Can we offer her more?

Hi. We have a female eclectus that's been with us for about 5 years now.
She came from a bad situation and sadly we were novice parrot owners so we did a lot of stuff wrong. Anyway, our eclectus is still scared after all this time. She will not let anyone touch her. She will step up for me and sit on my arm, but she will either bite or fly to the floor if I try to touch her. She will not step up for my spouse. She will bite...HARD. She does not like to be sprayed or take a bath. She does not play with any toys and runs from anything offered. Toys in her cage are ignored. She very rarely leaves her cage when it is open. She pretty much just sits on her perch all day. She thankfully does not pluck and seems to be in pretty good spirits, but I feel like her life could be so much richer. The place she came from used to use a butterfly net when they needed to pick her up, so she is very scared of anything with a stick attached. Scared of anything really. Fingers are a super no-no. I have tried to play with her using a paper towel thinking she would find it fun, but she attacks it viciously. It doesn't
seem to be a game for her.

Her cage is next to the couch where we sit at night. She will come to take treats from me through the bars, but if I open the cage door and put the treat on the threshold, she won't ever touch it.

She likes to talk, but won't speak if she is being looked at. That's an improvement though, as originally she wouldn't speak if anyone was in the room with her. She still mostly speaks when she is alone.

She has an outside aviary that we built and she does love to be out there.

Is she just too badly scared to hope that we could do more to enrich her life? I thought maybe some of you wise people could offer some advice.

We had a bunny of 9 and a half years in the same room and she was friends with the bunny. She would go over and climb on the gate to the bun bun's enclosure when she did come out. Sadly our bun bun passed a week ago and now we are worried she will be super sad and have no one to turn to for company. Are we being crazy?

Any advice is welcome. Sorry for the long post.

It's not a long post for a new member, we always start out with a lot of questions and not for nothing it's VERY helpful to get all the details at first. saves a lot of back and forth questions.

You need a reset......some very brilliant people are about to reply throughout the day, I know conures and cockatiels but we have a varied group of eclectus experts that will get you on the path nicely! ....Fear not!

Hello and welcome!! You’ve come to the right place, we’re happy to help!

First and foremost, a profound thank you for 1) rescuing this sweet girl, 2) looking for ways to enhance her care, and 3) pictures

Before we go any further into ways to help, can you elaborate on a few things:

1) what is her diet?
2) has she been to an avian vet for a full check up, including blood panels?
3) what is her daily routine like?

These will go a long way to creating more tailored advice.

I adopted Oliver and he too doesn't play with his toys, is that something you can change, teach? He never comes out of his cage the door is open for hours, he will let me feed him treats and touch his beak, but that's it. I mention step up and he is gone, turns and walks away. I know he knows me and my voice like you I sit on the couch and he comes to that side of the cage I give him a treat also, so he is smart.

As far as him talking yes he talks, nothing we have taught him. I too want to help him be happy.

I wonder like you is he happy? What can I do to make him happy?

Is the secret getting them young?
Do you know how old she is?

Nothing against you but I hope in 5 years I'm not writing like you are.
Best of luck and I'll keep reading your post to see what's worked!

------------------------------------
Before we go any further into ways to help, can you elaborate on a few things:

1) what is her diet?
2) has she been to an avian vet for a full check up, including blood panels?
3) what is her daily routine like?

These will go a long way to creating more tailored advice.
------------------------------------

Hi,

There is a long history related to her previous home that I am bypassing since it frankly is a little painful, but let me share a little. Remember this is at least 5 years ago now. When we got her she was living in a dark garage and was fed wild bird seeds all day. She was in bad health. (again, remember we were novices and had never had a parrot before).

We took her to the only avian vet we could find within 50 miles. She ran blood tests, said she had bacteria in her blood and was short of calcium and other issues. We gave her antibiotics, vitamins, etc. She seemed to get stronger and healthier. We had her back many times to the vet for more blood tests and check up and such. It was usually good progress, but we were also told she may never really be healthy. Unfortunately the vet turned out to be a bit of a flake. At one point she fell off her perch and hurt her foot badly. After a day or two without improvement we took her to the vet. She said she needed her overnight and supposedly did x-rays. When we went to get her she said there was nothing wrong with her foot, it was just a sprain, but that she had rocks in her stomach and she was nasty to us like we fed her rocks. Now there is NO WAY she had rocks in her stomach from her environment. There are none in her cage and her aviary is made from redwood with a redwood floor and she never goes to the floor anyway. She sits on one branch in it and never moves,
as she does in her cage. Anyway to make an odd story short, she did nothing to help her foot, charged us over $1000 to berate us and we never went back to her again.

