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Post by Aardman on Jul 28, 2020 11:05:33 GMT -5
The whole episode is just completely out of character with the way she’s acted basically her entire life. We’ve had other birds that had biting issues, but she’s just never been anything but mellow. The whole episode happened after the girlfriend HAD spent some time talking to her and whistling (which means nothing to Trixie) at her through the cage. It was almost as if her trying to pal up to the bird pissed her off even more!
I thought by five hormonal issues were pretty much over.
Unfortunately, we feel like the only way to keep the girlfriend safe now is to lock Trixie in her cage (which we never do) whenever she comes over, and it’s a safe bet that’s just going to make her even madder at the girlfriend!
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Post by Aardman on Jul 27, 2020 17:10:19 GMT -5
We’ve had Trixie for five years now. During all this time she has been the most gentle, soft-spoken and loving bird we have ever experienced. Always friendly to strangers and people she barely knows, never bites (except when playing and never hard), just a gregarious bird that everybody enjoys visiting with - well almost everybody. She HATES my sons girlfriend.
We noticed it when they were sitting at the dining room table. Whenever she would rub his head Trixie would get agitated and emit little squawks. She’s never really been very loud and to this day doesn’t talk, but she has a few sounds she makes and she was acting irritated. As soon as she’d stop rubbing his head she’d calm down. If my son returned the behavior with his girlfriend, she would start back in again.
From that point on, really a little before that, Trixie want’s nothing to do with the girlfriend - will peck aggressively whenever she tries to pet or get near the cage, and generally acts agitated whenever she spots the two of them together.
Yesterday, though, she launched an attack! She literally leaped from the cage onto her back as she stood and started BITING her! We had to pull the bird off and lock her into her cage, something we’ve NEVER had to do!
Literally, as long as the girlfriend isn’t around the bird is her normal, mellow, loving self, but something about the girlfriend just turns her into a completely different pet.
I doubt there is much that can be done about it, but is this behavior jealousy (she really loves my son), or is it something else?
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Post by Aardman on Sept 6, 2016 20:38:47 GMT -5
Though on one hand I think Trixie would be happy hanging out with Smoky for pretty much the rest of her life, the main reason for having a pet like her is the joy of interacting with them on a day to day basis, and I can easily see that diminishing significantly if she has another bird friend, so, since one cage is pretty much it for us, I'm afraid Trixie will probably not be joined by Smoky after all.
Funny thing is, unlike our previous cockatiel, she has no real interest at all in "the bird in the mirror." It's like she knew that was a swindle from the get-go, however, the minute we stepped in the pet store she was all keyed up to start visiting with Smoky (and the other quakers too for that matter)!
The pet store is pretty cool about people bringing their animals with them so maybe I'll take her to visit again a few more times before Smoky finally finds himself a permanent home!
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Post by Aardman on Aug 29, 2016 1:55:11 GMT -5
Although I'm perfectly capable of trimming Trixie's wings, we decided to take her to the store where we purchased her to do the trimming. Our last bird would hold a grudge against me for weeks sometimes when I trimmed his wings so I decided not to deal with it and let her get mad at a stranger instead. I know it's better to let her have the use of her wings, but that didn't turn out so well for our last bird, and since we cannot control when somebody might stand around with a door open, I've decided it's simply not worth the risk, so the wings get trimmed. But that's not the point of this. It just so happened when we arrived at the store the breeder who supplies our bird happened to be there, not only that, they had several more quakers in the store, one of them a two year old blue male by the name of "Smoky." Trixie has never been in the company of another quaker and it was a new experience for her. Smoky and Trixie immediately buddied up to each other and spend nearly an hour socializing on top of his cage, snuggling up against each other, exchanging conversational squawks and occasionally touching beaks. I had to sort-of break them apart when it was time to leave. That's Trixie in front. Because they got along so famously my wife was thinking maybe we ought to consider adding Smoky to our home, which surprised me because usually she is the one who puts the kibosh on new pets. The breeder said if we were really serious about it, because we already have one of his birds, he would be willing to let us take Smoky and his cage home for a two - three week period of time to see if they get along as well over the long haul as they did today, the idea being, since Trixie has a pretty big cage, the two of them could stay in the one cage, so we wouldn't need another. If we tried this we would, of course, keep Smoky in his own cage and only let the two of them socialize with us around to monitor it and only move them into one cage together if they are agreeable. There are several virtues to this situation, but I also have a number of concerns, mainly, if the two birds became fast friends (which is sort-of the point of this) then possibly they wouldn't really be all that interested in relating to us and may, in fact develop hostilities and / or jealousies. As I have noted elsewhere on here, Trixie is an especially sweet, docile bird - simply doesn't bite and wants to hang out with us all the time. I would hate for that to change. The breeder assured us as long as we made sure to get both birds out every day and work / play with them that they would remain sociable, loving pets. So before we go any further with this, I thought it a good idea to get some other opinions. Surely some of you have two or more quakers. Can they be kept together in one cage? Do they remain friendly when paired up like this? What am I overlooking? Anything?
