Chester- the Good, the Bad, the Unknown

Awww, Chester on a good day. My little buddy!

Chester is my little buddy. So sweet, so empathetic, rather cautious but always eager to see what's up and hang out with me. On the other hand, sometimes Chester has bad days. Days were he does not wish to cooperative on any level, and should he actually decide to, say, step-up, you should put him down as soon as possible. From experience, I can safely say he will NOT be satisfied on your hand for much longer than 3.5 seconds. His Maori yell, as I call it, is usually used extensively during these days, most often accompanied by beak charging and/or banging. Sometimes these bad days last for weeks or even a month or two. Sometimes not. Hard to say.

I would like to point out, though, that both of my ekkies are extremely polite about biting. Chester screams, beak bangs, even beak bangs with his beak open, and occasionally does a quick dose of beak pressure, but I have only once, ONCE! ever been actually bitten. That would be the day Clementine came home. Clearly  he knew something was up, though he obviously had not been anyway near her at that point- and I have to wonder is he thinks he overreacted, since he is know friends with her. Anyway. Chester really amazes me with how polite he is. If he does not want you, he will lean so far back he hangs upside down from his perch, or fly off with such force and speed he inevitably rams into something (not good), but he just does not favor biting.

I am not complaining- who likes being bitten? As is only polite on my part, I do my best to avoid irritating him any further than he already is with..... well, whatever it is that irritates him during these times. This means during his bad days I may never pick him up (though I always give the option), instead I just offer the occasionally treat (sometimes even that he does not want) and open his cage door so he can come out to play on his cage if he so chooses. Talk to him, but not too close. Just let him be, and give him what I can.

When Chester is having a good day, he can be very sweet. Not to everyone, but to me and a few other select people he has learned over time to trust. After many weeks of not sweet, he has become sweet again this December. I am thinking of it as an early Christmas gift. So nice to have back my friendly feathered beaver! And as a last note, speaking of feathers: his improve each year- month by month there are ups and downs, but year by year they are better and better. He is quite green now, and I am still holding out hope for a fully green boy in the future, at least for part of the year. Already many of these pictures look fully green, since it his just his lower belly where down still shows. So he is what I call "Facebook fully-feathered." And that is better than nothing!

Chester: a bird with a mission.

To the top!

The view! Ah, the view!

Such a lovely place to fluff and relax.

My work is done.

Linus is a new man! (er, parrot)

When I got Linus back several years ago, he had liver damage, his preen gland was malfunctioning, and he had started plucking. He also was extremely anxious. Since then, he has improved, thanks in no small part to his adopted mother Ava, but he still was a very anxious fellow. Rarely did he look relaxed- if ever I saw a parrot with an anxiety disorder, it was him. After Ava passed away this past Spring, I moved Linus into my bedroom, away from the other parrots. That helped, certainly, since I was with him a fair amount, he was in a very calm environment, but more importantly (as I did spend a lot of time with him in the bird room, too) he was with me when I was relaxing and/or sleeping, and relaxation is catchy. A bit like yawning, I suppose. But still he was extremely jumpy almost all the time.

(Just a note, this picture was not taken when he was upset-

that would not be the time to shove a camera in his face.

It does show how I often found him, though.)

This summer I did another round of herbal treatments for his liver, and this time, instead of just helping his liver, they also almost totally stopped the anxiety. Really,  about a two weeks in I noticed some improvement, and a week later it was very obvious to everyone. His panic attack moments are quite rare now, and he is now showing more of his personality, playing, eating better, and demanding attention! Instead of thrashing around when I put the food dish in (even though he has outside access doors and was in other ways semi-tame) he would just wait for me to finish, and dive in. No more slamming into the bars when the door to the room opened. And plenty of time spent relaxed, with his cheek feathers fluffed out, his crest at "half mast", and singing softly. Or loudly. He does love making noise. Seriously a lot of noise.

Now, when he is afraid of something, or wary, instead of becoming what can only be described as hysterical, he visibly makes a decision to abort, by leaning back, backing away slowly, or as a last resort flying off, or even occasionally stand his ground and hiss.