We did find another avian vet in the area for an emergency, but fortunately have not needed to use him since that happened. We learned to trim her nails and we do not clip her wings. Her foot never really healed properly. She walks with a limp, but is no longer showing any pain on it. We know she broke something despite what the vet said and it probably healed crooked.

Her diet is mostly Harrisons, as was recommended by the first vet.
We do give her carrots, apple, peaches, dandelions and some other items occasionally, but she really prefers the Harrisons pellets and will often ignore the rest.

In the evening I will feed her crumbs of bread through her bars as a treat. Very little. A total of maybe a teaspoon or less. She really loves them and it motivates her to relate to me more. There are no healthy treats she cares enough for to motivate her and honestly she seems to be quite healthy now and is in good feather.

Her daily routine is very boring. I am a late shifted individual, so she is too. I feed her and change her water at noon. Lately I have been making her step up on my arm when I do that so she gets out of her cage,
but she doesn't really want to. Anyway, she is alone till about 4 when my spouse gets home and talks with her. As I say, our bunny, that was near her in the same room was her company. We eat dinner right next to her. It's the TV room. No kids. I give her the treat I mentioned. Sometimes I will open her cage door, but she just sits in the cage, never comes out. I am up till about 1 or 2 then close the door, turn out the light and go to bed. Once or twice I forgot to close the cage door and at noon she was still sitting in the same spot on her perch.

We gave her a lot of time to get comfortable with us, but she hasn't really. She runs to the other side of the cage when I open the food tray doors to put her food dishes in. She comes back after I leave the room.
She has toys in her cage, but never touches them. Once I hung them so they were right in the way of the perch thinking she would get used to them. She was like a yoga expert bending around or under them so she didn't have to touch them. I left it like this for a month, but in all that time she didn't touch them, so I moved them out of her way.

Since so much time has passed and she has such a simple life, I thought maybe I should push her. I feel like if I don't, nothing will change. She runs from everything I try voluntarily with her. So I have been making her come with me during my routine. She doesn't really try to bite me, but if I push her she will and she bites hard. No soft "communication". So I wear long sleeves and heavy leather garden gloves if I try to push her out of her comfort zone. I will try to introduce her to things, as I say, paper towels, hairbrushes, toilet paper rolls, anything I think is safe. She always runs from anything new. I try to bring her in the shower but she flies out. BTW, when we got her her wings were very badly damaged from the "clipping" the previous owner gave them. We have let the feathers grow out, but she can only get a few feet high and a few feet distance. At one point I thought it would be good to push her to learn to fly, so I would take her out, get down on the rug and from 6" drop my hand fast enough to make her fly off. I did this a few times and then one time she ran back to her cage and didn't want to come out the next time I tried to get her to step up, so I thought it wasn't nice to her.

Anyway, it might just be that the simple life she has is all she wants, but if there are ideas to enrich it, I am willing to try. Is it bad to "push" her into new things? After 5 years surely she knows she is safe, don't you think? I would like to be more interactive with her if she were comfortable with it.

Thanks!

Oliver17 said:

I adopted Oliver and he too doesn't play with his toys, is that something you can change, teach? He never comes out of his cage the door is open for hours, he will let me feed him treats and touch his beak, but that's it. I mention step up and he is gone, turns and walks away. I know he knows me and my voice like you I sit on the couch and he comes to that side of the cage I give him a treat also, so he is smart.

As far as him talking yes he talks, nothing we have taught him. I too want to help him be happy.

I wonder like you is he happy? What can I do to make him happy?

Is the secret getting them young?
Do you know how old she is?

Nothing against you but I hope in 5 years I'm not writing like you are.
Best of luck and I'll keep reading your post to see what's worked!

Click to expand...

