New untame bird - my diary

AlphaWolf · Post by **AlphaWolf** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:45 am

I'am getting confused now . ellieelectrons watched over her. Tell me, does ellie live near you???

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:14 pm

Skyes_crew wrote:Does Nila have the word slowly in his vocabulary lol.

Nope, not at all! It would be good a word to use when we play connect for also, he wins by never giving his opponent time to think about their next move.

Alpha, we live within a few kms of each other, so I've met the famous Janey and Charlie. Janey doesn't like me, but Charlie thinks I'm alright. They both like my boyfriend more.

Yesterday evening she actually bounced across her tree and jumped onto my hand really confidently. When I ran out of treats she stayed there looking at my face while I made funny noises for a few minutes and playing gently with my thumb nail before returning to her tree.
.
She seems confident that I will stick to rules and not try to touch her, I can move my hand around her when she is not interested in interacting. She also has adapted Nilas strategy when she doesn't want to step up, keep one foot tucked up and pretend there is no finger.

I'm really disappointed that she doesn't appear to like Nila, I only wanted a bird as a friend for him! I'm not that fussed as to how tame she gets, she just needs to be tame enough that she can be knows how to go into her cage, be to recalled, understand windows and grabbed in an emergency. The rest is a bonus.
Nila generously leant her heaps of toys. Ungrateful wench she is! We will endeavour to slow Nila down and let them watch each other from a distance, hopefully she will change her tune.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:09 pm

I suspect Nilas quick confident movements startle her a bit. She needs a bit more time to observe from afar. Maybe a training session with Nila done a few meters from her cage.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:38 pm

I expect you're right Mel. Nila is very forward!

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Sat Nov 09, 2013 3:04 am

After I got home from work I let squidgette out and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up she was playing on her tree. I'm glad she's started exploring it, she spends a lot of her out of cage time sitting on the curtain rails sleeping or trying to destroy the shear curtain I hung up to stop her smashing into the window.
She doesn't seem to fly around for fun like Nila does, it might be that her room isn't huge (but Nila does laps of our bedroom which is a similar size). Maybe she's not feeling confident enough here for recreational activities.
We tried some new games; targeting and jumping/flying to my hand for some treats. I tried handing her foot toys too, but she wasn't interested in them. She liked chewing the target stick though!
She didn't see Nila at all today, he was too busy hanging out with daddy and fixing cars. They are on different schedules too. She is on normal daylight which is about 2 hours different morning and night from Nilas "day". She was getting ready for bed when the boys got home.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 8:43 pm

Squidgette is really good with me now, even flies to my hands uninvited sometimes - if she thinks there might be some food in them. She has been exploring the room and playing more. The main problem is she is aggressive towards his birdiness! We have been caging him across the room from her.
While she was out today she landed on his cage, when he came to say hello she lunged at him. He employed pretty much the same tactics I have been using. The slight variation in our techniques is he regurgitated the treat he was offering. She eventually approached him nicely for a treat. I tried to film it, but Nila saw the camera and decided that it was more interesting.
After that they had a bit of beak-wrestling thru the cage bars and she got grumpy at him again. He showed her all his toys and how to use them. Every time she lunged at him he would retreat to a toy and play with it until she edged closer then he'd try to approach her again.
Then she tried to eat his greens so I put her back in her cage with her food.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:02 pm

Sounds like they had a fabulous time...minus the whole regurgitation thing lol. Ill never get used to that

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 1:59 am

I don't find Nila feeding the mirror gross anymore, but watching her eat it almost made me sick.

