Any ideas for quelling Miss Rosetta?

[ChristaNL]

Okay- this may be a *extremely* dumb question and idea, but I would like to get it out there...

Rosette is obviously trying her crazy best to bond with you (trying tissuetransplants is taking it waaaaay to far of course ), is not able to to release all that pent up energy because she keeps hurting people...
and you are spending all your time (and donating blood to the cause of) trying to calm her down.

It is like trying a dog to learn to "sit" while all he wants to do is run outside and pee.
With a dog you would let him go out and pee, take a nice long walk en only then try the "sit".
I know birds and dogs are very different- it was just an simple example to say: if the mindset is not there ... you will not have many results no matter how correct you are doing things.

So the maybe dumb question: what can you to do to let her drain that energy safely?
(I would just let her tear around the room for a bit, flying is wonderfull for birds. Remember when she escaped and had some run-around-time? She came back nice and calm.)


I have this feeling you are both totally into each other, just not on the same page when it comes to "what do we do together".
She looks at you for pointers - but cannot follow them because there is too much energy there to be contained in "play nice".

Maybe a really, really bad idea (since she is a too and likely to go overboard) but why not let her have a bit of "together crazy time" to blow of steam.

Crank up the stereo and jump about like mad (yes I mean both of you!)- choose a "go crazy-song" (she can do it in the cage first in case of overload if you cannot trust her yet) so there is an obvious (external) limit to the go-crazy-time.

You are doing great in the safety, patience and everything else, I just missed the 'lets get energetic together' bit.
You are like a loving granny, trying to read the unruly grandchild a story and have some wonderfull one-on-one time, while all the toddler wants is to tear around the playground, possibly hit other kids with a shovel and maybe eat sand.


(Not saying you are old! I have the same issues with loose skin being waaaay to easy to get hold of/on by birdybeaks- so I get that part and totally sympathise.)


oh- and there is no shame in wearing gloves to protect your skin!
I know it is somewhat controversial, but if you getting 'holey' is what keeps you from letting her out .. then gloves are better for the both of you.
She gets her freedom- you keep your skin.

 

[Betrisher]

I hear you, but I'm in Newcastle. We're only a regional centre and there's *so* much we don't have that only exists in Sydney. AFAIK, there's only one dog behaviourist in the lower Hunter. I'm certainly on the look-out for anyone who can help!

 

[Betrisher]

Hey ChristaNL! For some odd reason, the 'Thank You' button isn't there. So THANK YOU for your response.

Yes, I do try to let her get rid of her energy. When she's flying, I try to cash in on that and encourage her to fly to me from different places. Since she *loves* being on me, that's not a problem. She gets a decent distance (about four metres) by flying through three rooms, around and back. When she does fly, she puffs and winds up panting with her mouth open and tongue hanging out. She makes a rather scary noise when she's panting - sort of like 'ugh-ugh-ugh'.

I've found that the flying seems to jack up her hyperactivity rather significantly. After a flying session, she really goes to town, running up my legs, up my arms, onto my shoulders. She's not allowed to be on my shoulders and one thing that is good is that if I present my fist to her she'll step up usually on the first request. BUT she won't stay on my hand for longer than five seconds. Unless, of course, I shamelessly shovel sunflower seeds into her. Which I do from time to time, speaking quietly and happily to her all the while.

Today, I watched a video on YouTube about hormonal behaviour and I have to say, nearly everything Rosetta does is in some way related to sexual/nesting behaviours. She wants to be cuddled all the time and seems to want to bury her head in my hands. She wants to be held on her back and will raise her wings as if to say 'Rub my sides'. She screams when I leave the room and generally shuts up when I come back. She *loves* boxes and inserts herself inside them, 'beaking' all over the surfaces and sort of rubbing herself along the sides. She spends a lot of time shredding her cage papers and really *really* loves her roll of toilet paper, which she shreds while lying on her back and holding it, just like an otter holds a fish.

