OMG..He scream allll the day!

[Momo]

hellooo

sorry i post too soon again but i really need hep!

momo is very loud and he is getting louder and louder.he learn my tiel scream and he did this really loud non-stop.everytime my tiel makes sound my husband always in hurry to look after his tiel and momo expect me to do this as well to him.i always told my husband dont do that but it was too late-momo already learn this too far my neighbor keep big dog and its getting more worse since momo copy the dog's bark too.

i tried to ignore this and leave the room but he get more crazy and he dsnt stop for 4 hours calling me.when i get near to our tiel he scream and when i come to him our tiel scream too.i got headache this 3 days and i cant handle this noise anymore.i know momo just want to be near me but i also have many things to do like cleaning or cooking.now if i move to room i must to move him too and when i sit on sofa i must to bring his cage(and himself) sit next to me---just to make him little quite.i know this is bad because i must to teach him more indepedent and he dsnt need me 24 hours for having fun.i cant even leave my house because my neighbor said he scream all the day long looking for me.

any idea please help!!!!!

[danmcq]

Unfortunately the only thing you can do is ignore it. I know it must be driving you crazy, but that is all you can do. If you give in, he wins and learns to do it even more. One thing to try is covering the cage when he screams constantly and see if he stops, after he has stopped for a while take the cover off. If he starts screaming again, place the cover back on. They are smart and hopefully will learn quickly that screaming does not get the result they are wanting.

 

One thing I want to make clear though, is do not leave them covered all the time. It is not healthy for them nor stimulating. It is to only be used as a short covering until the screaming stops, then take it off.

Edited June 20, 2012 by danmcq

[Luvparrots]

Hi Momo, how's your singing voice. When my three make more noise then I want listen to, I sing to them or just talk. They always stop making their noises to listen to me. Just try to nip it in the bud and make some other noises, sounds more pleasant than what your grey/tiel is doing. Also if the noise is too much, pull the drapes and turn off the lights so that it is darker in the room that perhaps will also quiet down your parrot. The problem is what most of us do when we first get our grey, we are so pleased to finally have a grey that we over indulge with the petting and playing and carrying around and then when the grey is more common to us, we move on to other things. It confuses our spoiled greys/parrots and now it is up to us to turn them around to a more satisfactory relationship. But patient and try to make it easier on both of you.

Edited June 25, 2012 by luvparrots

[Momo]

hi danmcq,

thanks for the advice.he screams mostly when he is out and i need to put him inside cage and cover him.now he start to hate his cage and really scared to being put inside.thats why i stop covering method.belive it or not he dsnt scared of being cover and still continue his scream inside cover.i need to wait for several hours(usually after 3 hours he give up!) after he stop and uncover him.and fastly any minute he starts again!im scared this is not good for his mental cuz it takes so long so i dont do it anymore.

i never feed him extra energy food or any sugar food but i dont know why he become like this.my husband is so upset and he cant take any rest so he said to me he will rehome him if this dsnt stop.i know this is my husband fault and we trying the best we can to reduce his screaming.for like 3 hours per day we can tolerate it but from 10am-1 pm and 3pm-8pm this start to driving us crazy.

is it any other way to reduce this?im not expecting him to stop but at least 3-4 hours per day will be okay.

 

hi luvparrots,i will try to sing(im not a good singer) or put calm music and see if this works.he dsnt enjoy petting too much and he just want to sit very close to me.i act the same way from beginning i got him until now but since our new tiel come,he become so much jealous and noisy.i also respect his position as top bird,i dot know what i did wrong but i hope this can be better soon.

thanks again!

Edited June 20, 2012 by Momo

[danmcq]

Ok, here is a link to a professional behavorist I absolutely follow her advice when I need help with something. Her name is Barbara Heidenreich and is long time pro at this:

 

http://goodbirdinc.blogspot.com/2008/05/stop-you-parrot-from-screaming-for.html

 

I hope you find this useful. AS in her experience, it may take weeks, especially with 2 birds reinforcing each other as well.

