Paranoid or founded concern? (New owner)

Hello, I just adopted an Umbrella Cockatoo from a very poor area. The owners had the bird in a cage about 4 times too small, didn't interact with her, or feed her properly in my opinion.

She came to me very willingly, gives hugs and kisses, does not bite and is very very sweet. She babbles like a small child. He feathers are very nice overall they are nice and white, her yellows underneath her wings are very nice. There are a couple feathers that I think are growing in so I have a feeling she'll be molting soon from what I read.

There are a couple things that she does though that I haven't read about and concern me. I also have a couple unanswered questions.

1.) Her feet WORK and she stands on things but she seems to be very unsure footed. She is careful with almost every step she makes and she knows to step up but does so very carefully she seems not to hold on very tightly she slips quite a bit.

2.) She is constantly mouthing. Not on my but in the air actually. He tongue is constantly moving like she's eating something. To me it seems like she eats VERY slowly too. Like I offering her some oatmeal and instead of getting a beak full she basically got one oatmeal flake at a time on her tongue and seems like it was difficult for her to swallow. Since I've had her home she likes warm mooshy stuff that I offer her by hand but from what I can tell isn't eating any of her other food. She ironically after eating a bit of soft mooshy food goes immediately to her dish and grabs one of the hard pieces and she cracks it and it kinda falls to the ground. I dunno if she's just being a baby and telling me she wants me to hand feed her or if she is actually having a problem eating. She doesn't want anything hard from my hand just soft warm and chewie I guess.

Also I've never seen a cockatoo with there head fully turned over to know but on her lower beak at the very back there is a hole in the hard beak but it's covered with erm skin or her tongue maybe can't really tell. Haven't read anything that mentioned though.

Do any of these things sound like huge concerns? I wanted to give her a day to settle in before I get her to the vet, according to the previous owners she hasn't been to a vet I can tell she is needing her feet and beak trimmed. When I transported her home in a cat carrier though last night she was VERY upset with the cat carrier she bit at the cat carrier and wouldn't stand still for the entire ride. She is close banded born and hand fed in the U.S. according to them.

How can I tell if she is eating and drinking enough? Since last night I only saw her stick her tongue in the water like twice. Otherwise I've opened her cage so she can go in and out as she likes and she's chosen to just stand on the door for hours. She seems shy of her playtop gym too for whatever reason and that's another place there is food and water.

Also what is a good temperature for her? I know that drafts aren't safe but what temperature is good. I have it at 70 degrees atm and she's stayed puffed out a bit most of the night. Wasn't sure if she was cold or not.

Any suggestions for books I can get at the library. There is a lot of stuff online but not as much as I'd hoped. Especially for someone as observant as me who looks at every single thing and panics.

Here is a video of her I took. The kisses she gives is very similar to that behaviour she does all the time except she does it with her mouth mostly closed. You can also see the hole under her beak I am talking about:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ2GJdTpNu0]YouTube - Hugs and Kisses[/ame]

Nothing in this description sounds troublesome to me. She looks to be a happy healthy bird adjusting to a new environment. Once she settles in a bit a little tough love should help to get her eat dry food - why go for dry food in a bowl if you will hand feed her soft yummies?

The gap underneath the beak is absolutely normal for all parrots. The lower mandible attaches to the skin inside the lower arc... meaning that it looks like there is a gap.

You should certainly get her to a vet as soon as convenient to get a full check up as you should with any new bird. The general mellow mood and/or lethargy COULD be a sign of something, but I doubt that it's a concern.

So do describe all this to the vet when you go, but I would not be at all concerned. From the available indicators it sounds like a healthy new bird.

You will likely find that she'll come out of her shell more (a particularly apt saying for birds) as she gets comfortable with the new home and new setting. Such a change can be quite scary for a bird, it is not surprising that she seems uncertain of her footing or unsure about where she can be - she has yet to learn her place in your family.

Offer love, treats, and patience. Let her see that you are the new family - you are not just a interm or layover owner but you will be there day after day to give her food, clean her water dish, etc.

Birds, cockatoos in particular, forge strong bonds with their family - but such forging takes time.

As far as books I don't know of any I'd strongly recommend - particularly not species specific books. Don't shy away from more general texts though - while there are certainly differences between species what applies to other large parrots will generally apply well to cockatoos.

Thank you so much! She goes to the vet tomorrow but you've set me to peace thankfully lol.

I'm a country girl so I'm soooo used to animals not being very hardy. Like shoot if you give a horse an egg or something it would die. It's so strange to have a pet that can eat almost anything and is going to live longer than I am. I just keep looking at her and talking to her thinking she's just gonna fall over or something.

