Questions regarding my ringneck

Hello everyone, I'm totally new to this forum so I'll try to briefly explain my questions and what my parrot looks like.
I've established that my baby parrot aged 1 year old named Rio is a ringneck and the colour is totally green.

However, this is my first time owning a parrot in general and I have quite a lot of uncertainty and questions with parrot owning.

Most of these answers could be found on Google but I'm afraid it may not be accurate.
I'll start off with my parrot's sleep schedule.
My parrot is usually only able to get 4 - 8 hours of sleep due to it being sensitive to noises and being placed in a position where it can hear noises from pretty much everywhere. Is this okay? I can't really relocate it anywhere as it would pretty much be disturbed in every part of my house.

Secondly, would this specific parrot able to survive in an air conditioned environment of up to 23 degrees Celsius for a minimum of 11 hours to a maximum of 14 hours? I'm thinking of putting it in my AC room.

Thirdly, it's my fourth day ever since getting Rio. I haven't gotten any toys for Rio yet even though it seems to me that it loves biting a lot of things. What toys would you recommend me getting it?

Fourthly, Rio doesn't seem to be drinking water that much. It only eats, and eats, and eats. I don't know if this is normal if it only takes a maximum of 3 small sips a day. Thoughts?

Lastly, I try to train Rio with target training first but it usually
(i) isn't motivated for food
(ii) doesn't want to walk to my target stick
I am training it without a clicker, thinking of getting one soon though.

How long would it usually take for a parrot to learn these?

These few days, Rio has also been whimpering. I don't know why.

EDIT:
Additional information would be that I may know why Rio isn't motivated for food, it's because his cage is usually always packed with food to make sure he constantly gets the food he needs.
It eats a seed mix and when I train it, I will give it some sort of fruit.

Could you please show us a picture? He sounds much younger than one year.


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Here are the pictures, sorry if I got the incorrect breed/age. I'm not 100% sure of it's age yet though. If I remember correctly he may be 10 - 12 months or something. Yeah, sorry but I don't have it's exact age, neither do I know it's exact gender since this is my first time ever owning a parrot. I don't know how to identify it's gender either. So bear with me for a bit
I hope you can answer all my questions especially regarding it's sleep schedule. It's scaring me that it's so tired and almost looks like it's falling off it's perch by having only one leg holding onto the perch.
EDIT:
I keep forgetting information to add on Rio but it did not grow up the wild. So yeah, anyone can probably see that the bird has its wings clipped. This is true, but apart from the problems I've listed above, it seems to be interacting with me well - It always tries to go up to my shoulder everytime I put it on either one of my hand, and it stays there. I play around with him for like more than half the day, even when I'm doing my things before I try to train it.
I'm quite sure the parrot will moult in about a year's time. I won't clip its wings from that point on.

That's how they sleep, they pull one leg up and stay on the other while sleeping, perfectly normal thing for them. And about water yes they also drink very little water, you can rarely even see them drinking, so again, perfectly normal thing. They drink when they need to. As for sleeping hours they need 12h sleep. You should cover cage with some cover and let the bird sleep for the time they need. As for toys you can simply make your own or let him have something they can shred, they like toys they can destroy, to put it that way. Mine are doing ust fine shreding papers, boxes etc

GoodFairy said:

That's how they sleep, they pull one leg up and stay on the other while sleeping, perfectly normal thing for them. And about water yes they also drink very little water, you can rarely even see them drinking, so again, perfectly normal thing. They drink when they need to. As for sleeping hours they need 12h sleep. You should cover cage with some cover and let the bird sleep for the time they need. As for toys you can simply make your own or let him have something they can shred, they like toys they can destroy, to put it that way. Mine are doing ust fine shreding papers, boxes etc

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I would allow it to shred paper, but I'm scared he may end up ingesting the paper or something. After all, I have files of paper for him to just bite and shred, I'm just scared he ends up ingesting stuff it isn't supposed to ingest. As for his sleeping, I'm planning on getting some sound barriers for him so that he isn't constantly disturbed. I hope that would help him get sufficient sleep.
Other than this, would you know other things regarding why it's lazy to walk to a target stick etc.? He just stands there and tries to bite the target stick, and only walks when he wants to.
Together with his whimpering is something else that's getting me jittery. It usually happens whenever I'm either petting it or it whimpers at random.

Calorious said:

GoodFairy said:

That's how they sleep, they pull one leg up and stay on the other while sleeping, perfectly normal thing for them. And about water yes they also drink very little water, you can rarely even see them drinking, so again, perfectly normal thing. They drink when they need to. As for sleeping hours they need 12h sleep. You should cover cage with some cover and let the bird sleep for the time they need. As for toys you can simply make your own or let him have something they can shred, they like toys they can destroy, to put it that way. Mine are doing ust fine shreding papers, boxes etc

Click to expand...