I am getting lots of opportunities to watch birdy interactions.
Squidgette flew back down to Nilas cage a few times to try and steal his food and toys through the bars and generally try to terrorise him. After a few advances on his part (minus the regurgitation he did earlier), which were rebuffed, he moved away from her, put his head under his wing and went to sleep. She stopped playing with his toys and moved closer for a nap. After they both woke up and finished preening she flew to the curtain rail and gave him some glances, he wanted to follow so I let him out and he hopped on me and insisted I preen his head for half an hour. After that he played on her tree by himself until daddy got home and flew out of the room to join daddy.
The course of true love never did run smooth!
She better blimin like him soon! He's got a lovely red beak and is very clever, how can she turn down such a catch?

lilstephii143 · Post by **lilstephii143** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 7:38 pm

i had the same cage for my IRN until she got her beak stuck 2x in between the bars and screamed her head off. it was right after her beak where she got it stuck and indented into her muscle.. well she had to goto the vet for a look... now shes in a sugar glider wiring cage what i was told it was... its much smaller tho :/

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:19 pm

lilstephii143 wrote:i had the same cage for my IRN until she got her beak stuck 2x in between the bars and screamed her head off. it was right after her beak where she got it stuck and indented into her muscle.. well she had to goto the vet for a look... now shes in a sugar glider wiring cage what i was told it was... its much smaller tho :/

You bring up a good point here. I've recently seen a few cages posted with bar width beyond the recommended for IRN's. But....there are also quite a few people that only use the cages as a place for the bird to go back to at night to sleep, or during the day to play but with the door open. If IRN's are left in these cages all day with the doors closed and they spend hours looking for a way out, they are very likely to get their beaks stuck. Very young IRN are also at risk of this because of the inability to grasp being caged. There are bar width recommendations for a reason...yet I know people want to provide the largest cage possible. How do we fix it????

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:56 pm

Ummm, the bar spacing is 1/2".

Melissa, building your own cages is the way to solve it.

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:02 pm

I hear you can get the cage companies to special order your bar width. Never looked into it, tho.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:07 pm

InTheAir wrote:Ummm, the bar spacing is 1/2".

Melissa, building your own cages is the way to solve it.

I wasn't talking about your cage Claire

yours is fine. It was a generalization brought on by her story about her bird in particular. I've seen parrot size cages recently for IRN's Parrot cages are for parrots. But MissK...I didn't know you could custom order bar width. Ill have to look into that.

Ps...I don't have a handy man like you do that converts furniture so beautifully.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:43 am

Hahaha i did a pretty fair portion of the work on Nilas cage

We made it because all the cages that we considered a decent size had inappropriate bar spacing, not that Nila spends much time in it or appreciates it... Squidgette flew into it today, while he was busy playing on his tree. She tried out all his toys and chucked one of his bowls onto the floor. I removed her before he noticed.

She did rather impress me today, both birds were sitting on their respective open cage doors when I was cleaning cages and vacuuming. She sat with a foot tucked up on her door while I vacuumed under her and around her cage! It's only the second time she's seen the vax and the other times she was at the other end of the room from it. (Her room was pretty gross after 2 weeks of not being vacuumed!). I did clean Nilas first, so she would see it wasn't threatening.

Because of her horrible attitude to Nila I am having trouble liking her. .. She's very pretty and trusting, but maybe a bit up herself.

Here's a pic of the real parrot whisperer, who has spent no time at all with my bird, yet she will sit on his hand for ages.

I had to use Microsoft paint to draw a shirt on him, I hope you like it!

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 2:32 am

The color is very becoming

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 7:48 am

I don't think you included a realistic amount of bird poo on the shoulder........

Oh, and he looks just thrilled, btw.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:52 pm

I thought that colour would bring out everyone's eyes.

Missk, Nila usually flies off to a perch if he needs to go to the toilet so we seldom get pooped on. He is a very polite bird. He either learnt it from the breeder or decided to do it himself, as he has been that way since we got him.
I hope Squidgette watches and learns!

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 9:05 pm

Coooooooooooooool!

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:10 pm

Nila is a pretty special little bird!