Not to mention I'm INCREDIBLY disbelieving of people. I had applied to 3 different rescues in the area and none of them eve acknowledged me so I found Tink on Craigslist which is something I wouldn't normally do. I am very happy to have her in a proper cage etc... though. I feel I've done a good thing and made a good choice.

Corbriwild said:

Like shoot if you give a horse an egg or something it would die. It's so strange to have a pet that can eat almost anything and is going to live longer than I am.

Click to expand...

I had never heard of eggs and horses - though I've never worked with horses.

I think the operative word in your post those is ALMOST. If you have not already done so please see the post on the "toxic list" for birds.

There are several foods that are VERY dangerous for birds. Some are obvious - alcohol, chocolate - others are less so - avocado.

Yes I have read the toxic list as well as the not suggested list.

Eggs was just an example for horses. Horses can't eat anything except for hay, grass, and small amounts of grain. IN fact a horse can and will kill itself if you leave food out for it... it will eat itself to death. Their bodies are really sensitive. One of our horses unlocked the barn one day and got into the grain and they had to have their stomach pumped, very nearly died.

I'm very protective of my animals. I only have a dog and a bird but the bird is already part of my family. She is just too good to be true. She is so lovely in every way. I was very fortunate to be able to get her. I am just so paranoid about her being sick or something. I stare and watch for everything. Same with my dog. If my dog tilts his head the wrong way he gets a full look over and gets a vet visit. I love my babies. I would have taken Tink to the vet today but I just thought for a bird it would be "too much" in such a short period of time. It thought giving her a day to settle in without another car ride would be in her best interest.

Hello, beautiful new baby you have there! Something in your post hit a nerve with me, you did mention she was in too small of a cage, not the best condition and we found our CAG in the same type of cage. When I recently picked up my new baby CAG, I was surprised at the size of the cage my baby was in, and she was in there with her sibling. It was the size of a travel cage. After working with her for a month now, it is still very clear to me, she has unsure footing and is slow to step on different surfaces, because she has never been exposed to any of them.
This was very upsetting to find out, as the breeder of course gave glowing reviews of how great she was....da da DADA. well.
My new CAG steps very slowly onto perches, of all shapes and sizes and she moves about like a little dinosaur. Poor thing! She truly never did anything more than sit on the perch, wooden, and has never walked around on anyone's finger either. She also only sat on the top of the grate of the cage. These things you can tell after you've had a bird for awhile.

It's very possible she will take awhile to adjust to different perches, so keep us all informed. I will do the same. It took me a week to figure out, why wasn't my baby moving around on the huge grapevine play gym I special ordered for her?? Why didn't she like the rough grooming type perches? Why does she look around so fearful when I walk through the house with her? Yes she is new, and Grey's do take time but this bird was sold as tame, socialized and 4 mos old. Avian vet set the record straight: More like 8 mos old, in good shape but not socialized at all. She does step up, other than that, she had never even taken a bath, let alone walked through a room or many rooms of a house!~ UGH.

So go slow, but I would just introduce different perches slowly, she may take to them like water- being deprived of them in a small cage, or like mine she may also just not want to put her feet down on them. I think my first post is hanging around here some where, when I found out most everything the breeder told me was a lie. I don't even have my babies real hatch date!
It still makes me pretty mad. But as long as she progresses and day by day you will see signature stepping stones, she will vocalize more, she will maybe want to bathe on her own in her dish, she will start whittling on wood, or bottle caps or paper. I make toys out of magazine inserts, I fold them into fan shapes then the birds whittle those.

She looks so cuddly! Some birds do revert back to fledglings when they go to new homes....Mine doesn't like to leave her cage top perch to go to the side waterbowl perch. When I was working on winning over her confidence, I would let the water drop off my fingers into her mouth, she loves this, it was like being hand fed and she would bob her head and make baby loving noises, and at the same time, drink water lol. It also showed us both, no need to be afraid of that big black beak. She may have bit her owner because she gave her too many reasons to. She sure won't get any reasons to bite in my home that is for Certain! She hasn't tried to bite me in over two weeks now. No more pinching of the wrist either. I was shocked at how loudly the breeder spoke to her, and she said you have to watch her, she will do things to get one over on you....etc. Well this was all wrong wrong wrong in my book, I took the bird, things were not right but in the end, Yes, she really turned out to be rescued in my opinion.

Now she is singing on her cage top and talking daily and wolf whistles at me first thing in the morning. And usually when she whispers to me, she is working up to saying something. She started with whispering then all hell broke loose lol. No way was she 4 mos, she has a repertoire FGS! Today we thought we heard her say GDMNIT, in a gravely voice. This is the breeders voice. She says sentences as well. It's either Come out of there, get out of there are you ready now and mumbling like phone conversations.
This was another clue to Avian vet and myself, she isn't 4 mos old at all.

