Post by Stephanie on Mar 10, 2018 18:46:09 GMT -5
We’ve had Monster for over five years, and he’s approximately ten years old. We got him from a small rescue (we know the owners well) who had him surrendered because he was being aggressive with his old owners’ new baby.
I have experience with Quakers, I had one growing up (who we got from a breeder, and I had known her since she hatched) and she was extremely bonded to me, so I didn’t have these kinds of issues with her. She passed away of iron storage disease at the age of 11. We got Monster quite a few years later.
He has had some health issues, but they’re all resolved now, except that he’s missing feathers around his neck. This has been going on for over a year now, and we’ve done all the diagnostics to rule out a physiological cause, so though we never see him pluck, that seems to be the only explanation.
For the past year, we've been putting in extra effort to ensure that Monster has the best quality of life possible. We taught him how to forage, which entails substantial additional work for us; we need to make all the foraging packs for him, and either make little "foraging trees" with newspaper or hang packs all over his cage every morning after taking out the old empty ones. We ensure that he's covered for twelve hours every night because he still won't go into his "roost", which sits on a stand that we hand-built for him... we were hoping that eventually he would sleep in that in another room so that we don't have to worry about bothering him between 7pm and 7am. I study in the living room instead of the study specifically so that he has company. He has free flight, and is able to make laps around the house, or come sit with us when he chooses (only when we're home, of course). He on omegas and multivitamins and is out of his cage whenever my partner or I are home. Despite all of this, he is still plucking.
For the last five-six months, he also seems to have developed some sort of separation anxiety. Whenever I am out of sight, he either flies to where I am, or he shrieks incessantly. When Adam (my partner) and I are both home and aren't paying attention to him, he also shrieks quite incessantly. His cage is situated in a place where he can see us in the kitchen and living room, which is great for him, but it also means we can't really escape him when we're home. We can't have a separate space for him in the basement because of our downstairs tenant, and our upstairs living space is limited. It often gets to the point where on our days off together, we actually feel the need to leave the house to have time away from him - he makes us not want to be in our own home. Adam and I can't hug each other within eyesight without him flying over and attacking us. We creep around every morning so that we won't wake him, and we'll have at least some quiet time before 7am when he wakes up and starts to shriek, and we keep our volume to a minimum after he goes to bed (after 7pm) to avoid waking him.
In the past few days he’s starting to get aggressive with me. It seems like sexual frustration, or that he just has too many strong emotions and doesn’t know how to cope with them. He won’t leave me alone and ends up getting aggravated at which point he flies at me and attacks me until we have to lock him in his cage. He does occasionally attack Adam as well. If this continues for much longer, we’ll have to clip his wings, which we haven’t done in years. I’m worried that will really traumatize him, but we won’t have a choice. We can’t exist this way.
It has come to a point where having Monster is legitimately detrimental to our quality of life, and his quality of life is really suffering as well.
We’ve always had rescued animals of all kinds and have only ever rehomed if it was our intention to do so from the beginning. This situation is really breaking my heart.
I’m really starting to wonder if he needs to be around other birds, but I’ve heard that introducing him to someone at his age could be disastrous. And at this point, adding another bird who could exacerbate things is not an option… we can’t end up with two birds who hate each other and are miserable.
I'm in tears as I write this because I am at a total loss as to what to do. We’ve been in touch with our vet who is going to look into some things for us. The family (rescue) that we got him from have offered to take him for the month of April to give us a break while we figure out some long-term options – he stayed with them for a week last summer while we went away and did very well. They just aren’t sure they can’t offer him a permanent home due to personal circumstances. We’re hoping this may break him of some habits and give us a better indication of what might be wrong.
Any insight, suggestions, or training ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Stephanie
I have experience with Quakers, I had one growing up (who we got from a breeder, and I had known her since she hatched) and she was extremely bonded to me, so I didn’t have these kinds of issues with her. She passed away of iron storage disease at the age of 11. We got Monster quite a few years later.
He has had some health issues, but they’re all resolved now, except that he’s missing feathers around his neck. This has been going on for over a year now, and we’ve done all the diagnostics to rule out a physiological cause, so though we never see him pluck, that seems to be the only explanation.
For the past year, we've been putting in extra effort to ensure that Monster has the best quality of life possible. We taught him how to forage, which entails substantial additional work for us; we need to make all the foraging packs for him, and either make little "foraging trees" with newspaper or hang packs all over his cage every morning after taking out the old empty ones. We ensure that he's covered for twelve hours every night because he still won't go into his "roost", which sits on a stand that we hand-built for him... we were hoping that eventually he would sleep in that in another room so that we don't have to worry about bothering him between 7pm and 7am. I study in the living room instead of the study specifically so that he has company. He has free flight, and is able to make laps around the house, or come sit with us when he chooses (only when we're home, of course). He on omegas and multivitamins and is out of his cage whenever my partner or I are home. Despite all of this, he is still plucking.
For the last five-six months, he also seems to have developed some sort of separation anxiety. Whenever I am out of sight, he either flies to where I am, or he shrieks incessantly. When Adam (my partner) and I are both home and aren't paying attention to him, he also shrieks quite incessantly. His cage is situated in a place where he can see us in the kitchen and living room, which is great for him, but it also means we can't really escape him when we're home. We can't have a separate space for him in the basement because of our downstairs tenant, and our upstairs living space is limited. It often gets to the point where on our days off together, we actually feel the need to leave the house to have time away from him - he makes us not want to be in our own home. Adam and I can't hug each other within eyesight without him flying over and attacking us. We creep around every morning so that we won't wake him, and we'll have at least some quiet time before 7am when he wakes up and starts to shriek, and we keep our volume to a minimum after he goes to bed (after 7pm) to avoid waking him.
In the past few days he’s starting to get aggressive with me. It seems like sexual frustration, or that he just has too many strong emotions and doesn’t know how to cope with them. He won’t leave me alone and ends up getting aggravated at which point he flies at me and attacks me until we have to lock him in his cage. He does occasionally attack Adam as well. If this continues for much longer, we’ll have to clip his wings, which we haven’t done in years. I’m worried that will really traumatize him, but we won’t have a choice. We can’t exist this way.
It has come to a point where having Monster is legitimately detrimental to our quality of life, and his quality of life is really suffering as well.
We’ve always had rescued animals of all kinds and have only ever rehomed if it was our intention to do so from the beginning. This situation is really breaking my heart.
I’m really starting to wonder if he needs to be around other birds, but I’ve heard that introducing him to someone at his age could be disastrous. And at this point, adding another bird who could exacerbate things is not an option… we can’t end up with two birds who hate each other and are miserable.
I'm in tears as I write this because I am at a total loss as to what to do. We’ve been in touch with our vet who is going to look into some things for us. The family (rescue) that we got him from have offered to take him for the month of April to give us a break while we figure out some long-term options – he stayed with them for a week last summer while we went away and did very well. They just aren’t sure they can’t offer him a permanent home due to personal circumstances. We’re hoping this may break him of some habits and give us a better indication of what might be wrong.
Any insight, suggestions, or training ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Stephanie
This way he gets an immediate consequence and will hopefully learn from it.