I would allow it to shred paper, but I'm scared he may end up ingesting the paper or something. After all, I have files of paper for him to just bite and shred, I'm just scared he ends up ingesting stuff it isn't supposed to ingest. As for his sleeping, I'm planning on getting some sound barriers for him so that he isn't constantly disturbed. I hope that would help him get sufficient sleep.
Other than this, would you know other things regarding why it's lazy to walk to a target stick etc.? He just stands there and tries to bite the target stick, and only walks when he wants to.
Together with his whimpering is something else that's getting me jittery. It usually happens whenever I'm either petting it or it whimpers at random.

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I forgot to say that my parrot because it doesn't really want to move. I have to drag it off my shoulder or drag it out of its cage most of the time. This may hurt it's trust, so I'm also trying to find ways to get it to trust me more even though I'm having to drag it around.

Another question would be is it common for parrots to be very sensitive if one touches their legs?

Sound you're describing I believe is their sound of joy, they make those sounds when they get tickles, hens maybe even more than males so it sounda to me like you might have hen and she enjoys those tickles. About training stick I can only say that they are stubborn birds and they do what they want more than what we want from them to do. So bird might see stick as a toy or threat and wants to bite it for that reason. I would stop dragging him/her put of cage and let it come out on it's own. Don't touch their other parts than head when you pet them. As for legs i believe they don't like them being touched, mines don't like it either.

When training any parrot with the reward of food, the treats should not be part of their meals. If you give seed mixes which have sunflower seeds included, then don’t use sunflower seeds as treats because it is no longer valued, they can just go to their bowl. You can experiment on a variety of nuts and seeds and figure out which one is a favourite, that way you can use that favourite treat on special occasions, for example breakthroughs with training.
When presenting the target to a bird make sure your bird has to reach so that he/she can only touch the target stick, not chew or chop down.
As with toys, birds should have a variation of different materials. Most pet stores do have parrot toys although they are all made of pine wood, which, for my birds, isn’t satisfying since it isn’t easy to destroy. The best toys are made from seagrass, balsa wood, loofah, abaca, palm leaf etc.

Is that a small chain on your IRN's leg? If so it may present a snag hazard that could freak him out and cause injury.

My male kind of clucks like a chicken when giving and receiving any preening. Sometimes he stands on a corner perch and kind of whimpers like huh huh huh huh, and that can go on for minutes or so and can range in volume.

Yeah that is a small chain, it was placed on the parrot when it was like 1 month or something. I don't really know how I could get it out of the parrot's leg now since it literally hates anyone touching it's leg. It just gets very agitated and bites literally anyone who touches it.
I also use that as a way to clip it onto a leash so that when outside it can't fly away.

I don't think it's wise to put leash on bird's leg. You can easily break it's leg that way. They have very fragile bones, there are chest harness to use if you're taking your bird outdoors

GoodFairy said:

I don't think it's wise to put leash on bird's leg. You can easily break it's leg that way. They have very fragile bones, there are chest harness to use if you're taking your bird outdoors

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In some parts of the world, the leg chain is very common and they may not have access to all the fancy harnesses we do here in the western world.

I’m not saying I agree with the practice, but we are a worldwide forum so sometimes we encounter cultural differences.


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Update: My parrot seems to be showing behaviour of something like spitting out some of the food after it makes a type of sound in the mouth like a saliva sound, then it spits out a little bit of the food or it doesn't spit at all. Just that sound, is that normal?

I've not seen spitting. I see Mango do something like a big yawn, almost like he's gagging, but I'm sure he's just adjusting his crop. I'm no expert though.

That would be regurgitating I believe

GoodFairy said:

That would be regurgitating I believe

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Hmm so it is normal. Thanks!

Inger said:

GoodFairy said:

I don't think it's wise to put leash on bird's leg. You can easily break it's leg that way. They have very fragile bones, there are chest harness to use if you're taking your bird outdoors

Click to expand...

In some parts of the world, the leg chain is very common and they may not have access to all the fancy harnesses we do here in the western world.

I’m not saying I agree with the practice, but we are a worldwide forum so sometimes we encounter cultural differences.


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Click to expand...

I am able to get a harness, but I'm not sure whether my parrot would be willing to wear it or if it would be easy to get it to put it on. It seems to already hate being tied with a leash.



SMALL UPDATE: Although my parrot has been doing fine, I am worried about a few things.
1. These few days, it suddenly turned very aggressive to anyone, like as if it didn't know who I was. It would bite me very hard and it would go around biting almost anything in my room, from my computer keyboard to the mouse. It almost broke my phone charger wire too just by biting it for about 10 seconds.

2. I would hear my parrot whimper alot, like it just whimpers for like 10 - 15 seconds and it's very low-pitch. I would say it's because of it's lack of food because it would stop whimpering for a while after I hand feed it a little. But it sorta also doesn't want to eat while on it's own. I have a cage for it and it would always climb to the top of the cage instead of going inside to eat. Is it's whimpering actually caused by it's lack of food or something else?

3. My parrot is dependent on me. Everytime he feels a threat (such as when someone wants to cuff his leg, it's actually my dad), he would fly to my room in search for me. It would also scream just to get me to find it. I would ignore the scream sometimes. But I sometimes won't. How can I train my parrot to be less dependent on me. I am in school mostly (after this pandemic) and can't let it constantly try to find me.