I am really amazed at his progress, up until now I just wondered if he would ever be relaxed and happy, let alone really tame. I suppose his amygdala (part of the brain that handles stress response) finally decided he was healthy enough to calm down! I have felt rather guilty about him for quite a long time, since he came back in fact; as it would be for any parrot caretaker, it was upsetting for me not to be able to help him more. I could rarely even take him to another room, or even outside in a carrier, something he did very much seem to enjoy, as he loves sitting in the sun. I really had to catch him on a very good day to do much with him. And living with that can be hard, you have to remind yourself often you are not a failure, and just keep trying everyday. While Linus might have seemed like a"difficult" parrot, much too hard for a first time caretaker, in actuality, anxiety aside, he was quite easy to tame and make friends with. That is why I say what you need most when taking on a rehome is patience and some good parrot books to help you through, not necessarily a degree in parrot wrangling. 

He is even brave enough to admit his well-loved 

cage cover is bright pink with monkey faces. 

And after all that, I now have a little buddy- happy, calm, and a (sometimes annoying) attention hog!

Miss Claudia with a bit less

Two things: one, don't worry, the white rope is much to big to choke her,

and Two, Claudia loves her platform from 

Things for Wings you see in the background! It has really helped her chronic foot issues.

When I adopted Miss Claudia she was fully feathered, and beautifully so. Since her case of asper 2 years ago, though, which started an intense bout of plucking, her plumage has taken quite a beating. At times she has had all of her feathers save for those on her neck, which she keeps bare, and at times she has been much closer to nude. Right now she is somewhere in the middle. it is a bit harder than, say, Chester, who goes through similar ups and downs (he is doing fairly well now, incidentally) as he started plucking long before I got him. Despite her current appearance, though, I really feel pretty good about Claudia right now, mostly because she seems to feel really good herself!

Claudia has never been very healthy, and was quite thin when I got her, having been force weaned and not in a home that noticed the problem, rather, they just assumed she was boring and stand-offish. Likely owing to those problems, while she is confident in many ways, she is also quite a fragile bird, so it takes quite a long time after an "incident" or illness to get her back on track: playing, foraging, exploring and flying- even eating enough on her own. So I admit I was always a bit worried she was a "good candidate", if there is such a thing, for plucking or feather destruction, and just hoped I could prevent it. Not that I thought about that too often, since a happy and healthy Claudia could easily be confused with a caique on growth hormones that fell in a paint pot. Seriously. Compare that to when she is not doing well, and just sits, or sits and begs, very little else. And with an apparently weak immune system, she can get sick rather easily.

This past Spring, she was doing pretty well, then this summer she took a down turn, and late summer starting plucking again. However, I think the plucking may have stopped again now, or at least very much slowed, but more importantly, she is eating well, everything and a lot of it, and is playful, friendly, game for just about anything, and back to her toy-destructive self. So I am thrilled!

One of the ways I encourage her to get back to playing is through foraging. I know she likes simple chippable items and things easily shredded, at least when she is in the mood to play. Right now, I could hang a toy on the moon and she would fly up there just to show it who is boss. When she is not interested, though, I make sure all of her toys are as enticing as I can, and place them almost in her way by her favorite perching spots. I also make sure all of them have a way to hide or place treats in/on them. Once she is reliably getting the treats, I starting hiding them in the toys more thoroughly, making them harder to reach. Eventually, as is the case now, she remembers how much fun destroying a toy "just because" is, and will go to town destroying them, even dropping some of the treat in the process. In fact, just taking out one of the treat containers is enough to get her to go to her toys and start destroying. And as anyone with parrots can tell you, very little is as satisfactory as coming into the room to find piles of wood chips and shreds of toys lining the cage bottom!

Currently, Claudia's favorite toy, for foraging and otherwise, is this coconut head by Planet Pleasures. You can slip nuts in the holes the ropes come out of, although by now several of the holes have no ropes in them, or even coconut fiber around them to dig through. Pretty soon, there will be nothing but a shell left!

Oh, and just to note, I did finish my to-do list from the other day! Yay!

If you have questions about behavior problems.....

You might want to ask Lara Joseph! I really love the post she did today helping out a woman that wrote her about her trouble with her young macaw. Anyone that has even glanced at any of my other posts knows that I could go on and on and on and on for ages about behavior and training. I know you just read that sentence and  changed the word "behavior" to "absolutely anything in the world" but that is not true! Besides which, I am talking about behavior now, and will not be going on and on, since I think Lara said it all perfectly. And if you have a parrot, or are thinking about getting a parrot, or have had multiple parrots for many many years, I highly recommend you head over to Lara's blog and read not just today's incredible post, but also the rest of her blog!