Today, she began making the most awful noise. It was sort of a low-pitched scream/gurgle that I'd almost swear I've heard coming from the nests of wild birds in tree hollows! It sounded rather like the zombies off 'The Walking Dead', but it wasn't a distress call. While she was making the sound, she was squatting on her feeder and rubbing her back under her perch in a very (what's the word?) suggestive sort of way. I think the poor bird is overcome with nestiness and is probably thinking of me as a mate rather than as a flock member.

The YouTube person said that distracting those behaviours is the best thing and, wouldn't you know it, I stumbled on that by trying out target training! It worked for the ten minutes she gave me! So I think I need to make a t-perch for Rosetta so she has a place where she can be put that is *not* her cage. I have a headful of things I'd like to try.

About the 'getting energetic together' thing - I've been trying *not* to do that too often since 'setta is so darned energetic all on her own. But I do take your point. Tomorrow, I'll see what happens if I really encourage her to fly and fly till she's sick of it. Does that sound like a plan? Then, maybe, she'd be happy enough to sit on her cage for a while and use the toys she has up there?

Again, THANK YOU to everyone who's chiming in here. My hope is that our combined wisdom will help this birdie (and me) to form a proper relationship.

 

[noodles123]

You might try layering clothes-- 1 hour is going to be rough for an active bird. I know you know---I also wonder what would happen if you let her out but then covered yourself somehow.
My concern is that at 1 hour, you are seeing much of the pent-up crazy. Definitely look into the hormonal thing and see if you can't protect yourself in someway while leaving her out longer.

 

[Laurasea]

I think what we all are saying, is you have her in a very small cage ( your words) untill you can get her into a bigger one. In top of that you have admitted to leaving her in the cage for days ( while wounds heal) and on good days you are getting her out for an hour. You are unintentionally doing everything that creates a screaming biting bird, that is starved for affection, then looses her mind in the hour she is out. Making any progress or headway has to begin with a very large cage/Avairy, or hours and hours of out of the cage time. Has she started tearing out her feathers or mutilation yet? Because that's where this is going. You are acting like there is a magic tip that can help you, without meeting those needs first. There isn't. This giving her days to cool off is never going to work. Noodles talked before of shaping the behavior 15 seconds at a time in her bird. If you can't take the bites, then get her out she bites put her back, take her right back out and do it over and over again, with only seconds or miniuts of shunning then right back out working with her. This is from a person on the outside looking in. I'm not there hearing the noise, I'm not there getting bit bloody. But I am listening to you do the same thing you did with your love bird. Your love bird laid eggs mutilated herself and her cage mate untill she died. You had advice years ago in your love bird thread telling you to separate them to different rooms. You put a cage divider in , which only put her frustrations through the roof. Now you have Rossetta who is headed the same way, you are not meeting her minium needs. You need to come up with some way to fix that. I would love to have a horse again, but I can't put a horse in my small backyard , and never take it riding, and have it work. I want what's best for both of you I really really do.

 

[sunshine.within]

I think what we all are saying, is you have her in a very small cage ( your words) untill you can get her into a bigger one. In top of that you have admitted to leaving her in the cage for days ( while wounds heal) and on good days you are getting her out for an hour. You are unintentionally doing everything that creates a screaming biting bird, that is starved for affection, then looses her mind in the hour she is out. Making any progress or headway has to begin with a very large cage/Avairy, or hours and hours of out of the cage time. Has she started tearing out her feathers or mutilation yet? Because that's where this is going. You are acting like there is a magic tip that can help you, without meeting those needs first. There isn't. This giving her days to cool off is never going to work. Noodles talked before of shaping the behavior 15 seconds at a time in her bird. If you can't take the bites, then get her out she bites put her back, take her right back out and do it over and over again, with only seconds or miniuts of shunning then right back out working with her. This is from a person on the outside looking in. I'm not there hearing the noise, I'm not there getting bit bloody. But I am listening to you do the same thing you did with your love bird. Your love bird laid eggs mutilated herself and her cage mate untill she died. You had advice years ago in your love bird thread telling you to separate them to different rooms. You put a cage divider in , which only put her frustrations through the roof. Now you have Rossetta who is headed the same way, you are not meeting her minium needs. You need to come up with some way to fix that. I would love to have a horse again, but I can't put a horse in my small backyard , and never take it riding, and have it work. I want what's best for both of you I really really do.