Hi. It sounds like a very similar situation! Yes, it is a matter of wanting her to be happy. I do wonder if she is happy. When we got her we were told that she was 5 years old. If that was true she would be 10-12 now. Maybe if that have a bad start they just don't ever get over it. Not sure. I hope some others on here can offer some advice. Otherwise we will just leave her be.
Very sorry to hear your baby is in the same situation. I too hope in 5 years it's better for you. Good luck!

chris-md said:

Hello and welcome!! You’ve come to the right place, we’re happy to help!

First and foremost, a profound thank you for 1) rescuing this sweet girl, 2) looking for ways to enhance her care, and 3) pictures

Before we go any further into ways to help, can you elaborate on a few things:

1) what is her diet?
2) has she been to an avian vet for a full check up, including blood panels?
3) what is her daily routine like?

These will go a long way to creating more tailored advice.

Click to expand...

Hi, I tried putting her picture in the image gallery and this is the link it gave me for it:
http://www.parrotforums.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=2857

Wow, that is a truly tragic history

I have a few questions hearing this that I’m not clear on, or maybe I’m just being dense and not reading enough into your post:

1) are you able to pick her up whenever you want?
2) when was the last vet visit?

This general behavior does not sound normal to me. She had so many deficiencies in the beginning, and her behavior scares me. For 5 years with you, It’s not normal behavior. When behavior is not normal, the first place to look is health. Given how things were left with the original vet, I’d prefer to see an updated blood panel to see if these deficiencies have been corrected.

Next I would look at diet. Tell me if youve heard this one before: Ekkies often don’t do well in pellet only diets. They have longer than normal GI track, which gives them the ability to extract more nutrients from somewhat nutrient deficient food. This makes hem more susceptible to possible vitamin overdose when fed vitamin enriched foods - all those added vitamins get absorbed and it’s more than their bodies can handle. At minimum this can manifest in the form of toe tapping and wing flipping. Harrison’s is a fortified pellet. I’d oil into Goldenfeasft Goldnobles I, a cheerio looking pellet whose first ingredient is quinoa, and no added vitamins or minerals.

They tend to do better on fresh veggie and whole grain diet. You can begin to convert her by introducing an array of foods and see what she goes for. You can also introduce her to chop, which you might think of as a bunch of veggies and rice run through a food processor to make the pieces small so she can’t pick through an choose her favorites (a recipe for nutrient deficiency).

With chop, you can make enough to freeze. I made a batch that has lasted me 6 months. Too much admittedly, my boy is sick of it, and I’m tired of serving it.

Ekkies also have a higher vitamin A content than other birds. So sweet potatoes, assorted bell peppers, and carrots (or any or their orange/red vegetable) will need to a staple. Also consider getting a jar of sustainably sourced red palm oil, one of the best sources of vitamin a around. Just a small amount, half the size of your pinky nail should do it.

Longer GI track also means higher fiber requirements. So you’ll often hear people refer to a fresh fruit and vegetable diet. Not accurate for ekkies. Suit has a lot of sugar, which is not good for a sedantary bird. Saying whole grain and fresh fruit diet is a bit more accurate. No more than 10% fruit content in the diet overall.

Have you done any training with her?

Next step is to simply engage her mind. Try getting her to forage for her favorite treat.

Also start target training her, which is the parrot version of “Come!” You teach her to touch a target (chopstick is often used but you can use anything really) and earn a reward. Targeting can be used to help her stepping up to other people, or to even teach her how to fly on command (called flighted recall), the more advanced form of “Come!”

