BonnieStarr
New member
- Aug 18, 2015
- 5
- 0
- Parrots
- 25 year old Catalina Macaw
Hello! I am posting on this forum because I have exhausted all sources I had available to me and finally can admit to myself that I need help. Admittedly, as a first time bird owner I have needed help from day one but I didn't understand how seriously hurt my bird had been in the past. So I am here seeking help, and I'm about to write out a boat load of information. Even if you don't have any advice, just pointing me in a direction where I can receive some support would be greatly appreciated.
Let me give you some background on my birdy companion, Jake, and how he came to be living with me. About a year ago my fiance and I met a beautiful conure at a petshop named Sunfire. My fiance was instantly in love and of course this lead to months upon months of researching birds as pets. Ultimately, we knew a conure wouldn't be a good choice. The noise would simply be overwhelming. However we continued the research, and in my heart I knew that I wanted to rescue a rehomed bird. As a first time bird owner this could be seen as a bad decision, but I still see it as one of the best decisions of my life.
My fiance made contact with a woman through the local pet shop/macaw breeders who was looking to find a new home for her parrot Jake. Jake is a 25 year old Catalina macaw and we are his 3rd home to my knowledge. He is a very sweet and beautiful guy. He's full of personality, and is honestly my best friend in the whole world. I have watched him grow happier and healthier over the months that I have had him, but he still has serious trust and behavioral issues. I am not equipped to deal with them and I feel they are lessening his quality of life.
I don't know much about his life with his first owner, barely anything in fact. I do know that he told him to shut up a lot, because even though Jake doesn't say it often anymore that phrase is still in his vocabulary. My fiance believes that this male owner was very frightening and/or abusive, because to this day Jakey is terrified and occasionally hostile towards men he meets if they come to close to his cage. Meanwhile, with women he is shy and flirtatious. Hiding behind his perch and cooing at them sweetly. The only thing I do know for sure is that Jakey eventually became very territorial over his parrot companion Elvis, who he came to see as his mate. I suspect the discipline methods his first owner used to deal with this worsened the problems and probably can account for some of his current behavioral issues.
So Jakey and Elvis were sold to their second owner, with their first owner warning not to put them in the same cage together. Jake lived with her for ten years and my understanding of those ten years is very minimal as well.
I do know that his owner, Sue, was very loving and adored her little friends. However, I have some concerns about certain things that she told us or mentioned. He grew very attached to her and, although it took a month, would step up with her and join her on her daily routine around the farm. She mentioned he was hostile towards her male companions, taking a chunk out of her last boyfriends finger. I do know that she was unaware of certain health issues and that his perch/cage was kept was kept in her husbands study who was a chain smoker and smoked so much he turned the ceiling yellow.
Sue owned Jakey for ten years and here's where his serious behavioral issues become apparent in her account of events. Now it is EXTREMELY hard for me to imagine this part seeing how active Jakey is today, but apparently for all his years he was with her Jakey did not stay in a cage but rather on a perch on a stand. I don't know how that would work logistically but apparently it did? She definitely didn't tell me the whole story and I will most likely never know it. Well Jakey is a very clever bird and he figured out how to climb down the stand and tore up the house making a nest in the chair where Sue always sat. After that Jakey was put in the same cage as Elvis in honestly terrible conditions. Imagine two macaws in a 3ft by 3ft by 2ft space all day every day for months on end. That's less than half the size of the cage Jakey lives in by himself these days. Jakey became very territorial of both Elvis and the cage, not letting Sue anywhere near them. She left them in there and kept big bowls of food and water at the bottom of the cage so she didn't have to change or refill them too often. She suggested that my fiance and I adopt that strategy to minimize mess but I was extremely shocked at the suggestion. I'd much rather have seeds all over the floor than have him pooping and molting into his food for days before I change it. I wasn't as knowledgable about some of her other "advice" and we regretfully did end up using water spraying as a method of noise control. My fiance even took her advice and poked him with a stick while trying to get him to step up. They have not gotten along since, and Jakey runs and hides in the corner whenever we are even holding a stick around him.
So my fiance and I got in contact with Sue through the petshop about 7 months ago by my memory. He has been bringing joy to my life ever since. He was at first very distressed in his new environment. Staying only on the corner perch of his 78" by 46" by 36" cage. He was constantly bill wiping and when he wasn't being silent out of fear he was loudly complaining. I will also mention he was in the habit of throwing out all the food he didn't want and only eating the fattening seeds and nuts.