[Momo]

unfortunetly this site is being forbidden here.i cant open it,its blocked.

[danmcq]

UGH ok, here is a copy/paste:

 

 

 

 

“Screaming. Somebody reinforced the heck out of that behavior.” I said to myself. Misty, a double yellow headed Amazon parrot, lived with me for only a few weeks. She was there so that I could put some of her vocal behaviors on cue. However it quickly became apparent she had a few other behaviors that needed to be addressed first. Before her stay with me she resided with Jill Bell for six years. Prior to that time her history is pretty fuzzy. She is estimated to be 19 years old. This meant screaming could have been reinforced for at least 13 years. It must have been, because it was STRONG. Misty was relentless. I’d leave the room; she’d scream and scream and scream.

 

She had been a good reminder of what companion parrot owners experience when faced with a very annoying and challenging problem. It can be very frustrating. Oddly enough, when I walk into someone else’s home and hear screaming birds I am usually not effected. But when a bird is screaming specifically, in what feels like a demanding way, to get my attention, it strikes a nerve. How does one find the patience to be a good trainer in those situations? It is not easy, but definitely necessary.

 

My mantra with Misty was “I am solving the problem. Getting angry or letting that knot in my gut sway my strategy will not give me the desired results. I am confident what I am doing will work. It has worked before with other birds I have trained. Hang in there!”

 

 

 

And it is true, my blue fronted Amazon parrot Tarah also learned to scream for attention. Completely through my own ignorance I reinforced screaming. I acquired Tarah, as many people do, when he was offered to me for free. At the time I was working in a veterinary hospital. One of my co-workers also worked part time in a pet store. Someone had walked in off of the street and sold her the bird for $100. Was the bird stolen, smuggled or desperately unwanted? I don’t know. My co-worker found she was overwhelmed with too many animals in her home and asked if I would be interested in watching the bird for awhile. (That “while” has turned in 18 years.)

 

 

 

 

Once in my apartment I was thrilled when Tarah offered a “hello” at the sight of me snacking on a piece of bread. However the enchantment wore off as Tarah began to scream anytime I was out of sight. Unaware of how to stop this undesired behavior, I did as many do, I ran back into the room each time Tarah screamed and told him to “Be quiet.” Did it work to stop the screaming? No, and at the same time I found I very much disliked my attempts at punishing reactions to the undesired behavior. I so enjoy having animals respond positively to my presence and did not want to become an unpleasant experience in my bird’s life in order to stop the screaming behavior.

 

 

 

 

While in the middle of dealing with this problem, I was introduced to the book “Don’t Shoot the Dog” by Karen Pryor. (Also known as the bible of animal trainers) As I read the book, I latched onto two important principles that could help me address the screaming problem. Extinction and differential reinforcement. Extinction is described as the process of discontinuing reinforcing a behavior that has been previously reinforced. In other words part of my strategy should include discontinuing offering reinforcement for screaming. This meant I should no longer run back into the room, or yell at Tarah. The book did not describe the exact situation I was experiencing with my bird. Rather it described the principles and how to apply them to a variety of examples, human and animal. In reading the words, I made the connection that the concepts could apply to any behavior I no longer wanted to continue. Paired with the principle of extinction was the strategy of differential reinforcement of an alternate behavior. In other words, if screaming would no longer work to get a response from me, what would? For Tarah this turned out to be a whistle. In the middle of a session of screaming and me doing my best to ignore this undesired behavior, Tarah offered a “whistle”. I immediately reinforced this by responding with the word “good”. Tarah replied with a scream. This was because at this point he only had one repetition of whistling being positively reinforced and entire of year of screaming being reinforced. However I remained consistent with my strategies and within two weeks time Tarah learned to whistle instead of scream when he wanted a response from me. 17 years later Tarah whistles when he wants to know where I am, when he desires a toy or treat, when I come home, and when he simply seems to be “happy”. The undesired screaming behavior was extinguished and replaced with a whistling sound.

