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Post by peanut on Sept 7, 2018 21:49:12 GMT -5
Hi my Quaker who is close to 1 year old. We don't know if he is a boy or girl. He has started making hissing noises and burrowing his way under a cotton sheet to a little cave hes made. He is not talking much except when he is covered in his cage so he can't see us or us him. He has never been a good eater but seems to be eating less. Often he plays on top of our budgies cage. When he hisses and goes to bite me is when i have uncovered him from his cave to put him to bed. He has always been a very good boy and has never biten me to the point thats its hurt. He doesn't seem to want to be around me at the moment and i don't know what I've done wrong. We are in the start of spring here in Australia.
Please help me work out how to help my little boy. I love him so much.
Cheers ellie peanuts mum
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Post by biteybird on Sept 8, 2018 2:11:49 GMT -5
Hi, Ellie and Peanut! Welcome to the Forum.  I'm also an Aussie, in Darwin (originally from Melbourne)! Which state are you in? It sounds like Peanut is exhibiting territorial and hormonal behaviour - when the hormones are kicking in it's common to see nest-building behaviours in both males and females. OK, I'm going to suggest some things: 1) I would take away his cotton sheet so he can't make a little cave. Also don't provide any building materials in his cage(s), such as sticks, cable ties, materials. 2) You might consider having a separate cage in another quiet room for him to sleep in, away from the main noisy areas of the house, and put him to bed around 6:30pm each night so he gets a good 12 hours dark and quiet to sleep every night (if you haven't done that already). Also, cover his cage with a sheet/towel/spare curtain to limit the light - we've found Bonnie settles down much faster with that. (We bought a couple of curtains from the Op Shop for $2.00!) 3) Limit his out-of-cage time - we restrict Bonnie's out-of-cage time to about 1 hour on weekdays and perhaps 2 hours on weekend days. It seems to keep her from taking us too much for granted. 4) You might want to take Peanut to an Avian vet for a health check, just to rule out illness (which can contribute to aggressiveness). Try not to worry too much, as this sort of behaviour is completely normal for quakers - and parrots in general - as you will see as you read through the threads on this Forum. Also, it's important not to take it personally when he bites you. Our Bonnie regularly bites my husband (even draws blood on occasion) and we can never figure out why. It took a while, but we've learnt to just try and ignore the bad behaviour and reward the good behaviour. So, I guess I'm saying if he bites don't respond dramatically to it (quakers LOVE drama) and don't hold a grudge. Each day is a new day! Hope this helps and please ask more questions if you need to...and, most importantly, enjoy the Forum! |
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Post by dinucci on Sept 10, 2018 2:41:08 GMT -5
All good points above. Buddy has done this exact thing..with the cave. Struts around with cute little whistles but will bite. He also would scream and become crazy. Now I thought this was funny,so I used to let him have at it. I would chuckle standing next to the cage while he was wanting to shred me to pieces! Now when he is being protective,with his cage or my girlfriend, he chuckles like me..apparently thinking these are fighting words. While this was amusing to me, it was serious business to him. Quakers can become what's termed, hormonal pluckers easily as I have found out.we recently went thru a phase with him tearing out some of his feathers and the new ones that were growing back.. ...somewhere on here is a thread titled,"task at hand",where a lot of this behavior and remedies are explained along with a link or two I think. There's some instructional videos on you tube " hormonal quaker parrots" that have some does and don't s . Take the time to read up on it cause its nothing you want to have happen. I am making huge progress with buddy and he has stopped plucking altogether, his feathers are growing back nicely and his attitude has changed for the better. Hes also playing more..one thing that was suggested to me that worked was to get preening toys vs shredding stuffed toys,paper ect. Some of my old socks did the trick as well as cotton rope toys. Less time thinking of nesting material I suppose. Hope some of this works for you !
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