And just in case you somehow missed all the links I peppered that short paragraph with, I will give you one more chance to get there- larajoseph.wordpress.com

One-line Problems? So Passe

I am sure everyone has heard about the dreaded hormones with parrots. Most of you will even have researched about the dreaded hormone issue. Many of you have likely personally experienced the dreaded hormone issue. The question is, should any "angry", "antsy", "annoying" or "not-my-sweet-little-cuddle-bunches-darling-prince-sparkles-love-of-my-life" behavior automatically be considered hormones?

Firstly, branding behavior as hormones can be just as much a problem as branding behavior, as, oh say, just a broken parrot. Why? Because once a behavior is branded (i.e, one-lined), it is often considered consciously or not to be solved, when there may actually be both a reason for the behavior and something that can be done about it.- although that will usually involve changing your own behavior, so consider yourself forewarned.

Take this as an example:
Let's say you got an adorable male amazon, perhaps even an adorable double yellow headed male amazon as a baby. You have had him for a of couple years, and little Joe is now becoming a mature parrot, about the age hormones can start to be a problem. One day he bites you, totally out of the blue, and is no longer very cooperative about getting out of his cage. He starts yelling a lot soon after, and tearing around his cage like a madman (or bird) so you know at this point that the problem is hormones, so famously a problem in the "hot three" amazon males, and you will have to give him lots of toys and wait it out, being patient with him, moderating his daylight hours, etc., right?

Well how about another look at this story:
Since you brought Joe home as an adorable little baby, he has let you do anything with him. You never really trained him to step-up, and always just reached in and stuck you hand under his feet whenever you wanted to get him out; you used the same method to move him from any area to another. Joe is a sweet guy, and seems to love doing just about anything. Occasionally he is not quite as willing as other times, but you know he loves being with you as much as you love being with him, so you get him to do whatever you want anyway- like get out of his cage when he is busy playing, because you want to take him in the shower with you.

Everything is going so well, and you so adore little Joe, that as the years go by, you do not notice the subtle signals Joe is giving you that he would rather not be [essentially] forced to mold his schedule to yours, or that he might rather finish playing before coming out, or perhaps is tired of having most or all of his choices made for him- which is something most humans dislike, as well. First he just leans back when you go to pick him up, or grips his perch more, then he tries moving away from your hand, looking away from your hand, trying everything he can to tell you politely that he is not interested, perhaps even "play attacking" your hand. You mean well, that is quite true, and Joe I am sure knows this, but he cannot seem to get through to you that he would like a two-way relationship!

Joe finally reaches the point that he is so irritated with you that he bites your hand as he sees it coming in to get him again. And this time, you respond! You take your hand out, and go away! Yay! Joe is so happy to have a communication method now, and knows that biting will work although nothing else does. So he starts biting to communicate his messages, and you needless to say are not able to get him out of the cage very often. Being in the cage more, however, is no fun, so Joe gets "cage fever" and starts screaming more, and seems so antsy inside his cage, tired of the same little box.


The Point?
This example is made up, but actually fairly common. Yes, it is full of behavior branding, but that is to get the point across- very difficult to tell a story from the parrot's hypothetical point of view without it! Not all parrots will become raging balls of hormones when they mature. But pretty much, they will all change. Joe may or may not become a raging ball of hormones at some point, but in this story, he is not so much hormonal as he is simply an adult trying to state his rights and decide on his place in the world.

From a behavior standpoint, even with what you are sure are hormones (like a female laying eggs and building nests, or a male feeding everything) you need to resist the urge to brand the behavior. Look at the behavior as you would any other, as there are often still things you can do to make life easier and more pleasant for all. Formal training of some kind will always help. It redirects their attention to something else, something rewarding, and allows you to interact with them in a safe way- you can even train parrots that are not safe to let out of the cage. Things like target training, or taking an object and dropping it in a bucket, etc, are all trainable with bars in between you and your parrot.