Your lovebird mutilated herself until she died??? I must have missed that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Laurasea]

From the post Update on Rossetta
Thanks! It means a lot to have good moral support.

The other loss our family has suffered this year was my son's little Petrucchia, a peachfaced lovebird. I bought her as a 'hand-raised and tame' pet for Matt's birthday, since he wanted a friend for his Pineapple.

The vendor delivered the bird in an old cage, which he left with her. I should've known when he shot through after accepting the fifty dollars he was asking. As soon as Matt opened the cage, Petrucchia went for his face, doing everything in her power to bite him. He had her for three years and in that time she never lost the smallest bit of her enthusiasm for biting and fighting. She would fly across the room to land on your nose and start chomping!

Poor Matt tried everything (he is an extremely gentle and patient soul) and always blamed himself for the poor little bird's damaged personality. He would spend hours with his hand near the cage, crooning to Petrucchia and trying to calm her down, but it never worked. When she began nesting by tearing her cage papers in strips and making a nest under her food dish, things escalated to a ridiculous level. She would fly at the cage bars and bite those if anyone came near, so we all began staying away just so that poor Pineapple could have some peace.

Finally, Petrucchia started attacking Pineapple and barbered all the feathers off his (or her?) head and back. Matt divided their cage, but Petrucchia did it through the bars anyway. And then she began laying eggs, even without Pineapple present to - ah - contribute. We would leave the eggs for as long as we could because if we removed them, she would just lay more. She sat on them, but none ever hatched, obviously.

Finally, on Tuesday just past, she laid an egg in the morning and then died at some point in the afternoon. I could feel another egg inside, so I guess that's what caused her death. The poor little thing had an awful life, but dear Matt always said 'Well, at least I'm glad we've got her because anyone else wouldn't be nice to her if she bit them the way she does us'.

So now, Pineapple is alone again. I have a funny feeling that Pineapple is a girl as well, but s/he has never laid an egg. I feel a bit odd about getting another friend for Pineapple, as it would be *awful* if the same thing happened!

The thing is, what's a person supposed to do if he finds himself with an unmanageable bird? The only thing you can do is to sell it on, but it's truly dreadful to sell the bird as a 'tame', 'hand-raised' 'affectionate' 'family pet' when it's clearly not. Our family has agreed that selling on the problem is not the answer, so we won't do that. We have high hopes for Rosetta!
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Re: Update on Miss Rosetta Stone
She probably was always hard to manage, BUT when separated from the people they know, tame birds often change significantly during that adjustment period...So they may not have been entirely dishonest...hard to judge based on current behavior alone. Cockatoos get re-homed a lot because behaviors like this, so while they can probably be curtailed, they are partly due to the bird's natural tendency to be a handful in a domestic environment. That having been said, they likely got rid of her because she was overwhelming (even if her behavior was not as extreme due to familiarity).



I am glad you are committed to her! Sounds like you are doing a great job!
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[EllenD]

Can you remind me again how old Rosetta is, I know you just brought her home, but not as a baby, so I know she's an adult bird that has already gone through puberty, I think...

***I would take anything that her previous owner told you with a grain of salt, especially regarding why they re-homed her in the first place, and what her behavior was like at their home, because even though she's still settling-in at your place and with the new people, there is absolutely NO WAY she was just a sweet, calm, well-behaved little Cocky at their house either...Even the nicest, best people in the world will stretch the truth or outright lie in order to remedy a situation.