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Post by Aardman on Aug 25, 2016 1:56:16 GMT -5
Trixie is a little over a year old now and up until about a month ago her repertoire of sounds was limited to three. A horrid ratcheting sound she uses when she wants something, a sweet tweet she makes when she gets some attention, and a very soft pig-grunt like sound she makes when she thinks nobody's listening. When I say soft I mean it - I have to strain to notice it.
Starting about a month ago she started varying the sounds she makes - especially during the middle of the day. She will get "talkative." Nothing that sounds like anything even vaguely resembling speech, but just random and varied squawks and whistles. If I'm playing music or we're trying to watch television this often encourages her to make more noise, but it's rarely excessive. My wife claims to have heard her imitate our dog, a demanding Chinese crested that squeals and hollers at us for a ridiculously long time when we come home after an absence, but I've yet to hear her do it.
I'm guessing some birds just aren't interested in talking. For the longest time Trixie wasn't really interested in much of anything except hanging out with us and having her neck scratched. Here lately she's started playing with toys just a little bit. Not much, but anything at all is more than she used to do.
Maybe she's finally coming out of her shell, I dunno. She is most definitely the sweetest dispositioned bird I have ever had the pleasure of taking care of. She have never bitten once. Even on the rare occasion where she has taken a swipe at a finger, there is no bite attached to it - she uses her open beak as a lever to move the offending digit instead of biting it.
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Post by Aardman on Mar 31, 2016 1:36:37 GMT -5
So a parrotlet is a parrot but a quaker is a parakeet? No fair!
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Post by Aardman on Mar 31, 2016 0:28:06 GMT -5
This is an interesting discussion. Trixie is a great pet, quite affectionate, but I do worry about her well being over the long term.
Toys aren't the only thing she has little to no interest in either. She could care less about baths or fresh food / greens / fruits. I've got quaker sized bird bath that I dutifully fill and put in her cage for a day or two every week but she has never used it. I tried showing her a cake pan of lukewarm water on our kitchen counter - splashed it around a bit - no interest. After a while I finally set her down in the pan of water. She didn't freak out, but she immediately climbed out.
Any food that isn't her regular stuff is ignored until it becomes in-edible, with the exception of sunflower seeds.
In fact, she's kind-of easy to spook if you approach her with anything in your hands she's not familiar with - even accidentally. She can't fly, but she tries and winds up on the living room floor squawking for somebody to rescue her. I walked by her cage this afternoon with a couple of rolls of gift-wrapping paper not even thinking about her and off she went.
I guess the bottom line is to continue having LOTS of patience. If she never plays with toys but is happy that's fine, but I think for her own physical health she should be taking occasional baths and eating fresh foods every once in a while.
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Post by Aardman on Feb 29, 2016 23:36:58 GMT -5
Feathers that are damaged or clipped have to be molted and replaced. Though Trixie might have multiple light molts throughout the year, she will get new flights once a year, at most. You'll know the new ones are coming when the clipped start to drop. If Trixie was not allowed to fledge properly, she may be reluctant to try flying, even when she gets a new set. Are you saying that a wing clipping lasts about a year? I'd no idea. Our last bird had to have them trimmed almost bi-monthly and it was because we failed to keep it up in that respect (he absolutely hated it and reserved his most wicked bites for the wing trimmer) that we lost him (he took a powder out the door when my son stood there with it open for one second too long). She's not reluctant to take leaps into the air and drift towards the floor flapping her wings at the least provocation, so I would imagine when they come in she'll use them. I'm just not sure I want to let her have that kind of mobility.
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Post by Aardman on Feb 29, 2016 23:29:20 GMT -5
I have a tiel like that. If no one is interacting with him, he sits on top of a cage and stares out the window or even at the wall. Just sits there. Thankfully, we have two tiels, and the other one, Freddie, is a firecracker who keeps Johnny entertained and busy most of the time. It's only if Freddie has wandered off to eat or something that Johnny goes into what I think of as "pause" mode. Like somebody turned off his switch. I suspect he didn't get much interaction at his former home and maybe adopted this behavior as a coping mechanism. Where did you get your Quaker from? It may just be a matter of playing with toys with her, and trying to teach her sounds to make -- doesn't have to be words! You could teach her to whistle songs or imitate other animals or something -- and just sort of stimulate her little mind. She came from a local pet store that usually has lots of birds, mostly conures. She stood out as the first Quaker I'd ever seen there, plus, she was really easy going. They said at the pet store that she likes to play with her bell (she had a hanging toy with a bell on it) and she sometimes gives is a piece of her mind, so we made sure to get a few toys with bells on them. She could care less about the bells or the toys they're attached to. We have managed to teach her to do the head bobbing thing by bobbing our head at her or by motioning that way with our fingers, and she does seem to get pretty worked up when I play one of my Jew's harps at her, occasionally trying to imitate the sound, so it's not like she is incapable of other behaviors - she'd just rather wait for one of us to pick her up and play with her. Now, on the other hand, our necks and hair and glasses and my hearing aids are an endless source of fun for her. When she sits on my shoulder she very actively preens me and tries to remove my glasses, pull out my hearing aid, remove moles (ouch!) that sort of thing.
