strengthening my bond

good morning everyone, hope you all had a great christmas.

i need some advice on how to strenghthen my bond with my 5month old alex "oxy".

i have run out of ideas and finding myself very jealous of the bond he has formed with my partner :31:

oxy will spend time with me of a morning, but as soon as he hears my partner get up, or if my partner has been out and comes home he gets super excited (its so cute). if i pick him up from one of his landing areas that he shouldnt be (the flyscreen for instance) ill take him to my seat with me and if john is in the lounge oxy will scramble up me to the back of my chair then fly over to john. he climbs down the chair and will sit on johns shoulder rubbing his beak on his face and giving him kisses, he wont do that with me unless i have food or john isnt around.

john bought me oxy as a gift to help keep me company and distract me from what is going on atm (long story). i have had oxy for 3months now, and have had him since 11weeks.

i am the one who weaned him, feeds him, bathes him, plays with him, training him, gets him up in the morning and puts him to bed at night.
all john does is sits there and occasionally feeds him bits of what he is eating (i do that too, oxy often sits on the edge of my plate eating my dinner (bird safe of course)), but if john is in a bad mood and oxy is screeching or gets a little nippy on his shoulder he yells at oxy and will grab him and put him in his cage. he has no patience for oxy.
what am i doing wrong that oxy prefers john to me??

another issue apart from my jealousy with this bond is John has to go away for work in a couple weeks and i dont want him to fret.....

any advice would be great, i really want to be my birds human.

so since writing this this morning oxy has spent a bit of time with me this afternoon he sat on my shoulder whilst i did the dishes and hasnt left me since i had lunch an hr ago where he shared the salad from my sandwhich. he the decided he wanted my cordial (he wasn't getting it), i let him l7ck the condensation from the sides whilst i quickly skulled it and then refilled my cup wuth some cold water and squeezed a little mango juice/pulp in it... he liked that and is now quietly sitting on my head oreening my hair and himself.

would still really like some advice on strenghthening our bond.

cheers

i look like crap sorry, having a bad pain day

Try to teach her tricks, maybe it will work.
I also red somewhere that they like when you scratch their beak and it can improve you bond. Good luck

when i do have my usual little cuddle sessions with him (morning and night) he is great, little chatty chirps (so cute) he will let me pat him and rub his beak.
he gives kisses and steps up. im not overly interested in teaching oxy fancy tricks, he is not a circus animal (please no one take offence to that), i do want to and am trying to teach him to lay on his back, lift his wings, lift his feet 1 at a time... these to make check ups easier. also training to use harness and come when called.

i love my little baby and jyst want to be l8ved inreturn. things goin pretty well this morning too, although he on his cage playing atm.

training helps. i found that "preening" your birds helps. in the wild their partners help them do that, so if you do they sorta bond. like if he has any pin feathers on his head, YOU talk care of them. nobody else. for baths, (if he likes them only) you give him the bath. you give him his food/water. he will learn you are the one to give him food. all that helped me with cooper. cooper is around 5 months too, it helps when they are so young as they havent formed a very strong bond yet. hopefully these help you. overall too, just spend more time with him.

About "circus thing". Parrots are very artistic natures and it seems like they love to perform. I teach my AG tricks and she loves it. I also think that it is a good thing for they are intelligent birds and have to learn and be challenged, so learning tricks is a good thing for their development.

im sorry if my "circus" comment offended

after my baby has mastered the "tricks" i feel are important for his well being and health, maybe then we wil work on others.

what i meant by my comment, is unlike some parrot owners who buy specific breeds of parrots cause stereotypically they are good talkers, good at doing tricks etc etc.... and are then left disappointed and stop providing their parrot the attention they need cause their parrot is not doing what it should. i am not one of those.

my partner got me oxy because he knew i have experience with IRN and Alex's and with me at home during the day with my injury i needed something to pour my energy into and since we had met i always wanted bird.

But on the point of training....

my partner is off work atm at home all day, and due to the bond he has formed with my partner..... if oxy knows he is awake all he is interested in is being with him. that kinda makes it hard to train him to do anything.

another reason i need to strengthen my bond with oxy.

since getting him 3 months ago,apart from night when he/I are sleeping, there has only been 2 days that i have left him for more then 5hrs (both to see surgeons).

as has been suggested, and i mentioned in my original post....... i am the only one who takes care of him (since day 1), i do it all.


things have improved a little between us the last day and a half, but i dont know how long that will last

There are several things that could be going on. First, there's what I call the mom and friend effect. You're the mom that makes him do things, put him up, etc. Your partner is the fun friend that is occasionally over and is exciting to the bird. Try and mix up the roles a bit. Have your partner be the one to put the bird in its cage and take away things it shouldn't have. You should be the one taking it out, giving it new toys, etc.

Secondly, I totally went through what you're going through. My irn likes my roommate A the best. My Alex likes roommate B the best. I have yet to have a bird to like me the best. Also, my respective roommates h birds that love them the most. The irn liked me well enough, and we had this awesome bond over the fact that I took her for walks. I was the only one who did.

My Alex would always want to be on roommate B. He got so fed up with this he wouldn't let my bird be on him, ever. After about two weeks of that my bird took the hint and has given up trying to land on him.

In the end, your bird may never pick you as its favorite. It helped me with my irn to look at the things we did have, like walks, bath times, her waking me up in the morning, etc.

thank you fir yoyr reply and understanding khaiqha.

i have had that though myself (the mum v friend).

its funny you mention your room mate not letting him on him, we are trying that here atm. every time ixy goes to john, john brings him back to me.

sofar so good, he has spent most of yesterday arvo and today wuth me. we went outside today to chill out under the mango tree (he was harnessed as he is fully flighted) untill our kitty cat started getting to close and wanted to play with oxy.

i think he has a new favourite perch...... my head, he currently sitting there now nibbling my hair again.

gemini84 said:

im sorry if my "circus" comment offended

after my baby has mastered the "tricks" i feel are important for his well being and health, maybe then we wil work on others.

what i meant by my comment, is unlike some parrot owners who buy specific breeds of parrots cause stereotypically they are good talkers, good at doing tricks etc etc.... and are then left disappointed and stop providing their parrot the attention they need cause their parrot is not doing what it should. i am not one of those.

my partner got me oxy because he knew i have experience with IRN and Alex's and with me at home during the day with my injury i needed something to pour my energy into and since we had met i always wanted bird.

But on the point of training....

my partner is off work atm at home all day, and due to the bond he has formed with my partner..... if oxy knows he is awake all he is interested in is being with him. that kinda makes it hard to train him to do anything.

another reason i need to strengthen my bond with oxy.

since getting him 3 months ago,apart from night when he/I are sleeping, there has only been 2 days that i have left him for more then 5hrs (both to see surgeons).

as has been suggested, and i mentioned in my original post....... i am the only one who takes care of him (since day 1), i do it all.


things have improved a little between us the last day and a half, but i dont know how long that will last

Click to expand...

I can totally understand you. My parrot is bonded to me, but every time she goes to play with my husband I become a little nervous...what if she decides to change her preferences and choose him instead of me :11:.
I like training her also because it's a good one on one time. Otherwise she is busy with her toys and I am doing my homework or so.
I saw a few nice tips you got here. Try to be main caregiver for her maybe it'll work.

Spend as much quality time with your bird, playing and talking, the bonding process will grow from there.
When in the lounge, let the bird sit on your lap, even if you are reading (just watch the book) LoL