Hyper Parrot Help?

[Pi_1]

Hi all, I'm new to the forums. I have a 1.5 year old female parrot named Betsy. I've had her since she was a baby shortly after weaning, and she is very close to me. She only wants to be with me when she comes out and wants to come out all the time. She learns quickly, knows how to step up, and has around 50-75 words of vocabulary. She tells me she wants to come out, knows "good girl" and "naughty girl", knows "mama" and "daddy" and that they refer to myself and my fiance, etc. She really is very smart and picks things up quickly. We have never clipped her wings, yet she doesn't know how to fly, nor does she seem to care to. If she happens to fall from a perch or anything else, she drops like a rock, LoL. She doesn't even attempt to fly, and is content just to climb on me. She is pretty scared of new things. She doesn't like new objects, especially red ones, and has no interest in going onto perches, the floor, tables, etc. I guess this is where my questions come in.........

 

First off, despite much trying, I cannot get her to sit on perches or even go anywhere other than my body and her cage. No matter how many times I put her on a perch, table, etc, reward her and tell her she is a good girl, she fights me, LoL. Most times she starts flapping and fighting. On an occasion I get her calmed down and get her to actually step onto a perch, she immediately says "good girl" and leaps back toward me. If I don't catch her she just falls to the ground and flounders! If I move away, she just leaps as far as she can and fallls to the ground. She really is not interested in treats. She begs for things when in her cage and likes to share things like crackers with me, but if I try to reward her for doing anything outside her cage with any kind of treat, she just drops or throws it and doesn't show any interest. I try the crackers she begs for in her cage, nuts, fruits......tens if not hundreds of items. She just doesn't care. This makes it difficult to train. She loves to be told she is a "good girl", but things like going to a perch don't seem to be catching on despite working on it daily for months. She is VERY smart, so that isn't the problem, but she just loves to climb on me and has no desire to sit on a perch.

 

And now to my second issue.....she gets really hyper when out and on me lately. I would prefer sometimes that she just sit still and perch on my hands or arms. She used to all the time. Recently, however, she just wants to climb to my shoulder........and then up and down, up and down, up and down, ad nauseum. It can get quite annoying. I used to take her out when she was tired for petting time, but now even then she wakes right up and starts using me like a jungle gym. I've tried not allowing her to climb on me.......once I didn't allow her to climb for two weeks straight. But she is so persistant. If she would start climbing up my arm, I would transfer her to my hand......then back to the other hand, and again, and again. She never gives up though. She tries making a run for it......she tries leaping. Over and over and over. For hours. She will be panting and frustrated and screeching. She never gets tired enough to stop, however. And if I put her back without letting her up, she gets really upset and screeches for quite some time, LoL. I tell her she is a good girl and try to give her treats for sitting on my arms, but she just drops the treats and continues her efforts. She never gives up, she is so stubborn. It really is frustrating. At least if she would sit on my arms or hands like she used to I could work with her and train her like I used to. Despite weeks of trying to get her to remain on my arms, she just keeps trying to run to my shoulders. And the most annoying thing is that she doesn't sit there either. She just climbs up and down over and over. If she just stayed put on my shoulders it wouldn't be so bad. But she goes up and down, up and down. And if I don't help her down she will try to insert her talons into my flesh for traction which is very unpleasant, LoL!

 

I never punish her other than to tell her she is a "naughty girl" if she does something really bad like biting, which is VERY rare. I always use positive reinforcement any time she does anything good. But while she picks some things up right away, others, like this, go ignored. And now that she doesn't like to sit in my view any more, it is tough to work with her at all.

 

I'm hoping you can give me some insight and ideas on what to try. It is hard when she doesn't want treats, LoL. She loves me......possibly too much, LoL. Can anyone give a girl a hand with her hyper parrot?

[Dave007]

I wouldn't exactly call your bird hyper. She fits the description of being extremely clingy which is not very common with greys. There's some things you can try but in your eyes, it may be minor. Concerning color--your bird is frightened of red. Many greys are frightened of certain colors, sunglasses, new hair color change, new colored dress, a new hat so that whole thing shouldn't be looked on as a problem.