Expose her to her toys slowly if she seems afraid of them, but if she is Indifferent, go for it. I find that each bird is so different. Some love new toys and don't even need to see them for a few days. Some like them right away. Some are so fearful of anything new it takes weeks to give them a new toy. She will let you know what is OK and what isn't.

Good Luck to you, she is stunning and a cuddler. Before you know it she will be calling you to let her out for cuddles!!

Oh, I use the 15 bean soup as a base staple for my birds. It goes far, and is so nutritious! You can add sweet potato to it, veggies, brown rice, etc. I usually make mine with brown rice, and only cook it for about all of 40 minutes, 20 for the beans 20 more for the rice and bingo. This bean mash then is divided up into baggies and frozen. I make a pot of it every few weeks. She may enjoy it, I owned a Bare Eyed Too once, she loved it just as much as my guys. My chickens also eat it as baby chicks. Just remember when you thaw the servings out to make sure they are not too hot, the beans are always hotter inside...so watch for that. I usually thaw them out, then heat them quickly let cool, or add hot potato to them and it then is just warm yummy mash. You can also either mash the beans up or leave whole. I like to leave all whole. You will find them in the noodle isle next to regular black eyed peas and pasta isle at the store! 15 bean soup.

(I don't post her often but do write an awful lot hehe)

he is great! you are fortunate. but please beware of the "honeymoon'' phase. he may be sweet at first, but once settled in, he may shoot for dominence. not say it will happen. it may or may not. just don't overwhelm him with attention at first. then he will expect it all the time. then behavior problems might occur like biting & screaming. best advise i can give in www.mytoos.com by far the BEST cockatoo site on the web. loads of great info. please visit there. you can learn a lot.

help with a goffin yelling

hi all,I foster a goffin and most of the time it yells ,tryed everything ,nothing works.any ideas? my other bird is goffin and she keeps want to fight with him what gives? they are in diff cages and diff areas so? thanks for any help

Hi Chris,

I work with dogs and I have seen similar situations here at home when rehabilitating a stressed and/or damaged dog. My dogs who are calm and understand their place in the pack, will ignore the new arrival. If the stressed dog exhibits symptomatic behaviour (in this case screeching) that has a negative effect on the rest of the pack occasionally the dogs will have a scuffle instigated by my dogs. (I work with dogs on a purely behavioral and instinctive level which is the same approach I take with my Cockatoo Charlie).

Perhaps some more experienced keepers can see if my idea's are valid but I might suggest temporarily minimizing the stressed birds contact and view of the big world, including humans and other pets. The point is not to isolate the bird but rather to give the bird less stimulus in what is apparently a very frightening world.

It would take time and patients on your behalf as far as sitting in a quite room letting the bird get comfortable in an environment that is non threatening in any way. I imagine the bird is fairly frightened and is in the bird version of 'fight' - Flight is not an option - to run away, Freeze has limited success as the bird is still trapped in what it believes is a frightening place so Fight is the only option left ie sounding loud and threatening.

At this point a dog is considered in a state of white noise, unable to recognize and make sense of what's going on around them, they move from one frantic behaviour to another.

Before they can begin to move forward they need the opportunity to calm down and regain self control, once this has occurred behaviour can be modified slowly in a positive manner.

With dogs, the majority of 'problem behaviours' disappear once they are given an opportunity to relinquish the job of leadership (ie filling the Alpha role in the pack).

I understand that I making a number of assumptions in my response, but I spent much time learning about cockatoos and perceiving the world from their perspective with Cockatoo instincts and drives. (well at least try to)
With Canines humans 'humanise' dogs extensively, this leads to misunderstandings in communication between the two species resulting in 98% of behavioral issues.

I believe we owe it to our pets to understand them as they are, not the way we would understand a human or child. Not always an easy perspective to take.

I would appreciate any feedback, I am always looking to learn and provide my bird with the life he deserve.

Regards,

Luke

Welcome to our forum. You have had and will have lots of support. Your bird is so beautiful. Now he will have lots of love and care.

Hello to you and a big warm welcome. Great that you have adopted a bird, we salute you.
You have a real cutie pie there.
Browse around the forum, many interesting posts and great advise.
Thanks for sharing the video loved it. Enjoy your birdie time, it's precious all the time.
Bye for now

Bump... I would be very interested in some feedback on my last post!

I think you're right on Luke. I agree with all of that.

Though I can't speak for the OPs as for whether they have applied any of this or seen results.