need help with vicious parrot

Hello everyone

Last September i got a female eclectus parrot to keep my lovely male happy. As i don't get my birds straight from breeders (i see so many owners trying to get rid of their birds as they don't think they can give there birds a good life or can't deal with them any more and i want to give the birds a second home. I got my lovely male eclectus from a couple who could no longer keep him and he is a darling) i found a bird who had been kept in a pet shop for the last god knows how many years. I had a lengthy email conversation with her then mum and this lady described her as really sweet and the only problem being that she "takes a while to get used to new people" and i thought that i would really like to make her part of our family so i got as much info about her as possible and then we organised a date for me to pick her up. However just as i was getting ready to pick her up the owner emailed me saying that as i was planning to put her with another parrot she would drive Bo (the parrot) to my place to let her settle in. I did try to say i would prefer to pick her up (as i know you should always see where the bird is being kept) but the lady said she had already left and she wasn't willing to turn back round. So against my wishes the lady drove to me. When the car pulled up a young man and a young woman turned up saying that they were the ladies kids as she was too old to drive such a long way (it was a 45 minute drive at most). So they brought Bo in a carry cage into my bird room and put the cage down on top of a cage. They then said that they had forgotten her paper work and they would mail it to me later. A week later i emailed the lady back and she said it had been lost in the post. I asked her again and again for copies or anything she could remember (as i remember a lot of my birds information just off the top of my head) and she said there was nothing but Bo did have a chip that i could get some information off (right shocker, but Bo has not been chipped). When they showed me her poor Bo was at the very back of the cage and clearly terrified. The man then began to try to grab at her to get her out the carry cage. I immediately told him to stop and suggested that we just put the carry cage on the bottom of her new cage until she came out. The man said he could get her and tried to grab her again. This time she lashed at (no wonder she obviously didnt know these people as they didn't even know her name and Bo wouldn't let them anywhere near her). Then i insisited that she be allowed to come out in her own time and they said that as the cage was from there store i would have to pay £25 to let this happen. In the end we came to the agreement that they could keep one of my cages in return for theres (which was a rip off as the cage they had was flimsy and thin plastic and mine was a proper carry cage but oh well). So opened her door and left he run the bottom of her new cage to come out on her own. I came back half an hour later and she hadn't left the cage so i left her be. She finally came out a good hour later and was having a well needed to drink. After letting her settle in for 2 days i tried to interact with her but she just climbed away whenever i offered her treats and wanted nothing to do with me.
It is now 8 months later and although she is bonded with and is very fond my my male parrot she hates everything and anything else. As i am having my larger bird room (where i keep my breeding paris of parrotlets) the parrots have been moved with there cages into my parrot room. I walked into my parrot room yesterday to find Bo sat in my parrotlets cage (God only knows how she got through the lock on the cage and the wire i have used to join the door and the cage for extra safety!) with my female parrotlet laying on the bottom of the cage with a broken neck and her partner flying around the room. I was heart broken. She has also started biting ( it isn't the first time but the only other time she bit was when i invaded her space without realising and she did it to get me away so that was my fault) but now its completely unprovoked. She's also walked up to me and tried to attack my feet. (My 2 parrots are free around there room by the way as that is what i have found they prefer as they love there space). I only wanted to help her but i can't keep her if she keeps on harming my birds and me, she's just too dangerous. I am trying to get her to trust me and i feed her treats and go very slowly around her and always take what she is comfortable with into mind ( as i have been doing since i got her) but there seems to be no difference. I know that her sudden violence may be to her getting broody but is there anything i can do in the long run to make her nicer and put up with people more? She seems to be scarred of everyone and i just want to help her. I have tried every training idea and system to get her ti like me i can find but to no avail! If you have any ideas pls let me know. Thankyou, Jess

Having no clue about her back ground as it sounds like she came from pretty shady people, her behavior says that she is an adult hormonal female.

Female eclectus in the wild are the protectors of the nest unlike other parrots where it is usually the male. Female ekkies have been known to kill other female eclectus as well as cockatoos protecting their nests. I am sorry about your other smaller bird but not surprised. Eclectus don't have a breeding season and can breed all year long but it is in cycles.

To get her to be a pet you would need to separate her completely from your male and work with her individually first as it doesn't sound like she had any training or human interaction both before coming to you and since she has been with you she is going to be honed in on the boy in the room.

Eclectus are one of the few parrots that people can breed and still retain as pets with many times the pairs letting the humans co-parent with them. Others can become super nasty and aggressive while they have babies then go right back to being sweet pets once the babies are gone. However they would need to be sweet pets before breeding for that to happen.