 

 

 

Misty seemed to throw a kink in our now peaceful, well behaved and relatively quiet household. I “knew” from my past experience that I could repeat the process I had implemented with Tarah. However this time proved to be a bit more challenging. Because I was working out of the home at the time, it meant no breaks from dealing with the behavior problem. Every time I left the room I was challenged with having to be focused on training this bird. I was finding this to be very demanding. In addition there were times in the day when mentally I was just not prepared to train. Rather than feeling inspired to train and ready to resolve the behavior problem, I found myself dreading having to leave a room and work with Misty. I decided I needed to better set myself up for success. In getting to know Misty, who other than the screaming behavior, I found to be a delight, I learned that in the past she was accustomed to being covered at night. I took advantage of this and decided to leave Misty covered during the time in the morning I needed to shower and prepare breakfast and bird diets in the kitchen. This allowed me time to peacefully attend to necessary tasks in the morning. After this, I found I was less stressed and more prepared to begin a training session with Misty.

 

Throughout the day I would treat each time I left the room for whatever reason as a learning opportunity for Misty. I practiced my strategy of extinguishing screaming by not responding to it, followed by reinforcing a desired behavior. In Misty’s case the desired behavior was not a specific sound. Instead I chose to reinforce silence. My plan was to reinforce small increments of time of silence and gradually increase the duration Misty was silent before I would reinforce her with my presence or attention. If I was in the kitchen I would wait just outside of her view while she screamed. At first if she offered a pause in screaming that seemed the slightest second longer than what she had presented in between screams in the past, I would quickly appear and offer generous amounts of attention. I wanted quiet to receive a greater amount of positive reinforcement than screaming if I could. Overtime I gradually increased the amount of time she remained quiet before I would respond. And it worked!

 

However this was not without challenges. There were times throughout the day when a training session was not convenient for me when I needed to leave the room. Rather than cover Misty I opted for engaging her in other acceptable activity. For example, I often offered Misty a small cardboard box, a rolled up ball of newspaper, a new toy, or a portion of her diet just prior to leaving the room. This gave Misty another activity to focus on instead of screaming. But it also was not an opportunity for Misty to learn that screaming would not gain my attention and quiet would. It was still important to include training sessions throughout the day. The other activity was meant only to offer a break from training for me. This may have also lengthened the amount of time it took overall to teach Misty that screaming no longer would work.

 

 

 

 

Another challenge in training Misty was that Tarah was in the same room as Misty. Tarah would whistle at times when I left the room. While I wanted to respond to his whistle, I did not want to also then accidentally reinforce Misty’s screaming. My strategy had to be to only reinforce Tarah’s whistle if Misty was not screaming. If I was focused on the training session, I also found I could position myself so that Tarah could see me, but Misty could not. This allowed me to reinforce Tarah’s “good” behavior and wait for Misty to offer silence before responding to her.

[danmcq]

Continued:

 

 

 

 

Misty’s screaming also appeared to stimulate an occasional screaming behavior in Tarah as well. Fortunately because he had a strong reinforcement history for a whistle, I simply waited for him to offer a whistle before I would respond. Tarah quickly returned to offering a whistle and once again extinguished screaming.

 

Misty also would on occasion scream for my attention while I was in the room. When this occurred, I simply left the room. Again my thought process was to teach her that screaming now created the opposite response. Instead of people coming to her, people go away. It was also important to reinforce her with attention at times for being quiet while I was in the room as well.

 

Overall training misty to present silence to gain my attention took about 6 weeks to train. Obviously this was longer than it took to change Tarah's behavior. This could have been a result of the strength of the behavior in each bird based on their individual positive reinforcement histories. It could have also been a result of the fewer training sessions applied to Misty during the given amount of time. It could also be a factor of the birds as individual learners. In any case the end result was a bird that successfully learned to present desired behavior for attention as opposed to the undesired behavior of screaming.