EDIT: My parrot also seems to be very aggressive by making some kind of gagging noise before surprise biting any hand infront of it very hard. Whenever he does this, the black part of his eyes turn very small, its one of the smallest I've seen. However, he seems totally passive and continues to whimper whenever someone pets it.
(Sometimes, he doesnt bite or he bites gently, sometimes he literally goes insane and bites very hard even though he isn't startled or anything)

Parrots need to chew things. Cords are a prime candidate, but anything thing they can get their beak on is fair game. I will often give mine a full carrot and he will rip off chunks and toss them more than eat them.

Does he preen when whimpering? Mine does, but it's more like a chicken clucking bok bok sound. He does that too when I'm scratching the back of his neck. I give mine a seed mix too, but also a bowl of bird pellets that is his main staple. Also, a bowl of hulled millet. He also gets a morning bowl of chop on top of his cage (a variety of mostly veggies, some fruit, and a bit of brown rice, all finely chopped).

Screaming is a normal reaction to what you describe. These are flock animals and want their companions, especially when threatened, scared or lonely.

Eye peening typically happens when they are upset.

These are complex birds and difficult to handle. I've had mine a year and thought we had progressed beyond biting for several months now, but, coincidental to your posts, he recently taught me that biting is part of the package. While just lounging on my shoulder and out of the blue, several to the neck and one to the cheek over a couple days. I'm trying to sort that out.

ctwo said:

Parrots need to chew things. Cords are a prime candidate, but anything thing they can get their beak on is fair game. I will often give mine a full carrot and he will rip off chunks and toss them more than eat them.

Does he preen when whimpering? Mine does, but it's more like a chicken clucking bok bok sound. He does that too when I'm scratching the back of his neck. I give mine a seed mix too, but also a bowl of bird pellets that is his main staple. Also, a bowl of hulled millet. He also gets a morning bowl of chop on top of his cage (a variety of mostly veggies, some fruit, and a bit of brown rice, all finely chopped).

Screaming is a normal reaction to what you describe. These are flock animals and want their companions, especially when threatened, scared or lonely.

Eye peening typically happens when they are upset.

These are complex birds and difficult to handle. I've had mine a year and thought we had progressed beyond biting for several months now, but, coincidental to your posts, he recently taught me that biting is part of the package. While just lounging on my shoulder and out of the blue, several to the neck and one to the cheek over a couple days. I'm trying to sort that out.

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Thanks for replying,
Mine sometimes does preen when whimpering, but sometimes he goes up on my shoulder and whimpers while just staring at me.

May I also ask, is it normal for parrots to be unable to recognise their owners in the morning? It's morning for me now and my parrot almost ended up flying away just because I went to pick it up and it seemed to be unable to recognise me because he flew away from his position when I came. He also refused to eat on his own when I put one of his favourite foods infront of it, when I hand fed him he just stared at me and gave me that same surprise attack he did at random parts of the day.
Mainly his cage's food is filled with pellets. But he only eats them like less than 5 times a day because he refuses to go back in his cage to even eat the food. So when I said his favourite food, I meant a type of Fruitblend flavour that I've taken a picture of and uploaded.

My IRN gets up with the sun as I leave the window blinds open and doors closed so he is not disturbed if people are up late or early (I'm usually up at 5).

Anyway, he is up and doing his thing at dusk, but is not yet interested in me for a little while, for about an hour. If I try to interact, he'll bite.

I'll usually wait for him to call when he's ready, and the sound/smell of breakfast gets him ready. Of course I've gone into the room plenty of times late or early, but he sleeps in his cage and will only complain if I make too much of a commotion.

ctwo said:

My IRN gets up with the sun as I leave the window blinds open and doors closed so he is not disturbed if people are up late or early (I'm usually up at 5).

Anyway, he is up and doing his thing at dusk, but is not yet interested in me for a little while, for about an hour. If I try to interact, he'll bite.

I'll usually wait for him to call when he's ready, and the sound/smell of breakfast gets him ready. Of course I've gone into the room plenty of times late or early, but he sleeps in his cage and will only complain if I make too much of a commotion.

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Thank you. I'm not sure if you had this experience before where your parrot seems terribly afraid of an item in your room. Not a person, but an item.
So, I bought a fidget spinner when I was younger and I still have it till today, however. Even if it isn't spinning, my parrot seems to have a huge fear for stuff like small toy cars or spinners and even my microphone which he sees everytime he comes into my room. He does not interact with the microphone at all though.
My parrot looked like as if it was constantly being chased by a predator and he constantly flew. How do such fears get triggered and how can I get my parrot to overcome these things?
He can't even get close to the item at this time. The moment he sees the item anywhere within 5 feet from him he will start to run and then fly.

EDIT (It's about 4:07PM for me now): Something else I hope someone could help me with is to list down what are common illnesses in parrots (such as cough, sneezing, fever for humans) and ways I could help with curing these illnesses. My parrot still seems very lethargic but seems to be constantly eating.