 

As far as perches--I don't know what types of perches you use but if they're the straight dowel type perches that usually come with a new cage, you should change them to branch type perches that are uneven, knarled, bent. They can be gotten from any area that has dead branches laying around. In other words, the same style perch es you see in a tree. Many people use those types of perches instead of what comes with the cage.

 

You say that she has no desire to fly nor does she know how to fly. Try having her hold on to your index finger firmly and then take your thunb, cover the top of the feet firmly so she can't jump or fly off. Make sure your bird's body front is aimed at you. Extend your hand out and start to slightly wave your hand up and down approx 6 to 9 inches either way. She will flap furiously. Don't let her go. Stop for 10 to 15 seconds and do it again and repeat again. Your thumb will not let her fly away but by her doing that she will feel updraft. This should be done a few times a day.

 

Stop rewarding her all the time for everything she does outside of her cage. She's flipping the treats so that should tell you that it's a waste of time anyway.

 

"""""I would prefer sometimes that she just sit still and perch on my hands or arms. She used to all the time. Recently, however, she just wants to climb to my shoulder........and then up and down, up and down, up and down, ad nauseum. It can get quite annoying."""

 

 

I'm afraid that's your fault. You allowed her on your arms in the past and it's a well know fact that as a grey gets older, the only place they wanna be is at the highest point of anything. You can't teach a bird to go back down when he/she is on your body.. Theonly thing you can do is put her in the cage when you need to concentrate on something else.

 

Try some of these things out first and see if differences start then let us know and we'll continue with the next situation. You have many situations which can't be addressed by you all at the same time.

 

Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2009/08/31 06:50<br><br>Post edited by: Dave007, at: 2009/08/31 07:11

[Pi_1]

Oh, by the way, I keep the perch next to her cage as well and have since she was little, so she's used to it and not really scared of it, just doesn't want to go ON it, LoL. Also, I keep it right next to us as well every time she comes out, but she never becomes interested and wants to go near it........

[Pi_1]

Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, I don't really offer her treats anymore as she doesn't eat them outside of her cage. I never tried to reward her "all the time". I tried bunches of different yummies periodically, but when I found she had no interest, I would stop and just offer her praise instead, which she seems to relish. It isn't that she's sick of them either, as I don't share my crackers or food items with her but once in awhile, maybe a couple of times a week.

 

As far as the perches go, I've tried two of them. One was, as you say, a tree branch style with a bowl on one end. The other, which I tried later thinking she would prefer something closer to her own cage, has acrylic sides and two perches on top, one a machined wood perch like those in her cage, and the other one of the rough style that is supposed to wear their nails down. They are kind of in an L shape. She despises both. I just recently tried the L shaped one. For the first year I had her I kept the other branch style one next to her cage and tried to train her on that.

 

The reason I used to always keep her on my arms was to work with her, since she wouldn't go near a perch. It worked well until lately now that she just wants to climb all over me like a jungle gym.

 

These days, since she still won't touch the perch, I'm not sure what to do. I wouldn't mind her sitting on my shoulder at all, since she knows to climb down to go "potty". It's funny, she says "potty", climbs down, and looks for the Potty mat" we keep on the floor when she is out. She then proceeds over to it, hangs off my arm or leg, and aims for it. She really is VERY smart. She is also VERY stubborn, LoL. As I was saying, sitting on my shoulder is fine, but I can't work with her or train her up there, and she doesn't stay there anyway. The climbing drives me nuts. I'm sure it IS my fault, but had I not allowed her to sit on my arms and hands I would now have an untrained parrot, LoL. The only reason I was able to work with her was because I allowed her to sit there, ya know?

 

Anyway, just thought I'd explain some of the things I did and let you know what I had tried. Any further advice, suggestions, etc would be MUCH appreciated, and thank you for the response you already posted. I REALLY appreciate the help, as this is the first parrot I've owned since I was a kid and visited my Mom who had one.

 

Thanks all!