I am proud of myself for how I bonded with Jakey. I won him over by speaking to him softly and feeding him treats by hand for weeks. He now enjoys moving around his whole cage and laughing. His catchphrases are "okay", "alright" and "hello". While at first he was only interested in shredder toys, he now loves his colorful blocks and even recently started to swing on his rope toys for the first time. We no longer open feed him so he wastes much less food. The healthier diet and increased exercise has helped him slim down to a healthier weight. He even lets me pet his head or belly sometimes. Those are the good things, however not everything is sunshine and roses.
Jake is now extremely aggressive towards my fiance. Lunging at him any chance he gets. It is pretty disheartening. He is also very territorial of me. Screaming when my fiance and I are affectionate to eachother. I believe he sees me as a potential mate. He began bowing at me flirtatiously and I, not recognizing the body language, was very positive and enthusiastic at the cute sight. He now regurgitates food up when I am interacting with him at least multiple times a day. He still has been nippy with me, but in what I have perceived as a much more playful way, always accompanied by birdie giggles and coos. Today however I attempted some training and heres where the huge problem is.
Jakey will not come out of his cage. Not ever. I leave the door open almost constantly now to give him some variation in choice of environments but he is still terrified of stepping up. He runs away if you even mention it. The most he will ever do is come out and sit on his cage door or on the top of his cage when he needs something or just wants to change scenery or say hello. I could live with the idea of him staying in there if he didn't seem so bored and frustrated all the time. Today I tried a training method I've used a couple times before. I'm just trying to teach him that sticks aren't scary by giving him treats while introducing him to one. Today I was simply holding the stick in my other hand, not pointing it at him or anything.
It looked like it was going okay but I am a shaky person so I guess the stick wobbled. I think this scared him and instead of taking the treat he lunged at my hand and gave me a nasty bite. It hurt really bad so I yelped, he screamed a bad name at me (I should mention he calls me the word for female dog when he's upset at me). I closed him in his cage and broke into tears. I am just so disappointed and sad at this point. He's such a sweetheart, once he was done being mad he came over and made concerned comforting coos at me.
I really love my bird and just want to give him the best life. Any advice I could get from you guys would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the novel, and if you've stuck with me this far thank you so much.
Let me give you some background on my birdy companion, Jake, and how he came to be living with me. About a year ago my fiance and I met a beautiful conure at a petshop named Sunfire. My fiance was instantly in love and of course this lead to months upon months of researching birds as pets. Ultimately, we knew a conure wouldn't be a good choice. The noise would simply be overwhelming. However we continued the research, and in my heart I knew that I wanted to rescue a rehomed bird. As a first time bird owner this could be seen as a bad decision, but I still see it as one of the best decisions of my life.
My fiance made contact with a woman through the local pet shop/macaw breeders who was looking to find a new home for her parrot Jake. Jake is a 25 year old Catalina macaw and we are his 3rd home to my knowledge. He is a very sweet and beautiful guy. He's full of personality, and is honestly my best friend in the whole world. I have watched him grow happier and healthier over the months that I have had him, but he still has serious trust and behavioral issues. I am not equipped to deal with them and I feel they are lessening his quality of life.
I don't know much about his life with his first owner, barely anything in fact. I do know that he told him to shut up a lot, because even though Jake doesn't say it often anymore that phrase is still in his vocabulary. My fiance believes that this male owner was very frightening and/or abusive, because to this day Jakey is terrified and occasionally hostile towards men he meets if they come to close to his cage. Meanwhile, with women he is shy and flirtatious. Hiding behind his perch and cooing at them sweetly. The only thing I do know for sure is that Jakey eventually became very territorial over his parrot companion Elvis, who he came to see as his mate. I suspect the discipline methods his first owner used to deal with this worsened the problems and probably can account for some of his current behavioral issues.
So Jakey and Elvis were sold to their second owner, with their first owner warning not to put them in the same cage together. Jake lived with her for ten years and my understanding of those ten years is very minimal as well.