You do want to keep your girl off the floor when she is nesty most will go after feet when they are in that mood.

There is a lot of bad info out there about what terrible pets the females make and it's not really true if you just understand the nature of the role these female birds play in the wild. They are certainly different and not for everyone but not bad in my opinion just different.

I think at this point you need to decide if you will set them up officially as a pair or you need to separate her from the male and work on gaining her trust. I would wait until she is out of nesting mode though for the sake of your hands.

Also as a side note, if you could edit your post and make spaces it will be easier for people to read. It is very hard to read a block/wall of text like that.

Jessica, have you looked into clicker training, positive reinforcement training and applied behavior analysis? Have you purchased any books that go over those topics?

If yes, which ones? If no, have you heard of Barbara Heidenreich? Lara Joseph? Melinda Johnson? Susan Friedman? Karen Pryor?

Hello,

Thankyou for your help. I agree she did come from a shady background and the previous owner still won't reply to my emails. Surprise surprise. I will try to separate her thankyou.

Hello, yes I've tried clicker training and positive reinforcement and I tried both for a number of months she ended up taking no interest and actually attacked and broke the clicker as she did with the next clicker so I took that as a sign. I also have books that I have read and I've done clicker training before.
Thankyou,
Jess

labell said:

Having no clue about her back ground as it sounds like she came from pretty shady people, her behavior says that she is an adult hormonal female.

Female eclectus in the wild are the protectors of the nest unlike other parrots where it is usually the male. Female ekkies have been known to kill other female eclectus as well as cockatoos protecting their nests. I am sorry about your other smaller bird but not surprised. Eclectus don't have a breeding season and can breed all year long but it is in cycles.

To get her to be a pet you would need to separate her completely from your male and work with her individually first as it doesn't sound like she had any training or human interaction both before coming to you and since she has been with you she is going to be honed in on the boy in the room.

Eclectus are one of the few parrots that people can breed and still retain as pets with many times the pairs letting the humans co-parent with them. Others can become super nasty and aggressive while they have babies then go right back to being sweet pets once the babies are gone. However they would need to be sweet pets before breeding for that to happen.

You do want to keep your girl off the floor when she is nesty most will go after feet when they are in that mood.

There is a lot of bad info out there about what terrible pets the females make and it's not really true if you just understand the nature of the role these female birds play in the wild. They are certainly different and not for everyone but not bad in my opinion just different.

I think at this point you need to decide if you will set them up officially as a pair or you need to separate her from the male and work on gaining her trust. I would wait until she is out of nesting mode though for the sake of your hands.

Also as a side note, if you could edit your post and make spaces it will be easier for people to read. It is very hard to read a block/wall of text like that.

Click to expand...

1. Agree with a lot of the above, especially with the fact that the post is difficult to read. Break it down into paragraphs please, so we can sort out what you need.

2. Grabbing parrots like that (instead of training them to step up) is a sure way to make them hand shy and aggressive, even if there are no "protect the nest" issues.

Since they had to grab the bird, and she doesn't seem to know step up, we can assume this bird is (1) not tame, and (2) may have never been trained. Were they using this bird as a breeder? If so, it may not, and may never be, "pet quality."

With this bird, you have to assume you are starting with an untamed, and untrained bird. Start over from square one.

3. Eckie hens are the more aggressive of the pair.

4. Big bird/little bird issues. If the bird isn't tame, socialized, or trust worthy, it shouldn't be in a position where it can dominate a smaller bird.

5. Parrotlets can be feisty, and don't always realized they are so tiny. If yours copped attitude on an untrained and aggressive eckie hen... that would probably be enough to do it. Little bird loses every time in that situation. This bird cannot be trusted with other birds right now, except perhaps the male eckie, and exposing them to her is dangerous.

Hello,

Thankyou everyone for your help. Sorry about my post being hard to read, I will make it better next time.
I separated her from the male and all other birds, slowly she has become happier with me and now eats treats from my hand. She still talks to my male but doesn't see him that often unless we are deep cleaning one of the rooms in which case they have cages in the same room for half an hour or so and then move back. This doesn't seem to hinder the training though.
Monica: Hi I did try clicker training but she seemed much more interested in eating the clicker than the treat! It is now occasionally used as one of the games we play (when I click it she'll walk up to me, pick it up and try to make the noise herself) but didn't seem much use in training.
Slowly but surely we are making good progress and I hope that by the end of the year she will have learned step up and be completely comfortable with me.
Thankyou all again

wow, what a read.... I can't help much except to say how sorry I am for the loss of your parrotlet hen.