****Have you had her to your Certified Avian Vet for a full wellness-exam yet? If not, I highly recommend that you have full blood-work as well as a regular x-ray done on her, not only to get all of her "baseline" values for future comparison and so you can check her kidney and liver function, check her nutritional levels, etc., but also so you can get the full picture of what her reproductive system is like, if it's functioning properly, or if it's out of control...I told you my one experience with the same sub-species of Corella in the Rescue I work in, he was not at all aggressive or violent with anyone (no "flying at faces" or biting/nipping at all, I have to give him that), but boy did he have energy that never ended...And we have a huge indoor flying room that he could be in pretty much all day long, every day as long as we didn't have another large bird at the same time, and he NEVER wore out or got tired at all. But he was also a male Corella, and there is a HUGE difference in the way that hormones and a possibly malfunctioning reproductive system effect a male bird and a female bird.

I've seen birds who wanted to do nothing all day long but find dark places to hide their heads, masturbate, continually pick-up fabric/towels with their beaks, drop them, then pick them up again, etc., and when I take an x-ray of them their skeletons are quite literally glowing...which is a sure indication that their hormones are completely out of control...So yes, there is an "energy" component to this and she needs tons of exercise, but there is also a big hormonal component...

***You may want to sit down with your CAV and discuss the possibility of giving her a hormonal implant that will shut-down her reproductive tract...I'd say that this will be a must if she starts masturbating and/or nesting/laying eggs, because she is likely to be a chronic layer if it starts...hopefully not, but an implant shutting-down her reproductive tract would very likely show improvement in as short as a week or two...And they are safe and non-invasive, it's given just like getting a shot, that's it. Right under the skin and they're good for 6 months to a year, depending on which one you choose...And as Christa already mentioned, there are a lot of medications you can also try to calm her down, both anti-anxiety meds and anti-psychotic meds/SSRI's...But I'd not try that until you've had her for a good 6 months to a year to see if she gets better or worse...

****Another question...I know you are giving her as much physical exercise as you possibly can each day, which is extremely important...But how much mental exercise does she get each day? She's an extremely intelligent bird, and she needs a "job" to do all the time or she will become bored and restless almost instantly, unless she's sleeping, lol. So I'm quite certain that she's got a fantastic home with you that includes lots of out-of-cage-time, lots of physical exercise, and lots of toys to play with, but how many "Foraging Activities" does she have to do each day? Does she have to work to find her food/treats? I think that instead of concentrating on her physical exercise/flying because you're seemingly trying to expend all of that "energy" she has, maybe you need to start focusing more on giving her jobs to do for her brain to get lots of exercise and mental stimulation.

Psychological boredom can definitely express itself with large, constant outputs of physical energy and even hormonal activity (when she gets bored she may express that boredom by becoming hormonal)...So making her activities to do each day that will make her think and work her brain and her body and that make her feel like she has a "purpose" and a job that she has to do each day might expend all of that built-up energy in a non-physical way, and may also temper the hormones and the aggression...So building her "Foraging Boxes" filled to the brim with tons of crumpled-up paper and treats such as nuts in the shell hidden throughout the box AND inside of the pieces of crumpled-up paper will get her brain AND her beak working for hours at a time, and you can put them inside of her cage if it's large enough, on the bottom grate (I use either cardboard boxes or even plastic wastebaskets)...Giving her an old, thick paperback book that she has to work at to rip apart is another wonderful activity that they will work at for hours and hours once they figure out what they are suppose to do with it. A few years ago a Blue and Gold Macaw was surrendered to the Rescue by a fantastic, loving couple who took the best care of this bird possible, but unfortunately they both lost their jobs when the local Corning factory in State College closed and they were both laid-off at the same time...They loved this Macaw, as it was their only child, but they had their house foreclosed on and they couldn't find an apartment they could afford that would allow pets at all, so they had to surrender him. When I went in to the Rescue the next day to do his medical intake the first thing I noticed immediately was this Macaw was 9 years old, in-beautiful feather and perfect health, on the best diet possible, had a folder full of all of his CAV records with yearly wellness-exams, and was just so well cared for, happy, and healthy...and inside of his cage was this long, metal skewer, like the kind you would use for grilling a "kabob". It was attached to the side of the cage with a chain and it was poked-through a huge paperback book that this Macaw literally went to work on every morning after his breakfast. He would work all morning on his books, first tearing the front cover off of it, and then shredding each page out until it was completely gone at the binding, then he'd go to the next page...And they had left written "directions" for whomever adopted him, and they described how he always had a large, paperback book inside his cage to "work on" in the mornings after his breakfast, and then in the afternoons he got a "Foraging Box" stuffed with crumpled paper and other little things that he had to dig through and tear-apart to get to all of the almonds in the shells they would hide throughout the boxes, and he'd work on his Foraging Boxes all afternoon, until around 4-5 p.m. when they would both be home and he would be out with them the rest of the night, they'd eat dinner together, at the table, and then snuggle/watch TV on the couch until bedtime...This Macaw would be so tired and totally mentally stimulated by 4-5 p.m. that he'd be ready for quiet snuggle-time each evening after dinner...Since then I started doing both of these activities with my guys, starting with the paperback book on a skewer for my Budgies in their indoor aviary (I usually buy those cheap paperback romance novels that are thick for the Budgies, they're the perfect size for them, and they spend hours shredding them)...And my Senegal and my Quaker both absolutely love hunting through their foraging boxes...He also had a lot of all-wooden puzzles, the kind that you have to put blocks into the correctly-shaped holes, and my Senegal will sit down with me on the floor after dinner and we'll do puzzles for an hour or so (I know you're in Australia so I can't tell you to run to the Dollar Tree or Walmart and buy a bunch of them cheaply, but you can find wooden puzzles in any store that has a "Toddler-age" toy section/aisle)...

