Another talking queery

[Chuckles]

I voted for Chuckles in the talk poll but cant vote for 2 birds. My younger baby, Bozo, is 14 months old, has been with me since the age of 10 months. Bozo laughs, quacks, blows raspberries, tuts and makes lots of noises as if he is trying to speak. I am sure I heard a "hello" and a swear word on another occasion :blush: The man who had Bozo before me unfortunately thought it would be a good idea to teach Bozo lots of different whistles instead of chatting. Chuckles is a real chatterbox and picks up things very quickly so she is now copying the whistles. Now I am subjected to very loud sessions of the 2 birds whistling to each other several times a day and this does not stop until I cover one of them up.

Bozo adores my daughter and we are thinking about letting Bozo go to my daughters house for a couple of weeks to see if that will break the whistling habit a bit and encourage more vocal noises.

The only problem is that I will miss Bozo terribly. He is such a cuddly bird and we spend hours cuddling and playing with toys every day.

If anyone has any other advice they can give me I would be very grateful.

[loviechick]

Personally I wouldn't send your bird to another house for a couple weeks as that could send mixed signals to your bird, and also upset them as to why they were dumped off then returned a few weeks later. My birds all whistle, they have these high pitched calls that can sometimes be ear piercing, but I've noticed that 90% of the time if I just talk to them or say hi, they stop as they're just contact calling to their flock leader(me).

 

The ONLY thing that will encourage "human" noises is "human" talk. Talk to your bird constantly. These birds have wild chirps in nature so naturally they're going to have them in captivity. My 13 year old CAG can say hmmm at least 100 words but she has maybe 30 different sounds not including at least a dozen type of whistles. Now here's an interesting tidbit, her prior owners that had her for 10 years, refused to whistle to her, they would talk to her like a person, which might explain her seasoned vocab. However she still has TONS of whistles and noises she makes that she learned anyway.

 

I would sugest just keep talking to your bird, but don't bounce him around, that's only gonna confuse him.

[BMustee]

From what I have been told whistling will not hamper the talking abilities of a grey. I think that putting Bozo in another home may do more harm than good, and as soon as he returns they will continue to contact call each other.

 

At 14 months he is still in the bracket of not talking yet. One of the girls at my work has a 2 year-old that just said it's first words. If he isn't ready to talk there is nothing you can do to force it.

[Chuckles]

Perhaps I should have been a little clearer on this. I have no objection to nice whistling and I dont care if Bozo never talks but this is ear-piercing. Bozo whistled so loudly one day recently that my ear was sore and ringing and I could not hear properly for several days. One of my daughters will not bring her children to my house now in case her baby suffers ear problems. My neighbours who have been highly amuzed by Chuckles chatter and other antics are now complaining. Some of you will know me from other forums and know that I dont give up easily with problems but this is one that has me stumped and I need to find a solution.

[danmcq]

Well, try feeding him salt-less crackers, that always disables the whistle in cartoons ;-)

 

Seriously though, that may be a hard problem to resolve, as I am sure you know very well.

 

Maybe someone will have some ideas on associating that LOUD whistle with something negative, like it means take me to my cage every-time your grey whistles that loud?

 

Just thinking out loud here :-)

[BMustee]

:laugh: LOL...good mental image of a grey with cracker crumbs coming out with a pathetic attempt to whistle...LOL:laugh:

 

 

I really don’t think there is anything other than ignoring the noise and hope for the best. Maybe tell him a stern NO when he does it. Unless he was already on your hand, putting him in the cage may not work very well…by the time you pick him up and put him in the cage he could already have forgotten he made the noise and wouldn’t know why he is getting a time out.

[mervyn2233]

From what i have been researching it is not addvisable to teach the bird whistling sound as the bird then accepts that as a way to speak to us humans and therefore repeats ?

[Guest briansmum]

no it's rubbish you're bird won't talk if you teach it to whistle. whistleing is easier than forming words so they whistle first, it is more natural to them. i whistle tunes with brian, but he makes up his own anyway. he has mumbled words since he was 5 months and now at 9 months obviously, and repeatedly says "give us a kiss.... mwah!" just and example of how whistling doesn't stop talking

 

anyway back to the problem at hand. i agree that sending the bird to another home wouldn't help, it would just confuse the bird.

 

the best you can do is ignore the noise. perhaps leave the room when your birds make these very loud sounds and they will associate their noise with making you go away. i can't begin to imagine how loud it must be to disrupt your hearing for days. ouch!