Chienderace · Post by **Chienderace** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:40 pm

I have just read all the posts in this topic with great interest. The nest mate left earlier in the week and the progress that Angela made with him astounded me, and to see what you have achieved with Squigette in the short time that she has been with you just reinforces the theory that they don't need to be hand reared to become tame. Its the time and effort involved that gets the reaction, just take a hand reared bird and neglect it for a few days!
Look forward to talking on Thursday.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:46 pm

Squidgette is in great hands for sure

And kudos to you on breeding such beautiful birds

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Fri Nov 15, 2013 11:00 pm

It's pretty amazing, and she's still got a full set of very good looking wings too

See ya on thursday.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 1:38 am

Wow, there is nothing like some healthy competition. Nila was just playing twinkle twinkle very badly on his big xylophone while Squidgette was busy raiding his cage. When she noticed he was doing something fun she flew over to have a go too. She was beaking the keys, but not getting any sound out yet.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 1:54 am

Big bro is showing her the ropes

I love watching the birds raid each others cages. Today it was hamlet in cyranos and Chico in hamlets. Cyrano was busy hanging by one toe from a branch in the tree to get to his ball.

They act like its Christmas in each others cages

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 3:25 am

It really amuses me that neither bird ever wants to spend much time in their own cage, but they are both all over each others, playing with every toy. Squidgette even ate Nilas pellets, she won't touch the bowl in her cage though.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 1:17 pm

Grass is always greener on the other side

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 9:45 pm

I need some advice, Squidgette is getting worse with Nila!
We usually let Nila spend most of the day out of his cage, so we have been doing the same with squidgette. She has started tormenting Nila most of the time, more frequently he gets comfy or plays with something she flies over to chase him away.
We were just watching a movie while laying on the carpet with Nila settling down for a nap on Dave and squidgette flew down to sit on my stomach and play with my shirt before launching herself at Nila, landing on him and trying to bite him. Dave and I waved our arms at her and both birds flew off in opposite directions. Dave has taken Nila to play upstairs and I put her back in her cage so I don't accidentally throttle her...
Nila has started getting into an aggressive posture when she tries to approach him from above and has threatened her a few times before flying off.

She seems to be worse with him when he is on or near me, on his cage door or on either playstand. She tends to leave him alone when he is playing on top of her cage...

She chases him off when I do any training with him and picks up the props he was using and slightly mimics the trick.

I am considering moving her back to the spare room so Nila can have safe playtime downstairs and reintroducing them at a later date.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this idea or suggestions?

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 10:10 pm

For the love of all that might be holy, don't take my thoughts as if I actually know what I'm talking about:

Disclaimer issued, I think that 1) Squidgette thinks you belong to her (fair assumption, given her experiences) and 2) she has a greatly reduced chance of hurting Nila if she is safely locked in her cage while he is out.

Would it help at all for Squidgette to observe Janey, Charlie, and Nila interacting in a more satisfactory fashion, from the safe-for-all vantage point of her cage? In other words, can you have Ellie and her bunch over for a play date? Would that help?

Also, I would consider getting a second set of some of Nila's props so you can take advantage of her interest there.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Sat Nov 16, 2013 11:26 pm

Two things...cage time and boundaries. You have to set them now. She is in all essence a wild bird acting on instinct. Unfortunately until she is older and those boundaries are firmly in place, she can't be free range like Nila. And unfortunately for Nila, that means he may have to have separate play time from her. Flock integration can take months. Just a little patience and your soft but firm hand will help. Females are a whole other animal

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Wed Nov 20, 2013 1:08 am

I am thinking of changing her name to sapphire...
She's still good with me and hates Nila. She has picked up a few of Nilas sounds, his contact call (which she directs at wild lorikeets) and the budgie noise Dave taught him. She sounds like a giant angry budgie when she does it.
We practiced flights to my hand today for quite a while.
She still can't open sunflower seeds properly unless they are sprouted. I'm sure Nila could show her, if she stopped being so horrible to him for long enough to learn.

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Wed Nov 20, 2013 10:13 am

Was unaware of Dave speaking Budgie........

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:01 am

Sapphire is pretty

Hamlet didn't start cracking seeds that big for awhile either. She'll get the hang of it

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Wed Nov 20, 2013 2:45 pm

MissK wrote:Was unaware of Dave speaking Budgie........

Dave can speak a few native bird languages, going for a walk in the forest with him is a bit of a nightmare. .. He stops to pass the time of day with every single brush turkey! In densely populated areas it can take an hour to walk a couple hundred metres!