Yvonne

[Pi_1]

Oh, also, when she was little, she used to flap her wings furiously sometimes. I would encourage this behavior and praise her for it. I would hold her in the air and say "flap-a-wing" and she would have a great time flapping. She used to do it on command. She no longer does this, and shows no interest in doing it any longer. If I say "flap-a-wing" she will stretch her wings out, but not flap any more. I've often tried doing the up and down motion, but she doesn't flap, even when I do it quickly. She just screeches and looks at me like she's angry, LoL. She even nips at my fingers like I'm being mean, but she doesn't flap. The only time she ever flaps any more is if she falls, and then she just flaps a couple of times and drops like a rock, LoL. She never had a bad experience or anything that I know of when we were doing the flapping sessions, although she has fallen a few times when leaping off of things to get to me.

 

It's strange because she used to really enjoy the flapping sessions. I really encouraged it and it seemed as though she was having great fun. She would flap until she was out of breath, then love on me. I always made a big deal of it and encouraged it because I read it was important to their development, and the breeder we got her from had clipped her wings from the time she was a baby. She said they do that to all their birds and that it is better for them, although I have heard otherwise.

 

Anyway, just some background info......sorry to talk/type your ears/eyes off........

[Pi_1]

Hello again,

 

I've been trying your suggestion about getting her to flap her wings. It's pretty much the same thing I used to do with her when she was younger, but back then I didn't need to move her up and down, she just enjoyed doing it and having me hold her up. Anyway, these days she doesn't like it at all. I've been doing it several times a day when I have her out, but she doesn't really flap much and she gets quite angry with me, then acts as if I've been mean to her. She really just holds her wings up when I do it, kind of like when they try to balance and extend their wings a bit. She doesn't flap even though I'm moving her up and down about 9" to 12". If I do it more than a couple times, she'll screech at me and start nipping at my fingers. When I continue doing it, the nips get increasingly more painful. This is pretty unusual, as she NEVER bites me. Even when she was young she never bit me. I taught her the word "careful" when she was little, and she knows it means she is biting too hard. On the rare occasion she gets excited and bites a little too hard, I would say "careful Betsy", and she would stop immediately and put her head down and against my hand like she felt bad. I can do almost anything to her, and although sometimes when I'm messing around with her wings if she gets a painful broken feather or something she will grab my fingers and push them away, she never bites me. But with the flap training, she gets PISSED OFF. I don't think I've ever seen something that makes her so angry, LoL.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure if I should continue or not. What do you think? Is it important she learns? I would just as soon her not fly around, but want to do what is best for her.

 

As far as her being clingy, yes, she is extremely clingy. She wants to be on me 24/7. She doesn't like to sit on anyone else, including my fiance who has also taken care of her since she was a baby. It's funny because my fiance feeds her, waters her, gives her most of the treats, etc. She really won't sit anywhere at all for long. If I set her down on the couch, floor, etc.......even my fiance........well, she doesn't even want to go in the first place, but if I get her to at all, she just does it to please me, says "good girl", and then leans toward me with a foot extended. If I don't come to get her she just makes a jump for it.......and falls to the floor, LoL. She then waddles toward me clucking and saying "mama, mama!". She is so funny, she reminds me of a little raptor the way she runs toward me. It's nice she loves me so much, obviously, but she is just so hyper sometimes and I worry she is a bit too obsessed. It would also be nice if I could have her out, interact with her, train her, etc with her sitting on something other than me........especially because with her climbing up and down all the time latelty, it is tough to keep her focused on something. Heck, it would even be nice to be able to hand her to my fiance for 5 minutes to use the bathroom!

 

I know from reading it is rare for Greys to be clingy, but never having had a Grey before, I wasn't sure what exactly constituted clinginess for them. Do you think her behavior is unusual? Unhealthy?

 

The last couple nights I've been giving her a plastic bottle cap or the little magazine subscription cards to play with while she is on my shoulder, and only letting her have them when she stays up there. It has been working fairly well to make her stay put, and has been keeping her busy so she isn't climbing all over. I just wonder how I'm going to train her and work with her going forward if she won't use a perch nor sit on my arms any more.

 

Any further thoughts or suggestions you might have for me would be much appreciated. Thanks all! Glad to be here in the forums with some fellow Grey lovers!