Mist137
New member
Hello, I'm quite new to the forum but I'm in need of some advice after what happen recently between me and my 2 Quaker parrots.
I got 2 Quaker parrots from a small breeder about a month ago, one is male and the other is female. Both as also under 1 year old (was told they were 6 months old when I got them) and rarely got any handling so they weren't extremely confident around people and had little or no behavioral training. I'm just having major behavior and trust issues, mainly with the male.
The male Quaker seems to have "squawking fits" from about 1pm to around 7pm that are almost non stop, I knew that having a parrot came with the noise, but it does get annoying 5 hours into it each day. I though it was because he was bored or wanting attention so tried to interact and get him to learn some tricks (like stepping up and down off my finger) but he would run away or jump on the back side of the cage and start screaming when I opened the cage. I didn't want to stress him out, so I closed it and just sat by the cage talking to them. This also didn't help and he continued to be scared so I left the room for him to calm down. I even bought new toys and foraging toys to entertain him if he didn't want to interact with me, but he hardly touches them. I've also been ignoring him when he screams, but I feel it's unfair on the female since she's almost always quiet. Should I get another cage for him since the both live together in a large cage? Or do you have a better way of trying to deal with this behavior?
I've been trying to train him almost everyday, most progress I made was him taking food from my hand. But after he escaped from his cage (was handling the female so the cage door was open) he's got worse. I basically had to grab him and place him back in as he had flown into the room where the boiler and hot water pipes were (I mistakenly left the door open ajar to let some cool air from the hall in) and I didn't want him to get hurt by flying into them.
I try and let them out almost everyday, so when I went to let them out the next day he just got worse. He just sat and squawked loudly on top of the cage for a good 2 hours and something just snapped and I shouted at him for the first time. I'm in the wrong, I should never have shouted at him in the first place and I feel like a terrible owner for acting like that.
This unfortunately made my female who use to be really confident stepping up start biting my finger more before stepping up or even ignoring me. I think she's scared of me too now.
I just need some advice on how to rebuild our trust and how, if anything, to make the male shout less? And is it normal for parrots not to want handling even if they have been in their new home for a month (asking since I see owners with new parrots who seem perfectly fine with stepping up and been handled)?
I got 2 Quaker parrots from a small breeder about a month ago, one is male and the other is female. Both as also under 1 year old (was told they were 6 months old when I got them) and rarely got any handling so they weren't extremely confident around people and had little or no behavioral training. I'm just having major behavior and trust issues, mainly with the male.
The male Quaker seems to have "squawking fits" from about 1pm to around 7pm that are almost non stop, I knew that having a parrot came with the noise, but it does get annoying 5 hours into it each day. I though it was because he was bored or wanting attention so tried to interact and get him to learn some tricks (like stepping up and down off my finger) but he would run away or jump on the back side of the cage and start screaming when I opened the cage. I didn't want to stress him out, so I closed it and just sat by the cage talking to them. This also didn't help and he continued to be scared so I left the room for him to calm down. I even bought new toys and foraging toys to entertain him if he didn't want to interact with me, but he hardly touches them. I've also been ignoring him when he screams, but I feel it's unfair on the female since she's almost always quiet. Should I get another cage for him since the both live together in a large cage? Or do you have a better way of trying to deal with this behavior?
I've been trying to train him almost everyday, most progress I made was him taking food from my hand. But after he escaped from his cage (was handling the female so the cage door was open) he's got worse. I basically had to grab him and place him back in as he had flown into the room where the boiler and hot water pipes were (I mistakenly left the door open ajar to let some cool air from the hall in) and I didn't want him to get hurt by flying into them.
I try and let them out almost everyday, so when I went to let them out the next day he just got worse. He just sat and squawked loudly on top of the cage for a good 2 hours and something just snapped and I shouted at him for the first time. I'm in the wrong, I should never have shouted at him in the first place and I feel like a terrible owner for acting like that.
This unfortunately made my female who use to be really confident stepping up start biting my finger more before stepping up or even ignoring me. I think she's scared of me too now.
I just need some advice on how to rebuild our trust and how, if anything, to make the male shout less? And is it normal for parrots not to want handling even if they have been in their new home for a month (asking since I see owners with new parrots who seem perfectly fine with stepping up and been handled)?
