What is she doing?

[LabRat00]

Whenever I put punky in her cage and she doesn't want to be there, she digs on the bottom of her cage and then she clings to the sides and twists herself up and then gets "stuck" and makes these little crying/whining noises. So of course I go over to make sure shes okay and she gets out of her contorsion quickly. I'm pretty sure this is an attention getting thing, but even if I ignore her, she still does it. It makes me sad when she cries like that. Also when I cover her cage at night and if we aren't being quiet enough for her, or I don't turn the lights off right away, she does that. So i'm just curious if anyone elses birds do this? Or do you have any ideas of how I can deal with this better?

[Kaedyn]

What you are describing doesn't sound uncommon. My youngest grey, Sierra, never knew anything about cages when I got her. She was used to being "free" in a large room or aviary. So, her initial reactions to being in a cage were about how you describe. She would scratch at the cage bars and twist herself in all sort of positions. It was no secret that she didn't want to be in there. She wanted to be with her flock.

 

All I did was ignore it and she eventually got the hint. I also made sure she had plenty of toys and foraging opportunities to occupy her time. Another thing that helped, in my case, is that her cage is in it's own room, so I wasn't constantly in sight.

[danmcq]

Kaedyn is right on the money.

 

They will also go up and start scratching in their food bowls etc. to get your attention. Just ignore it. I know it's hard because they are just too pitiful, but it's for their own good and yours. :-)