AviCalm/L-Theanine for screaming budgies

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with AviCalm for screaming?

I'm a medical student and have recently moved in with my girlfriend.

Over about the past year, my 2 male 4-year-old budgies have taken to frequent screaming as opposed to their old beautiful songs. This doesn't bother me, but it drives my girlfriend insane. She has a sensitivity to high pitch sounds and can get migraines. Obviously, the current situation isn't exactly working for her.

I've done a lot to try to alleviate the impact on my girlfriend by getting her earplugs and earmuffs and I'm even considering soundproofing either our bedroom or the bird room.

I've also tried just about everything to get my budgies to scream less. I've tried getting them more toys, more time outside the cage, gentle music playing for them... But none of it seems to make a difference.

My last resort is supplementing them because these little guys mean the world to me and I'd never give them up.

I know L-Theanine (the active ingredient in AviCalm) has been shown to be safe for people and to some extent chickens... But I've yet to find any scientific papers on its use for parrots. I tried asking our vet about it and they didn't seem to know much, unfortunately.

I was wondering if anyone has anecdotal experiences with the supplement or knows a location that I can find parrot related research for the product - or any other suggestions on how I can modify their screaming behaviour.

Thank you so much for your time and help in advance!!

I’m really sorry your going through this! Though I’ll take your screaming budgie issue over my growling Ekkie issue any day!

And congratulations on moving in with your girlfriend! Great news’

You’re not going to get any results from these, I’m sorry to say. This is absolutely an environmental/behavioral issue, and no amount amino acids will cure that.

Three thoughts come to mind, all of which are environmental:

1) it’s possible where their new cage is located in a place that is making them uncomfortable. A great hypothetical example: you lived before in an apartment with 2 windows and the budgies were located in the interior of the apartment away from the window. Now you’ve moved into a big house and put the cage right next to a window. Now they have full view of all sorts of predators, terrifying them. You laugh, but I’ve heard stories of hawks slamming into windows trying to get to parrots...

2) are there any other animals in the house? Cats could potentially upset them. Or if mice are getting into cage (happened with my old conure!) that could be setting them off as well.

3) is their new location uncomfortable in any way, e.g subject to drafts?

Chris is correct, please don't use Avi-Calm...L-Theanine isn't the answer, nor is Tryptophan or any other supplement...The only way to get them to stop screaming is to figure out the reason why they suddenly started to scream all the time, and then to correct the issue/modify their environment to take away the triggers...

The very first question I would be asking myself is "What changed right at the time the screaming started, either in their environment (your home), their territory (their cage), their diet, or their schedule/routine? I would also immediately ask whether or not you've been getting them their yearly Wellness-Exams with full Fecal microscopy/Culture and then full routine, baseline Blood-Work, as all captive'/pet parrots need to have this done at least once a year with a Certified Avian Vet/Avian Specialist Vet. Since all birds hide all outward signs of illness and pain for as long as they possibly can, and because often by the time we people realize something is wrong with our birds medically/health-wise, they've often been sick for months and months and sometimes it's too late to do anything about it...So for that reason they must have a full Wellness Exam with baseline Blood-Work to compare following years to, test for Fatty Liver Disease, Kidney Disease, etc., and look for infections...Especially when there is a behavior change...

****If you think that their screaming is due to a change in their environment, cage, diet, routine/schedule, or anything else that you can remedy or at least change back to the way it was to verify that this is the issue, then that's step #1...But 2 Budgies who live in the same cage and who both suddenly go from singing/chirping to screaming all the time could very well be a medical/health issue, or it could also be that they are both bored to tears and not getting enough out-of-cage-time and interaction/attention from you...

Either way, trying to "drug" them so they'll stop screaming is absolutely NOT the solution...Not only will it not work at all to stop their screaming, much more importantly it's certainly not figuring out the WHY and solving the problem for them, which could very likely be serious and not just something you can mask/cover-up with supplements and drugs (unless you use Valium or some other Benzo, which will also likely kill them, or at the very least make them into zombies all day long and then you have to ask if that's humane/fair to them and why even have them.

I've used it for over a year with my U2. He was barbering his feathers. It hasn't complexly corrected the problem, but there is vast improvement and no ill effects that I have noticed.
Problem is, I am looking to buy some more and I can't find it.