Most importantly, while every one needs to be aware of how hormones can affect your parrot, and therefore your life, and aware of the fact that all parrots will change in some way as they become an adult, you should not let that knowledge prevent you from finding solutions to the problem currently at hand.

Please and Thank You

With help from Linus

What qualifies as a well-behaved parrot is always going to vary from person to person. And how to achieve whatever your definition of a well-behaved parrot is will also vary widely. I am not going to get in to that fray in this post, after all, I intend this to be a short(ish) one. So instead, I will focus on a simple way to get a little closer to that goal.

And just a note, this post applies only to parrots that in general very much appreciate interacting with humans and will actively seek it out from you or another human. It does not apply to those that have not learned to love human companionship yet, and especially not to those that are distrustful of humans.


Whenever you go to interact in any way with your parrot, stop first and see what they are doing, ie, their behavior. If you want to encourage that behavior, such as playing alone, then go ahead and greet your parrot and continue with whatever you planned to do. More important than ignoring the bad is praising the good. Even for birds that have no glaring issues this is extremely important. How else will they know what you want? Even more than talking and doing tricks, a parrot that plays well on its own, is not overly loud, is friendly, and eats a varied diet is highly desired. So why just praise the talking and tricks? Praise the little stuff, since a parrot that does not wave on cue can still live in harmony with you, but a parrot that does not play? Not so much.

Going further, whenever I can, I will ask for a behavior before giving attention or food. In fact, many of you likely already do this by asking your parrot to step-up. Any time you request a simple behavior which they already can do before giving them what they want, ie attention, is a step in the right direction. Not only does this empower your parrot by allowing them the opportunity to shine (or not, if they choose), but it also gets both you and your parrot in the training mode. If you have a parrot that does not really like new toys, and you get them to beak a toy before picking them up, then the toy soon becomes associated with you and fun. Just as important, the idea that certain behaviors are rewarded is instilled at the same time, so if you choose several little things you can do throughout the day, your parrot will not only learn them, but also be on the lookout for new ones.


And last bit of advice on this subject? If you ask for said behavior (assuming they do indeed know the behavior), like step-up or as per my example beak the toy, and it is not given, you need to walk away. Really. Just walk away. I know you want to play with them, but you will send mixed messages by going ahead with that now. Once a behavior is asked for, if the request is refused, then giving in will weaken that request greatly. If you are consistent, you will very quickly find the only time you are refused is when your parrot genuinely does not want to play. And that means you now have two-way communication. In the words of that infamous ad campaign....... priceless.

The Ekkies Reinforce Gender Stereotypes

Stereotypes generally given to people, that is. I was just thinking  that over this week during the ekkie training sessions. Obviously I had noticed their personalities before, but this week it suddenly struck me (the things you laugh at when you live alone, right?) that they were playing right in to the oft-quoted "standard" man and woman  personalities.

Both Claudia and Chester are trained to target to a stick. This means they are to go to and touch the tip of the target stick, so I can get them to go up onto or into whatever I need them to without coercion (not really an issue with the ekkies, but useful with more difficult parrots), and even tricks like turn around, etc. It is useful for a huge number of other behaviors, so definitely something to teach. But the key thing here is that the parrot is supposed simply to touch the stick, not attack or splinter it. Optimally, the bird would not bite it at all, but that is rather a hard concept for me to get across to some birds, so I settle as long as they immediately let go on their own- no intent of playing or destroying.

Claudia very quickly picked up on the touch, not play, concept. During training, she displays unusual grace (for her, anyway) as she make her way with deliberation and great seeming concentration to the stick. She always just barely touches the stick with the tip or top of her beak. Very gentle, quite correct. Chester now... I have a bit of trouble with him! He knows the stick is not a toy, that much is clear. But to watch him during training is, well, a real treat for anyone with even a speck of humor in them. It is clear to anyone that he loves his training time- he goes charging for the stick, grunt or screech optional, heaven forbid anyone get in his way! When he gets to the stick he jumps (second grunt optional) and almost grabs the stick with his beak, occasionally giving it a little twist.  Not quite a full bite, more like a smack, but very forceful. It is always quick, and he lets go right away, and looks at me, hopping around for his treat and/or next cue. I try to move the stick quickly so he just touches barely and praise that, but he usually forgets halfway through training.


