Constant screeching

Conuremamma

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Apr 8, 2020
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2 conures: a 16 year old male red throat and a 2 year old female pineapple
My 2 conures are driving me crazy! Apple is a 2 year old pineapple female, and Kiwi is a 16 year old red-throat. For the past 3-4 months they are living in separate cages after an incident where Apple pecked Kiwi in the head and caused him to injure himself quite badly. I bring them out from the spare bedroom (where they sleep covered) in the morning to the kitchen, so they can interact with my husband and I and have a view out our huge kitchen windows. Lately, (last 2-3 months), when I’m in the room alone, they both call out and screech almost constantly. It’s like a loud vocalization every 1-2 minutes followed by silence. It’s especially bad when I’m about to clean their cages and feed them in the morning (or when they think they should be cleaned!). Once cleaned, they’re pretty good, either quiet or interacting appropriately until evening when once again they get very noisy because it’s near bed-time. I’ve tried covering them up when they do this; I’ve tried ignoring them- all to no avail. My husband works from home and this is becoming very irritating to him. What can I do to stop the screeching (especially loud from Kiwi, although they tend to screech together which is driving me crazy)? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Stymied Conure Mama
 

MonicaMc

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Awe! A red throat! Don't get to see those too often! Miss mine!

Do they forage for food much? Do they get flighted exercise? Plenty of baths? Do they *PLAY* with their toys? (not *IF* they have toys, but if they physically play with them?)

Maybe some training, exercise and foraging may help?
 

Laurasea

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Make sure they get out of the spare bedroom ASAP each morning don’t use this as way to keep them quiet or giving them to long a sleep time

Also they need things to do, out of the cage time to burn up energy, rituals and routine plenty of easy to destroy stuff like shredders stuff they can take bites out of easy, definitely teach foraging, also set up 3 different hangout spots near the actions different spot with great stick easy to destroy stuff you can use ceilings hooks and fishing line to hang rope hoops or bungee at different locations put a tray underneath with newspapers to help with ness and poop.

Also have a flock call or whistle that is rye same thing you use each time
They mostly sound like they are boredom
I have a link on stress that has good info on pattering to music also encourage a bath at strategic time during the day when you could use a good half hour of quiet after a bird takes a bath they usually are quiet till they dry. Good rituals and routine and exercise help a huge bunch, as does a good diet of veggies to tear into lots of different perches and GCC really like untie knots, little things to pick at and walk toys to carry around
 

Laurasea

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This is the article on street in parrots I really like this one
https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/stress-reduction-for-parrot-companions/

Also in this thread I think on pages 9-11 I have linked lots of articles on behavior.

As we all know parrots aren’t easy pets, they are intelligent, extremely active and social. When we fall short in meeting those needs , parrots respond with behaviors we aren’t thrilled with. There usually isn’t an easy fix, it’s a multi prong response that works best. Observe, are there triggers, improve cage environment to maximize use, find toys that work and are used by your parrot, reward toy use, teach toy use, teach foraging, different hang out spots, providing out if the cage flight time, daily time set aside to pet scritch or play and do tricks with you, routine, lost if climbing jumping perched and swings and perch maze, a cup full of plastic bottle caps, easy to chew shred stuff little cardboard box with lots of holes cut in it and stuffed with shreds of paper, popsicle sticks, little foot toys and nuts that they can pull out through the holes

Good luck!! Reward quit time and good behaviors keep em busy!!
 
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Conuremamma

Conuremamma

New member
Apr 8, 2020
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Manitoba
Parrots
2 conures: a 16 year old male red throat and a 2 year old female pineapple
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Thanks for all the great suggestions. Apple and Kiwi come out of the spare room first thing in the morning, and that is definitely a “noisy time”. I have never taught my parrots to forage, although I do give them different toys and silly things to play with like toilet paper tubes, bottle caps, etc., and do try to spend time playing with them. Kiwi in particular loves to play, but I think I’ll start trying to add more foraging activities for them. They get veggies often and a variety of other foods. I often “layer” them in the bowl, so I guess that’s a bit of foraging, isn’t it? They love to bathe (but only every 2nd day - weird), and we make a big production of it. And yes, they are quiet after that. On the whole, I think they are a little bored, as some have suggested. I guess their screeching is their way of telling me that. thanks for all the suggestions. Now I have to go try them out!
 

wrench13

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Keep in mind tho that most parrots screech to greet the sun and then to say goodbye to it. That behavior is tough to train out of them and really you must expect SOME at these times.
 

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