they need fresh veggies and fruit everyday, i have heard nothing but bad about pellets so Max gets none of those besides the fresh food i use an Eclectus feed i get off amazon.
veggies / fruit 80% veggies about 20% fruit. dont know about the not being able to handle i got mine as an egg and was involved in the weaning process so we have had his whole life together. not to insult but both new owners in this post sound like they might be a little
intimidated by the beak and if you show that then they have a hand up on you. i would do a ton of cage side, try some frozen pee's max loves em, the key to avoiding a bite is to learn more about them. i read a post in here the other day somebody wanted an ekkie for a cuddle buddy and to be honest i just cant see it Max likes handled but not a lot of petting and neck scratches are just not going to happen with him, granted i don't really train my birds they are free spirits and can do what they want. in my research of the breed i read about their natural defense mech in the wild is to go still and wait for the threat to pass, as for playing with toys load the cage up they will figure it out. different hardness of woods and just load it down, when i brought Max home he had 17 hanging toys, get a concrete perch i put mine on their doors so they have to use it when gettting in and out of cage, help greatly with nails Max is 18 months old took him in for his first trim and only 3 out of the 8 had to be trimmed, and his beak is perfect as they said all credit given to the different woods and the perch on the nails. if they are not flying keep em that way till you get to being able to handle, and try to get them out of the cages and close their doors so they need to depend on you to get in the house, if they end up on the floor that is a good thing because then you get to rescue them,and with each rescue comes just a little more trust. they are not easy there are way to avoid bites but you have to be quick and see it coming. lots more to come on this post bunch of great owners here to help.
just throwing a few things out there i do.

Lots of good advice given so far!

About playing -- you might have to teach her. I worried about that too, and the brilliant members here told me to teach our bird. Get really enthusiastic about it, like it's the most fun thing ever. I felt silly at first, but Duke caught on. Mostly we chew things. Popsicle sticks and wooden things, like Dave said, and also paper shredding.

Do you give treats when she steps up? If not, that might help build a positive association.

There are some really smart and helpful people here, stick around. Try reading through older threads, it might give you some ideas, too.

chris-md said:

Wow, that is a truly tragic history

I have a few questions hearing this that I’m not clear on, or maybe I’m just being dense and not reading enough into your post:

1) are you able to pick her up whenever you want?
2) when was the last vet visit?

This general behavior does not sound normal to me. She had so many deficiencies in the beginning, and her behavior scares me. For 5 years with you, It’s not normal behavior. When behavior is not normal, the first place to look is health. Given how things were left with the original vet, I’d prefer to see an updated blood panel to see if these deficiencies have been corrected.

Next I would look at diet. Tell me if youve heard this one before: Ekkies often don’t do well in pellet only diets. They have longer than normal GI track, which gives them the ability to extract more nutrients from somewhat nutrient deficient food. This makes hem more susceptible to possible vitamin overdose when fed vitamin enriched foods - all those added vitamins get absorbed and it’s more than their bodies can handle. At minimum this can manifest in the form of toe tapping and wing flipping. Harrison’s is a fortified pellet. I’d oil into Goldenfeasft Goldnobles I, a cheerio looking pellet whose first ingredient is quinoa, and no added vitamins or minerals.

They tend to do better on fresh veggie and whole grain diet. You can begin to convert her by introducing an array of foods and see what she goes for. You can also introduce her to chop, which you might think of as a bunch of veggies and rice run through a food processor to make the pieces small so she can’t pick through an choose her favorites (a recipe for nutrient deficiency).

With chop, you can make enough to freeze. I made a batch that has lasted me 6 months. Too much admittedly, my boy is sick of it, and I’m tired of serving it.

Ekkies also have a higher vitamin A content than other birds. So sweet potatoes, assorted bell peppers, and carrots (or any or their orange/red vegetable) will need to a staple. Also consider getting a jar of sustainably sourced red palm oil, one of the best sources of vitamin a around. Just a small amount, half the size of your pinky nail should do it.

Longer GI track also means higher fiber requirements. So you’ll often hear people refer to a fresh fruit and vegetable diet. Not accurate for ekkies. Suit has a lot of sugar, which is not good for a sedantary bird. Saying whole grain and fresh fruit diet is a bit more accurate. No more than 10% fruit content in the diet overall.

Click to expand...

Thanks so much. All good information. Yes, I do know that they should be on a more veggie diet, but she doesn't like it. Should I stop the pellets and just wait for her to be hungry enough to eat it? As I say, when the greens are offered with the pellets, the pellets win hands down.

She will step up. In the past I didn't push her. I offered her my hand about 2" away and let her decide if she wanted to come to me. She would come about 10% of the time. Lately I have been pushing her, but in these cases I need to have the glove on. Then she will step up about 80% of the time and the rest she runs away or bites.

It's been about 2 or 3 years now since she's been to the vet. We are not against taking her, but it is expensive and since she doesn't show signs of poor health, we haven't done it. When she needs to move she goes fast. Her color is good and her eyes are wide. She is able to hold herself upside down on the rare occasions she finds herself in that situation.