So, there you have it. Claudia, the gentle and delicate female, following directions carefully. And Chester, the rambunctious guy, using force to accomplish his task. And just for the record, Claudia wins the day- she connects the dots from task to task faster, and gets to the finish line first. But Chester gets bonus points for enthusiasm.

Be gentle now, quakers!

My quakers are not always the, erm, nicest, finger-wise, anyway. Frank, for his own personal reasons, is very unpredictable, but Lola is fairly normal, a bit grouchy with her age, and she always was cage territorial, but it should be made clear she is not in the same category as Frank! Either way, the point remains the same- how do you redirect their energy when you need them to do something and they are not in the mood? There are many methods, spoken about in length in books and online, mostly focusing on having certain behaviors so well trained that you can always fall back on them. Stick training, for instance, or a trick, such as a wave, to distract them. And while I do have to go through some of Frank s repertoire of tricks every couple of minutes when I am interacting with him to keep him engaged and in a good mood, I have one specific routine I do whenever I need to get either one in a good mood so I can move on to whatever the necessary task may be.

Both Frank and Lola love giving kisses. I had Frank first, though, so I developed this with him. I gave Frank kisses all the time when we were interacting (ie, during highly positive moments) and this eventually turned into a bit of a trick. I ask him to give me a kiss, and either offer my finger or my forehead (above the hairline- he cannot do much beak damage there) and he leans forward, touches me with his beak, and makes a kissing sound. He often initiates it himself now by asking the question. This became, and still is, above and beyond his very favorite thing in the whole world, loved more than anything else, food, head scritches, singing, clapping, anything. In fact, I now use it as a reward training other tricks! More importantly, though, because this routine is so highly valued by Frank, I can use it to get him out of a depression or break an attack rampage, or get him away from something he should not be chewing on. He really loves it that much! I have now added another version of the kiss game, so when he shakes my finger, I tell him to be a gentleman, and he leans down and gives my finger a kiss while still holding it. Sometimes he gets a bit carried away, though, and becomes positively French (or Italian?) giving me many kisses up and down my finger! Hard to believe he is the same bird that can be so unpredictable and rather dangerous.

Lola, like many parrots, also came knowing a kiss sound. Hers was different from Frank, and she loves getting lots of little whispering kisses in a row, to which she responds by bouncing her head from side to side, looking at you with first one eye and then the other, while imitating you with her own kisses. She still loves this, it is one of our special things to do together. However, through Frank, she learned the kiss game, and now loves it (almost) as much as he does. I can not say whether it would convince her to stop chewing on an electrical cord, since she is so well behaved anyway, but it does get her to stop protecting her cage or Frank so vigorously so I can pick either one up or mess with their cage!

As you can well imagine, the kiss game has huge cuteness factor. I mean, is their anything cuter than a little green fluff ball leaning over and giving you a big kiss? Yes, my friends there is- a little green fluff ball asking his beloved (other) little green fluff ball if she would like a kiss, before leaning over a giving her one. That certainly takes the cake!

Smarts, training, and budgies

I have always said budgies are just as smart as larger parrots, and can be just (or even more) trainable than larger parrots, depending on your bird's personality. However, many people seem to be of the opinion that budgies do not even make great "pets", let alone being just as smart as their larger counterparts.

I recently heard Dr. Irene Pepperburg speak about Alex and her studies, and was thrilled to hear her opinion on the trainability and intelligence of not only other Africans Greys, but also other parrot species. To sum up: Alex was likely not an "unusual genius" but rather, an African Grey that loved learning through speech, and that had 8 hours of training a day (which makes a huuuge difference, obviously!). She went on to say how the other two greys they are working with are just as smart, but with different learning styles, so they therefore need different teaching styles and can learn different things from Alex. She also said that other species were just as smart as Greys, but again, would probably have to be taught in a different manner that worked with their particular personalities. And finally, she mentioned that though they had tried working with budgies, the shorter attention spans (and life spans) were more difficult to work with in her studies. I can't say I really blame her on that score, but I was very happy to hear how much she did love budgies, and that though they were not right for her studies, she does not feel them to be unintelligent.

However, a shorter attention span does not mean they can not be trained. I recently saw this video, and thought it portrayed exactly how amazing budgies are! Aren't they adorable?