Mel, putting a couple in her dish is a good way to keep her occupied for 10 minutes

the look of concentration on her face as she turns it around in her beak is priceless! Nila was probably born with the ability to open sunflower seeds, he was eating them fine at the same age.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 7:49 pm

My little bird is so funny! She gives every new object a good beaking when she first encounters it. The first time she hopped down on to the carpet she looked like a horse grazing.
She was watching Nila playing on the big pool table last night, so today Nila was sitting near it and she flies down to try it out. She tried to beak a ball and it rolled away, she tried eating the felt, but it wasn't squishy enough, she went after the ball and found the pocket. At last, something to sink a beak into! She got a few beak marks in to the leather cover before I covered it with a block of balsa wood.
Then she tried ice-skating on the marble bench top in the kitchen, but she couldn't eat it.

Nila went to work yesterday and she was so unsettled. Didn't preen, play or nap properly until he came home. She was still terrorising him a bit when he got home though.
Today he went with Dave again and I had to pick him up after a couple hours, she was contact calling and acting very distressed. Now she has him home to pick on she's a content little bird!

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 10:36 pm

Maybe she will be coming around after all.

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Thu Nov 21, 2013 11:56 pm

I hope so!
When I went to get Nila I put one of his favourite foraging puzzles in her cage in case she wanted to play with it. .. later on, when both birds were out, Nila spots his toy and goes on to her cage door to play with it. She flew over a few minutes later and chased him away. He went to the curtain rail, assessed the situation, came back, told her to go away and went foraging in her cage. She flew to his cage and ate his greens and pellets, then settled down to chew his toys. She gave him a few dirty looks, but didn't try to chase him off again.
I'll count that as progress!

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Fri Nov 22, 2013 7:16 am

It sounds great to me!

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 2:57 am

I managed to really, really, really annoy sapphire moonstone today, enough to get bitten! She didn't bite to hurt though, thankfully! I have seen what that beak can do to a lump of wood! She didn't even scratch me.
I was stupid enough to offer her the hand that was attached to the shoulder that Nila was sitting on. She knows you can climb from the hand to the shoulder and back, so it was terrifying! I removed my hand and offered the other one, she gave it the dirtiest look then realised Nila was safely on the other side of my head and climbed aboard. Lucky she doesn't know that Nila can climb around heads when he feels inclined to....

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 4:33 am

Family dinner tonight:

As you can see, she is not quite as civilised at the table as his birdiness.
She only jumped the xylophone to chase Nila off his dinner a couple times tonight, which is an improvement!

Nila has been standing up to her a bit more, which seems to be improving the relationship. He has also been moving to about a foot away from her and hanging out, ignoring her dirty looks, she stops glaring at him in these instances. I think he's getting a bit fed up with being bossed around all the time.

She's really good with us, but not very confident with visitors. One of my friends was over last week and didn't take heed of my instructions not to approach her. Poor little Sapphire got very frightened by having someone she didn't know walking straight up to her cage, poking it and ignoring the fact that birdy was panicking and crashing into the far side of the cage! Note to self; bird must never be in cage when non-animal people come over, as she doesn't seem to feel enough safe in there.

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:13 am

Ughhhh....I hate when people do that to my birds. Do they not see the poor bird trying to get away?

Dinner looks civilized enough. She's learning by leaps and bounds. It's sort of a learning experience for everyone having a second bird. Nila is learning that he's a bird himself... And not in charge all the time lol. Sapphire is learning to live among non feathered friends and feathered ones alike and that she can't always be in charge either. And Claire and Dave are learning to live with double trouble and that they are never going to be in charge again

MissK · Post by **MissK** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:43 am

Heh. That's why I made sure to let everybody know I was putting a TURKEY in the oven this morning!

Dinner at Claire's looks sweet. Notice Somebody got a special, colour-coordinated plate.....

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 3:46 pm

missk, that reminds me of a joke about a macaw I heard.
That's actually Nilas special plate, but she falls off the other one and he is more interested in the contents than the plate anyway.