 

I went through the emotional gamut that many companion parrot owners face when addressing screaming problems. However by focusing on good training strategy and allowing myself opportunities to relieve myself of the stress associated with addressing the problem I was able to attain my desired training goal. Screaming for attention is a behavior problem with a solution. Set yourself up for success and invest the time to train the desired behavior. The end result can be a lifetime of good behavior.

 

 

 

 

Tips to address screaming for attention

 

• Extinguish screaming.
  
• Reinforce any other behavior besides screaming.
  
• Remember the extinction burst is a good sign! The end might be insight. Change your feeling from frustrated to hopeful when your bird really goes for it.
  
• If you need to leave the room, but can’t focus on training, offer another positively reinforcing activity prior to leaving the room. This may buy you a short window of time to move freely between rooms without screaming behavior. However you will still need to include training sessions at some point.
  
• Get some earplugs to help you cope with the screaming during the extinction burst.
  
• Plan to wait in the other room. Prepare in advance a quiet activity you can do when trying to deal with a screaming session.
  
• Leave the room immediately when your bird screams for your attention.
  
• Manage your activities to help set yourself up for success. For example keep the lights off or your bird covered for a few extra minutes in the morning until you are prepared to deal with the screaming with good training strategies.
  
• Get support. If neighbors are having a problem with your screaming parrot, explain to your neighbors that you are working on training your bird not to scream.
  
• Count seconds in intervals of silence and increase if possible.
  
• Focus on fixing the problem instead of your frustration.
  
• Believe you will get there. This strategy does work.
  
• Keep notes if necessary to determine how and when this behavior maybe getting reinforced. Eliminate any reinforcement of screaming.
  
• Offer even more reinforcement for the desired behavior than the undesired behavior would normally receive in the past.
  

[Momo]

oh thank u very much danmcq!!!really a big help!

[Dave007]

Maybe take the grey cage and tiel cage and switch the position.

[kave70]

We have been dealing with Sam's screaming for months. I will tell you- I believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We try our best (and I think we have everyone on board here in our family) to ignore the screaming, and to make a HUGE deal when Sam makes some other appropriate noise.

We are getting much longer periods of fun whistles and sounds.

My best advice is to stick with it. When my husband was about to give up, or didn't praise for a good sound and just wasn't in the mood, we reminded ourselves that if we deal with this correctly now, it will finally be OVER.

It takes consistancy, and patience... and some earplugs :-)

Good Luck and if you need to vent, I'm here- I know how frustrating it is.

[Momo]

thank you for all the great idea and advice,

today he scream for 5 hours and i ignore him.finally he give up and stop.i hope he will understand screaming its not good and i dont like it.its quite difficult for me since i still can hear his voice even i use the earplug(my flat is small and i can hear his screaming very well).

now my husband always use earplug all the day long because he wants to rest and momo is too noisy. at least today he make improvement to scream only 5 hours.

i will try my best to make him used to be alone sometimes.he got everything,toys/attention/out all the time/outdoor schedule i dont know if i still miss some stuff that he need.

 

i will also try to change their cage position and see if that works.

thanks again guys,any idea are welcome please!

[Acappella]

You're doing great. It is worth it in the end. They are smart and they will figure it out. The more consistent you are the faster they'll get the message. I'm glad the earplugs are helping. They're not meant to totally block the noise, just take the edge off so you don't go completely crazy. After all, you want to hear when Momo finally makes a "good" noise so you can respond and praise the heck out of him. Like Kave70 said, you can come here to vent all you want during this training. Many of us have been exactly where you are we can cheer you and your husband on during the rough patches. Again, you're doing a great thing and you're a great parront! <3

[TWIX]

Well DJ used to scream a month ago, and i used the cage covering trick and it worked perfectly well. I covered the cage every time he screams and remove the cover when he is quite. I kept doing this for 2 days and now he knows that screaming is bad. Ignoring him also helped a little. What i find strange about DJ is that he gets crazy and very stubborn if i say the word "NO"!