I will figure out how to shift her diet. Do you think it's something that could be done "cold turkey" if you'll pardon the pun! Should I just nix the pellets and give her greens and wait till she's hungry enough to eat them? Seems harsh?

Thank you so much for taking the time to offer your wisdom!

chris-md said:

Have you done any training with her?

Next step is to simply engage her mind. Try getting her to forage for her favorite treat.

Also start target training her, which is the parrot version of “Come!” You teach her to touch a target (chopstick is often used but you can use anything really) and earn a reward. Targeting can be used to help her stepping up to other people, or to even teach her how to fly on command (called flighted recall), the more advanced form of “Come!”

Click to expand...

Hi. This is definitely too advanced for her. She will not even climb to the bottom of her cage for a treat. She will only go from one side of the perch to the other and not always that. She would not touch a target for it.
These are good ideas when or if she gets to that point, but as it is she doesn't expand beyond that status quo and if I try she either ignores me or if I push she becomes aggressive and I don't want that.

I will keep these ideas in mind though. Thank you.

davefv92c said:

they need fresh veggies and fruit everyday, i have heard nothing but bad about pellets so Max gets none of those besides the fresh food i use an Eclectus feed i get off amazon.
veggies / fruit 80% veggies about 20% fruit. dont know about the not being able to handle i got mine as an egg and was involved in the weaning process so we have had his whole life together. not to insult but both new owners in this post sound like they might be a little
intimidated by the beak and if you show that then they have a hand up on you. i would do a ton of cage side, try some frozen pee's max loves em, the key to avoiding a bite is to learn more about them. i read a post in here the other day somebody wanted an ekkie for a cuddle buddy and to be honest i just cant see it Max likes handled but not a lot of petting and neck scratches are just not going to happen with him, granted i don't really train my birds they are free spirits and can do what they want. in my research of the breed i read about their natural defense mech in the wild is to go still and wait for the threat to pass, as for playing with toys load the cage up they will figure it out. different hardness of woods and just load it down, when i brought Max home he had 17 hanging toys, get a concrete perch i put mine on their doors so they have to use it when gettting in and out of cage, help greatly with nails Max is 18 months old took him in for his first trim and only 3 out of the 8 had to be trimmed, and his beak is perfect as they said all credit given to the different woods and the perch on the nails. if they are not flying keep em that way till you get to being able to handle, and try to get them out of the cages and close their doors so they need to depend on you to get in the house, if they end up on the floor that is a good thing because then you get to rescue them,and with each rescue comes just a little more trust. they are not easy there are way to avoid bites but you have to be quick and see it coming. lots more to come on this post bunch of great owners here to help.
just throwing a few things out there i do.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Lots of great advice. I will definitely be switching her diet. Interesting idea on the toys. I guess if there are too many to avoid she would have to interact with them, though I know they will have her cornered and scared for a while and it feels painful to do that to her.

I am not afraid of her biting. I am very fast and have learned to read her cues. I watch her eyes, her feathers, her body language and in any case that I think she might be aggressive I use a glove and then she can't hurt me, so I can let her bite hard even when she is "testing" out the stability of my hand as a perch.

In full disclosure here, my spouse is the one that wanted to bring a bird into our family. At the time we had two rabbits and a dog. I was okay with it, but honestly a bird never interested me as a pet. Sadly because she has bitten my spouse so aggressively and delivered very bad wounds, I am the one who has to handle her. (Only because I move faster when she goes to bite!) My spouse was still willing to handle her with the gloves, but over the last few years with the development of arthritis, being bitten even through the gloves is just too painful to risk.

Closing the cage door is interesting. I am sure she would climb to the top of the cage and sit there but it's worth a try to see what happens.

Thank you for the great ideas. I will try to integrate them into her life.

tashawithanekkie said:

Lots of good advice given so far!

About playing -- you might have to teach her. I worried about that too, and the brilliant members here told me to teach our bird. Get really enthusiastic about it, like it's the most fun thing ever. I felt silly at first, but Duke caught on. Mostly we chew things. Popsicle sticks and wooden things, like Dave said, and also paper shredding.