Sky, you make it sound like our house is going to be a democracy one day!

This morning Nila was playing with a packet of cable ties on the table when I let the little monster out, he was reluctant to be chased away but eventually backed off to Daves shoulder.
When Dave handed him a cable tie to play with he tried fishing for Sapphires with it

He moved to the shoulder near her, while she was playing on Daves arm and dangled the cable tie towards her. She couldn't climb up Daves sleeve properly, when she tried to be agressive Nila hid behind Daves head. When she settled down with her own cable tie he would move closer and start dangling his one over the edge of the shoulder until she dropped hers and tried to get his. They repeated this game for a few minutes.
Must teach Nila to say "nah nah nanana nah!".

Skyes_crew · Post by **Skyes_crew** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 5:41 pm

InTheAir wrote:
Sky, you make it sound like our house is going to be a democracy one day!

Nah...I see a monarchy blooming

AJPeter · Post by **AJPeter** » Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:02 pm

Hi Claire,
I have come a bit late on this post but talking to Sqidgette about what you are doing is really great. I talk to my Billie all time. About snatching, l say to Bille "Gently!" and keep repeating the word and if she tries to snatch again l with draw and say "Naughty". If Billie does not fly to my shoulder when l leave the room she suddenly realizes that l am not all there and l hear a panic call so l shout back "In a minute" or "I'm coming" Also when l come through the front door l call to let her know it is me and not some stranger. She has a great display when l come into the room, flapping her wings and sqwarking.
Her previous owner only ever gave her sunflower seeds, and never any fruit so Billie has a weird appetite, she does not like peanuts or monkey nuts, does not like any kind of dried fruit or vegs, including dried red peppers she throws out of her bowl. She likes a little cooked food which l offer to her on a spoon while she sits on her door, Bille has a bowl of fresh fruit and vegs which she picks over, sweet pea pods are a favourite. But her likes and dislikes keep changing.
Do not worry about spelling or grammar l cannot spell for toffee.
AJPeter

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Tue Nov 26, 2013 8:52 pm

AJ; Parrots tend to snatch when they are feeling a bit nervous or uncomfortable. There can be other reasons, but in my birds case she was very nervous of people. She was not being naughty at all, she was being brave to come near the scarey human.
Chastisement in this situation would have scared her more and damaged the relationship I was building with her. I don't think it is wise to chastise a scared bird for it's natural caution.

She stopped snatching very quickly when she realised the big scarey humans couldn't hurt her. I'm sure she will start snatching again when she gets brave enough to take treats from people she doesn't know, but she will stop when she feels safe with them.

Nothing beats researching about your pet, so you have some understanding of their natural behaviour! This way you can understand why your bird reacts in certain ways and how you can behave that makes a nervous bird feel safer around you.

I've got to go now. I promised Nila I would teach him a new trick this afternoon and he's getting impatient to exercise his brain!

Doodlebug · Post by **Doodlebug** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:00 am

InTheAir wrote:she got grumpy at him again. He showed her all his toys and how to use them. Every time she lunged at him he would retreat to a toy and play with it until she edged closer then he'd try to approach her again.

I know how he feels lol.

I have been toying with the idea of getting Dudes a buddy next year, reading your progress and knowing what you know now about Saphire and Nila not getting on very well, would you still think its a good idea? I mean you never can tell can you, but she is still so young and they probably will come to be great together with you there to break up the fights and make them say sorry to each other!

InTheAir · Post by **InTheAir** » Wed Nov 27, 2013 4:55 pm

Hi Loo,
Ideally, I would have liked to let Nila pick his friend. It wasn't possible for many reasons. I want to watch them interacting and having fun together! Maybe one day it will happen.

Here is a new video of Sapphire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2DjN8I9xFE
She is pretty tame now, though not obedient

, so I am going to ask the moderator to lock this thread.

This website http://learningparrots.com/blog/trainin ... l-parrots/ was the most influential to me and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a nervous bird!

If anyone wants to discuss techniques etc. please start a new thread and pm me, if you are interested in my input.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,
Claire