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Post by Aardman on Feb 29, 2016 23:23:01 GMT -5
Have you tried teaching her to play? She might never have learned. Coupled with what maybe is a more-reticent-than-your-average Quaker personality, she may need more instruction from you. You could approach it as a training project, using positive reinforcement. I've tried things like playing with some of her toys myself and acting excited but that goes nowhere. The problem with training is the one thing she DOES do is avoid anything I try to give her in the way of a treat, which is really unfortunate because the only thing she wants from me is attention, and I don't think it's a particularly good idea to withhold that just so I can use it as a reward. I've caught her playing twice, that's it. Once she was leaning out of her snuggle hut and chewing some rings hanging from the top of her cage. The other time she was leaning down from her perch on her portable stand and trying to grab some wooden stars hanging from it. The problem is, if she notices I'm looking at her playing, she immediately stops and starts pacing around trying to get me to pick her up. On one hand I'm happy she's so mellow and affectionate - those are real virtues in a pet like this, but on the other hand I think its important she knows how to entertain herself and clown around some - not just to amuse us but also for her own emotional well being.
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Post by Aardman on Feb 29, 2016 13:59:33 GMT -5
We got our Quaker late last October. Her wings had already been trimmed. Now, five months later she still cannot fly - when she tries she flutters to the floor at virtually the same speed as when we got her. I do see blue wing tips starting to peek out now, but shouldn't they grow in faster?
A wing trimming on the cockatiel we used to have barely lasted three months before he was on the loose again so I was just wondering if quakers last longer or did they damage her wings somehow by over-zealous trimming? We took her to an avian vet to have her checked out as soon as we got her, and they didn't say anything about problems with her wings.
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Post by Aardman on Feb 29, 2016 13:43:06 GMT -5
Some may think this is a blessing, but I'm a little concerned.
Our Quaker, Trixie, seems little interested in anything besides us - mostly me. She primarily just sits inside or on top of her cage and waits for attention, which, if she doesn't get, she lets out some squawks to make sure we know she's tired of waiting. Even in the noise department she's pretty tame. She will get vocal when she's gotten tired of waiting for some attention, or maybe thinks her food bowl is too low on chow, but even then it's nothing compared to what our cockatiel used to do.
I have only seen her play with anything twice since we got her about six months ago, and that was only for a few minutes.
Because she craves our company so much I've got stands in different rooms of the house where we work so she can always hang out with us, but even though these stands have toys, all she does is sit and stare at us, making little soft oink-like sound whenever we look her way. She'll hang out on our shoulder all day if we let her, but that can get messy after a while, plus, she enjoys grooming us which can occasionally get painful when she tries to pluck out a beard hair. She could spend all day having her neck and head scratched and her beak rubbed. She blisses out on that kind of attention, closing her eyes and leaning in.
She has NEVER bitten anyone - never.
She doesn't seem to have any interest in talking whatsoever. She has a repertory of about three sounds. A monkey-like squawk when she wants attention - a cute peeping sound when you pick her up, and soft pig-like grunts when she's content and walking around on your shoulder. She used to make a few more sounds but those have mostly stopped.
The only real behavior issue she has is a complete reluctance to accept anything from my hand, even stuff I know she likes like sunflower seeds. The minute I try to offer her anything, off she scurries. On the rare occasions I've gotten her to take something out of my hands she drops it immediately.
Maybe I'm looking for problems where there aren't really any, but I didn't really expect her to be this mellow, especially from what I've been reading.
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Post by Aardman on Feb 29, 2016 13:21:41 GMT -5
I'm curious as to why these birds are more commonly called Quakers instead of Monk parrots? I know they quake when very young, but, unless I'm missing something, they pretty much stop doing this when they're grown. I kind of think Monk parrot is overall a classier name.
Also, ours makes a sound very much like a monkey when she wants attention. I sometimes call her "monkey bird" when she's trying to get attention. I'm guessing the "Monk" in Monk parrot doesn't refer to simian behavior though. In fact, I can't seem to find anywhere where the "monk" name came from.
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Post by Aardman on Jan 26, 2016 0:03:43 GMT -5
I don't think the bright pink makes any difference to her.
she's back to sleeping in it, but hasn't figured out the art of backing up and pooping outside, so there's another pile of dookie building up in the back of it. I've noticed she keeps it all in one small spot though, so she's got some kind of system going, just not one that keeps her from making a mess.
I told my wife maybe we ought to make a shorter one - short enough that she's forced to poop outside. Then again, won't be much of a snuggle hut if we do that.
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Post by Aardman on Jan 25, 2016 23:58:15 GMT -5
I read that so many years ago I forgot the name. I like taking names from books. Way back, I named my dog Lonesome, for Lonesome Dove. That's another good book. Trixie sure seems glad to finally have a name.
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