Answering morning flock calls?

I'm curious to know, if your parrot has a morning flock call, do you answer them to let them know you're still alive and well? If so, do they usually settle down afterwards? The reason I'm asking is because we plan to have our White Cap Pionus sleep in our bedroom when he/she comes home - during the week we're both usually up around 6am for work and to feed our two dogs, however on weekends we like to sleep in until 7:30-8am when possible :09:. I've heard that Pionus, like most birds, have a morning flock call, so I'm wondering if he/she wakes up earlier than we'd like and calls for us, if we answer him/her with a gentle "good morning" to let him/her know we're there, do you think he/she will settle back down and allow us to sleep for a bit longer? We often have guests (family and friends) staying over night, and I think morning flock calls would wake up and annoy our guests, which is one of the reasons for the sleeper cage in our bedroom.

I've had my best luck ignoring the morning flock call. What I've read says if you respond to unwanted behavior, the bird can associate that behavior as "getting your attention" and it might make it worse. Instead, I try to catch Skittles during between-call breaks and try to either use a softer "erp" he uses as a contact call or to begin whistling a tune. If I can get him erping back to me and/or whistling, it is a whole lot quieter than his screaching flock call. Currently he does it a whole lot less than he used to.

Charlie and Merlin share my bedroom with us. If they wake early and try calling for us, we just say 'good morning guys... nanight' and go back to sleep. When they hear nanight they know to settle down again.

So, yeah, just an acknowledgement, to their flock call then back to being ignored again. We keep them covered until we're ready to get up, then all is well.

We have 3 birds. 2 Cockatiels and a Quaker. Both my wife and I answer, or even initiate the contact call whenever we come home. In the morning our birds are quiet until they hear a noise in the house, usually from someone getting up, then they initiate their calling. If they don't get an answer in the morning they generally become quiet again. Sometimes the quaker can keep it up though. So far it has not been a problem, but if either of us gets up early we just go visit them and they quiet right down. Sometimes a small treat is required to bribe them, but I'm trying to be careful to not reinforce morning noise with a reward.

Joe

All very helpful information, thanks everyone! While we're on the subject, how long should I wait after bringing the new baby home before starting to use the sleeper cage in our bedroom? The main cage is in the living room.

Initialing the contact in the morning, that's what i do. I'm an early morning kind of guy. I'm up before the sun or birds. I reassure them before they look for it. Sure they get "vocal" in the mornings, but they don't get loud. I can even go back to bed on dark, rainy days, LOL. Don't ignore them in the AM, acknowledge them and let them know "all is good". it's up to you to pick the tone.

henpecked said:

Initialing the contact in the morning, that's what i do. I'm an early morning kind of guy. I'm up before the sun or birds. I reassure them before they look for it. Sure they get "vocal" in the mornings, but they don't get loud. I can even go back to bed on dark, rainy days, LOL. Don't ignore them in the AM, acknowledge them and let them know "all is good". it's up to you to pick the tone.

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Thanks henpecked! While we do have curtains and blinds on all of the windows in our bedroom, we have a lot of windows so it doesn't stay dark once the sun starts coming up. The dogs are usually up and bugging us to feed them or play shortly after sun up. We just tell them to go back to bed and we'll usually get another half hour or so of sleep lol. I'll probably end up buying a cover for the sleeper cage to help block out some of the light so he/she can sleep a bit better.