I think that Rosetta has only been with you for a month and is still not settled-in and not in-tune with her new schedules/routines and that it will take time for her to feel at-home, and for you to earn her trust fully, that's true with any parrot. However, I think that she's also a Cockatoo with a huge brain and beak that need to be put to work each day, otherwise all of that boredom is coming out in undesirable ways, from hormonal behavior to aggression to just craziness. I think she needs a "job" or "jobs" to do each day that are going to make her use her brain and her body. I think if you can exercise her brain as well as her body then a lot of this crazy behavior as well as the hormonal behavior will be curbed.

 

[EllenD]

One thing that I forgot to point-out or say is that sometimes we all forget how "instinctual" parrots actually are; even when they're bred in captivity and hand-raised most parrots still inherit and keep most of their "wild" and "innate" instincts and behaviors...So if you think about what wild Cockatoos in Australia do all day long, they typically are flying in their flocks from place to place to place foraging for food...So they have to "work" for their food each and every day, and that's their "job" every day, which keeps their brains working as well as their bodies. In captivity we simply plop down all the food our birds can eat right in-front of them in bowls, so they don't have to work or "forage" for anything...but they still want to forage and hunt for their food,
even if they don't have to.

You won't see many Cockatoos in the wild working on "Foraging Boxes" or playing with wooden puzzles, but the foraging/hunting that they do all day long to find their food are exactly the same activities and the same use of their brains, their beaks, and their bodies. And if you think about it, you don't see too many "crazy" Cockatoos in the wild either, with so much pent-up energy or boredom that they're acting psychotic or neurotic...Funny, you don't see many wild parrots anywhere that are "neurotic"...but you see tons and tons of them in captivity...So it's all about finding ways to replicate those natural foraging instincts that keep their brains having to constantly work as well as their bodies...

 

[Betrisher]

I think what we all are saying, is you have her in a very small cage ( your words) untill you can get her into a bigger one. In top of that you have admitted to leaving her in the cage for days ( while wounds heal) and on good days you are getting her out for an hour. You are unintentionally doing everything that creates a screaming biting bird, that is starved for affection, then looses her mind in the hour she is out.

Yes. You're absolutely right! That's why I'm asking for ideas from our helpful members. The thing is, unless you're in this position, you can't appreciate how all your powers of perception desert you. I had a plan when I bought Rosetta. She was supposed to be permanently out-of-cage and eventually given an indoor playgym, such as I've used before. She was supposed to be with me for all of her waking hours. (Well, she is - her cage is only six feet away, but you know what I mean). I was supposed to be training her in the same way I trained my Beaks and eventually teaching her tricks.