Do you give treats when she steps up? If not, that might help build a positive association.

There are some really smart and helpful people here, stick around. Try reading through older threads, it might give you some ideas, too.

Click to expand...

That's a great idea on the play. I can try that. She seems real independent and not really into my actions, but it's definitely worth a try. I ahven't given her treats to step up. Also a great idea. One thing about that. If I give her treats outside her cage, she drops the pieces all over the rug, so really treats only happen in the cage. Hmmm, could that be part of the issue of her not wanting to come outside and play? How do you give treats without them ending up all in the carpet?

Thanks!

i do my chop a week at a time, today is chop day ,i get fresh stuff every Sunday morning
so here is this weeks list
Kale
sweet tater
yellow squash
zuke
pumpkin
brock
apple and pear.
turnip
golden beet
and a melon to chunk up
and top the chop.
i use a small kitchen aid chopper
done and cleaned up in less then a half an hour.
i change things up every week. after a bit you will figure what works together
together to make a good chop that is not to wet or dry, my birds are used to a a dryer chop with some melon on top. with a dryer chop it keeps better in the fridge. as i said before i keep a big bag of frozen pee's as Max will do anything for a pee or two. even with how long relationship he is still hard to put into the cage so even after a year and a half i use food and it is no problem then to get him in sometime he just wont let go of the finger and has in the past tried locking onto it. a few pee's does the trick. i have learned with my amazon which are a lot more bitey then the eclectus i have gotten to quickly get my hand under her and force her to step up, since starting this she is much quicker to get on the finger and not lunging hardly at all. as for handling with gloves,i for one would never approach any of my birds wearing gloves. it is like approaching one with a towel in your hand, as for stick type items they don't seem to like at all i walk with a cane,and when they see one they all freak so i dont use them in the house any longer. more later time to run to the produce dept.

I searched for some relevant posts...start with page 4 of Sailboat’s excellent “Restarting a shut down Amazon” posting the I Love Amazons thread, Amazons forum. It’s very helpful.

Birdman666 has written some of the best posts about working with rescue birds - he’s saved many from cage rot. One thing he recommended: birds tend to be afraid of gloves. Instead of wearing a glove, try wrapping a towel around your arm, securing that with an ace bandage, then putting on a long sleeve shirt so the bird doesn’t see any of that. This works! It allowed me to pick up Gus without being afraid of his bite, so much that I didn’t hesitate and he didn’t even have time to think about biting. He might also recommend getting the bird out of the cage by any means necessary and taking it to another room to work, out of sight of the cage/territory. I’ll try to find some of the posts...

Start with this post and work through the thread - he provides a lot of great links a couple posts down.

http://www.parrotforums.com/new-members-welcome/48584-hi-i-am-here-learn-3.html#post433866

Also


http://www.parrotforums.com/indian-ringnecks/66264-am-i-doing-right-2.html#post626399

This post also might be illuminating...

http://www.parrotforums.com/amazons/61490-adopting-nervous-bird.html#post565788

Confused said:

tashawithanekkie said:

Lots of good advice given so far!

About playing -- you might have to teach her. I worried about that too, and the brilliant members here told me to teach our bird. Get really enthusiastic about it, like it's the most fun thing ever. I felt silly at first, but Duke caught on. Mostly we chew things. Popsicle sticks and wooden things, like Dave said, and also paper shredding.

Do you give treats when she steps up? If not, that might help build a positive association.

There are some really smart and helpful people here, stick around. Try reading through older threads, it might give you some ideas, too.

Click to expand...

That's a great idea on the play. I can try that. She seems real independent and not really into my actions, but it's definitely worth a try. I ahven't given her treats to step up. Also a great idea. One thing about that. If I give her treats outside her cage, she drops the pieces all over the rug, so really treats only happen in the cage. Hmmm, could that be part of the issue of her not wanting to come outside and play? How do you give treats without them ending up all in the carpet?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I put puppy training pads on the floor to catch the mess. Others here use those plastic things that go under office chairs, or even make their own floor cover from wood and vinyl. I think some simply vacuum multiple times a day. The mess is just part of life with a bird. Definitely not my favorite part but *shrug*

...not for nothing I wasn't wrong you'd get feedback from experts....welcome to the forums!