I do know that his owner, Sue, was very loving and adored her little friends. However, I have some concerns about certain things that she told us or mentioned. He grew very attached to her and, although it took a month, would step up with her and join her on her daily routine around the farm. She mentioned he was hostile towards her male companions, taking a chunk out of her last boyfriends finger. I do know that she was unaware of certain health issues and that his perch/cage was kept was kept in her husbands study who was a chain smoker and smoked so much he turned the ceiling yellow.
Sue owned Jakey for ten years and here's where his serious behavioral issues become apparent in her account of events. Now it is EXTREMELY hard for me to imagine this part seeing how active Jakey is today, but apparently for all his years he was with her Jakey did not stay in a cage but rather on a perch on a stand. I don't know how that would work logistically but apparently it did? She definitely didn't tell me the whole story and I will most likely never know it. Well Jakey is a very clever bird and he figured out how to climb down the stand and tore up the house making a nest in the chair where Sue always sat. After that Jakey was put in the same cage as Elvis in honestly terrible conditions. Imagine two macaws in a 3ft by 3ft by 2ft space all day every day for months on end. That's less than half the size of the cage Jakey lives in by himself these days. Jakey became very territorial of both Elvis and the cage, not letting Sue anywhere near them. She left them in there and kept big bowls of food and water at the bottom of the cage so she didn't have to change or refill them too often. She suggested that my fiance and I adopt that strategy to minimize mess but I was extremely shocked at the suggestion. I'd much rather have seeds all over the floor than have him pooping and molting into his food for days before I change it. I wasn't as knowledgable about some of her other "advice" and we regretfully did end up using water spraying as a method of noise control. My fiance even took her advice and poked him with a stick while trying to get him to step up. They have not gotten along since, and Jakey runs and hides in the corner whenever we are even holding a stick around him.
So my fiance and I got in contact with Sue through the petshop about 7 months ago by my memory. He has been bringing joy to my life ever since. He was at first very distressed in his new environment. Staying only on the corner perch of his 78" by 46" by 36" cage. He was constantly bill wiping and when he wasn't being silent out of fear he was loudly complaining. I will also mention he was in the habit of throwing out all the food he didn't want and only eating the fattening seeds and nuts.
I am proud of myself for how I bonded with Jakey. I won him over by speaking to him softly and feeding him treats by hand for weeks. He now enjoys moving around his whole cage and laughing. His catchphrases are "okay", "alright" and "hello". While at first he was only interested in shredder toys, he now loves his colorful blocks and even recently started to swing on his rope toys for the first time. We no longer open feed him so he wastes much less food. The healthier diet and increased exercise has helped him slim down to a healthier weight. He even lets me pet his head or belly sometimes. Those are the good things, however not everything is sunshine and roses.
Jake is now extremely aggressive towards my fiance. Lunging at him any chance he gets. It is pretty disheartening. He is also very territorial of me. Screaming when my fiance and I are affectionate to eachother. I believe he sees me as a potential mate. He began bowing at me flirtatiously and I, not recognizing the body language, was very positive and enthusiastic at the cute sight. He now regurgitates food up when I am interacting with him at least multiple times a day. He still has been nippy with me, but in what I have perceived as a much more playful way, always accompanied by birdie giggles and coos. Today however I attempted some training and heres where the huge problem is.
Jakey will not come out of his cage. Not ever. I leave the door open almost constantly now to give him some variation in choice of environments but he is still terrified of stepping up. He runs away if you even mention it. The most he will ever do is come out and sit on his cage door or on the top of his cage when he needs something or just wants to change scenery or say hello. I could live with the idea of him staying in there if he didn't seem so bored and frustrated all the time. Today I tried a training method I've used a couple times before. I'm just trying to teach him that sticks aren't scary by giving him treats while introducing him to one. Today I was simply holding the stick in my other hand, not pointing it at him or anything.
It looked like it was going okay but I am a shaky person so I guess the stick wobbled. I think this scared him and instead of taking the treat he lunged at my hand and gave me a nasty bite. It hurt really bad so I yelped, he screamed a bad name at me (I should mention he calls me the word for female dog when he's upset at me). I closed him in his cage and broke into tears. I am just so disappointed and sad at this point. He's such a sweetheart, once he was done being mad he came over and made concerned comforting coos at me.
I really love my bird and just want to give him the best life. Any advice I could get from you guys would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the novel, and if you've stuck with me this far thank you so much.
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