulating toys etc. coupled with a ton of your time should do this. Remember, if a bird bites and you react animatedly it gets a kick out of the excitement, not the biting. If the bird screams, it gets a kick out of someone getting upset, yelling, frustrated, excited etc. Because you are in an apartment you will not want the parrot screaming so take a weekend an interact continuously including bringing it out of its environment and couple that with getting complex toys for it to play with especially ones that will hold food it needs to work to get. Hope that helps.

 

[wenz2712]

The advice Henpecked has given you truly works! I went through this with Codie and now after 3 Months of totally ignoring, I can honestly say I am almost there Be patient and stick with it!

 

[GiosMom]

My grandfathers Blue front zon would have really vocal bad days....and went through a period where he would just scream like a lunatic. Everything we did DIDN'T work. We had to break the habit and we would cover him for 5 minutes until he quieted down. He very quickly figured out that the screaming got him covered and he did eventually stop. He hated my grandmother to the point he would kill her if he could! If she ever walked in the room his screams got louder...and longer. He only tolerated her existence when she was cooking because he knew he was getting food. He adored my grandfather and behaved like an angel when he was around (except for when he saw my grandmother she set him off). I don't think covering him when it got really bad made things worse. I think it helped diffuse some of his anxiety.

 

[wenz2712]

IMO they just see covering them up as a punishment! then if you cover them up at Bedtime, it makes them think they are being punished , which then, in itself can cause more problems!

 

[lizardsmells]

Hang in there! You've had Kiwi for about 2-3 months now, is that right? She's still settling in and you guys are still learning about one another. About 3 months after Kazi moved in I went through a few weeks of some VERY serious doubt over what I'd gotten into. He was a BRAT. He was irritable, bitey and disagreeable to just about everything. I think part of it was hormones, but I think now that more of it was just him finding his place around here, too. I think parrots are a lot like toddlers, they seem to like to push boundaries in order to find them. It sounds like Kiwi has found one!

Kazi also contact calls me and can get really loud, insistent and annoying with it too. (Right now he's on the gate that separates the laundry room from the rest of the house yelling at me to "come on!" so he can show me, again, what a perfect place the laundry room is for two.) I've started whistling back at him when he gets too loud. If it's something he recognizes he'll answer back with a whistle. If it's not he'll listen really closely. Either way, it changes his 'bad' behavior (constant loud contact calls) to a more tolerable behavior (whistling) that also shows him that I hear him and I'm still around.

I don't know if that'll help at all, but it might be worth a shot!

 

[GiosMom]

IMO they just see covering them up as a punishment! then if you cover them up at Bedtime, it makes them think they are being punished , which then, in itself can cause more problems!

Oh really? We would cover my grandfathers bird when he was not behaving but at bedtime we didn't cover him his sleeping cage was in the back hallway and he would actually fly over or pace back and forth and say "buona notte"when he was ready for bed. I can see though how covering for screaming could cause a problem if covering at night. My apologies. I'm not that experienced so I should just hush up...especially since my grandfathers bird was a pretty mean dude! But that is what we all loved about him! LOL

 

[KBEquine]

A couple of our birds came to us with a 'covering ceremony' that told them they were in bed for the night. It involved loving words & treats & I seriously doubt they saw it as punishment. On the other hand, in my little Pionus's prior home, the husband would throw a cover over the cage & beat on it & scream at him to stop him screaming (you can guess how well that worked . . . and why he was rehomed to me).

I think they're smart enough to know when being covered is a punishment & when it is not.

My two cents - the screaming is good news, after a fashion. The amazon has bonded sufficiently that it is contact calling you, its flock, so it knows where you are, when you are out of sight.

One other thing - I think a lot of screaming is unintentionally reinforced in apartments, row homes, condos & the like, in an effort to keep the neighbors happy. We looked at a DYH guy who was a real screamer - and his owner KNEW she should not give him attention for that behavior, but she was more worried about her landlord kicking her out for noise violations than about extinguishing the behavior.

I think if you are not in a position to walk away & ignore screaming until the behavior extinguishes, the best you can do is explain it to your neighbors (and the likelihood that IF you take a couple months to allow it to extinguish, they will probably not have to hear it longer than that.)

 

[melissasparrots]

My older female lost her last home because of screaming. She would get herself all riled up and go on for 20-30 minutes sometimes several times a day. When I got her, I put in her quarentine in my then spare bedroom. It was easy to just no go to her when she started screaming. As first it was hard to live with. She would just go on and on and on. After a couple months, she started to get the hint. She has always been a more vocal bird. But it did quiet down to about 10 minutes once a day if that after we got past those first few moths. I just did not open the door, didn't respond. Nothing until she quieted down and had been quiet for a period of time.

I think your bird has settled in, is coming out of her shell and trying out new behaviors to see what it gets her. Also, amazons tend to be as loud as their environment. So keep the TV off, music off, no vacuuming, loud dishwashers or laundry machines all tend to get an amazon going. I have a lot of noise in my house when I'm cleaning. Also activity level in general can get them started. I always have about 20 minutes of noise when I first get home from work or get up in the morning. Thats with multiple parrots. You shouldn't have it quite so bad with just one. But keep things calm, very unexciting, activity level low, noise level zero or low, it will calm down your amazons.
Melissa

 

[thebirdnerd]

Have you tried giving her a treat or even a foot toy to play with when you leave the room? This way she won't associate you leaving the room as a bad thing.