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

TWIX... keep it up. Your bird is struggling with giving the control to you. Its also offering 100% trust as well. They think of it as control, while we are just trying to guide them and keep them safe. Once DJ understands this, control is not an issue. I rely heavily on Sophie to help me with the animal kingdom. It doesn't mean she controls them, but helps to make decisions for the safety of the flock. Once she understood this, she understood it wasn't about control, but what worked to make us a family. Nancy

[Momo]

hi hi,

today is the baddest day ever he scream from morning till now at 7pm and im writing this post beside him and i use earplugs!i put him inside cage and cover him,he gets more crazy and try to tear off his cover.after 2 hours he stop and i take him out....in 2 minutes he scream again!

i tried to praise him when he make a nice sound but exactly when he get my attention BOOM!he scream again.

he sleep at 10 pm and wakes up around 11 am.is it possible he sleep to much and become hyper?

we planning to take him to vet tomorrow just to check up if there is something wrong with him.what i realize today he is in heavy molt,i found a LOT of small feathers under his cage.i dont know if this disturb him and make him uncomfortable.

any idea what kind of test and question i need to ask the vet tomorrow?

Edited June 22, 2012 by Momo

[aerial.2000]

wowzers i hope the vet can help you and that momo settles down for you!

[kittykittykitty]

Considering all the stress you AND Momo are under I am not surprised he is screaming. Continue doing as others have suggested. "Keep the faith," and courage.

[judygram]

any idea what kind of test and question i need to ask the vet tomorrow?

Ask him the same things you have been asking us, tell him what he does but the previous poster may have hit the nail on the head, stress is a big factor and may be at the root of your problem, deal with that and lessen the amount of stress and see if it makes a difference, bet it does.

[TWIX]

They will scream for many reasons, i have been monitoring DJ and Susu for a long time, and i can tell you they will scream when they need food, when they want my company, when they are scared of anything, when we play music loudly or they hear loud noise, when they want to share some food on lunch/dinner time, when they play, and i am sure there are few other reasons that i have not yet experienced. DJ is going through heavy molt but he is not screaming, are you giving Momo a chance to bathe? If yes, how many times? I believe bathing will help a lot during a molt. At the end, i may be wrong and a vet would know much better, it is just my own opinion after all

[Momo]

wow thanks for all the reply!please keep the comment coming since we are stuck to find out what we did wrong.

i bath him once every 2 days and aloe vera spray.i see him preening too much and sometimes he makes noise when he preen himself.he often shake his fur and i saw him today jump around while preening.it seems like there is something inside his feathers.i check there is no ants/bugs and he never had mites.

 

oh it might be he understand im in big stress and effect him too.thanks for reminding me!i will try to solve the problems one by one and see if thats the reason.

 

i will bring him to vet tomorrow morning but since the vet here mostly expert for dogs and cats so any advice and idea are welcome!

thanks guys!

[judygram]

I bet when you are able to get the stress under control Momo will decrease or eliminate the screaming, be sure to bring that up at the vet's office tomorrow.

[Wingy]

Do you have chamomile available to you? You might possibly find it in a market with medicines, herbs, spices or possibly near tea (you don't want tea but some people here drink it in place of tea). Here is some information on greys and stress http://www.africangreys.com/articles/nutrition/nut_herbal.html This will give you an idea of what to look for

[Acappella]

Lots of deep breathing .If you and your family can stay calm there's a better chance Momo will calm down. Remember I warned you that the screaming may get worse first. Momo is trying to figure out why what worked before isn't working now. It's actually a good sign in my opinion. If you can stay calm and consistant now he'll eventually figure out that screaming more isn't getting your attention and that's when he'll start to try other things. Just keep telling yourself 'I'm solving this problem' and, of course, come here to vent and type scream when you need to. We'll cheer you on.

[carlsjr]

Do you have chamomile available to you? You might possibly find it in a market with medicines, herbs, spices or possibly near tea (you don't want tea but some people here drink it in place of tea). Here is some information on greys and stress http://www.africangreys.com/articles/nutrition/nut_herbal.html This will give you an idea of what to look for

 

thanks for that link. good information over on that site.