It was a bit of a shock when she turned out to be not quite the bird I thought I'd bought. Suddenly, all my preparations were inadequate. I admit, I allowed myself to be sucked in by the previous owner's need to 'have her go to a better home where someone can give her the attention she deserves'. Looking back, I can list off a million questions I didn't ask. When they arrived with 'setta in her cage, she was screeching and flapping and they assured me it was 'only because of the car trip'.

Making any progress or headway has to begin with a very large cage/Avairy, or hours and hours of out of the cage time. Has she started tearing out her feathers or mutilation yet? Because that's where this is going. You are acting like there is a magic tip that can help you, without meeting those needs first. There isn't.

Thanks for that. I *know* perfectly well where this is headed. I'm out of my depth and asking for help. Because of the help I've been given, I've worked out that 'setta is highly hormonal and also responds to target training. Those are two things I can work on. I have a bigger cage on order and an aviary in pieces in the back yard. I'm doing my best, OK.

This giving her days to cool off is never going to work. Noodles talked before of shaping the behavior 15 seconds at a time in her bird. If you can't take the bites, then get her out she bites put her back, take her right back out and do it over and over again, with only seconds or miniuts of shunning then right back out working with her. This is from a person on the outside looking in. I'm not there hearing the noise, I'm not there getting bit bloody.

Not 'days' but 'a day'. That was last week. Since things have improved a bit, she's staying out longer. Please note, I have never ever blamed the bird in all this. I know *I* need to step up and fill her needs, but as I said her circumstances turned out to be not what I thought they were. Do you think I'd have brought home a cockatoo that rushes about mindlessly and flies into peoples' faces with her claws out? I will absolutely try what you have suggested. I will try everything I can think of and I'm not put off by the scratches and noise.

But I am listening to you do the same thing you did with your love bird. Your love bird laid eggs mutilated herself and her cage mate untill she died.

She mutilated her cage mate, not herself. It wasn't permanent, but would stop for a few weeks and then start up again.

You had advice years ago in your love bird thread telling you to separate them to different rooms. You put a cage divider in , which only put her frustrations through the roof.

Our vet recommended putting in a cage divider, so we did. It didn't work. Separating the birds to different rooms was never an option, since we live in a very small house and simply don't have the space to do that. The original owner wouldn't have Petrucchia back again and we made shift the best way we could.

Now you have Rossetta who is headed the same way, you are not meeting her minium needs. You need to come up with some way to fix that. I would love to have a horse again, but I can't put a horse in my small backyard , and never take it riding, and have it work. I want what's best for both of you I really really do.

No: you're absolutely correct! I am *not* meeting Rosetta's minimum needs! This is why I'm asking for advice. All I've been able to glean from your post is that I should allow her outside of her cage for extended periods no matter what she does. In an ideal world, I would, but three other people live in this house and she bites them!

Right now, I feel totally hopeless. I had thought I was making some progress with Rosetta and have been carefully noting down the *very* useful suggestions of the kind members who made them and honestly giving it my best shot. Now, you tell me I've failed her completely and virtually accuse me of murdering Petrucchia!

I don't know what you want from me, but all I can say is 'thanks for the vote of confidence'. BTW, in searching out my history on the forums, you failed to mention my successful rescue of a severely neglected galah and my ongoing excellent relationship with my two Alexandrines.

Geez. I didn't need this today. If you set out to cut me down a peg or two, it worked.

 

[noodles123]

I don't think that the comment on the other bird was meant to come off that way.
I get how you are feeling (at least in some ways)---you have read my cockatoo posts.

Time is key here, so don't beat yourself to death yet.
In terms of forraging stuff, I agree with EllenD, minus the boxes (go for bird-safe baskets, buckets, or these plastic stuffable balls) -I still think hormones are mixed in.

Do your very very best to layer up and get her out of the cage. If she flies at you, consider ducking and saying a catch-phrase. Since my confidence with my bird is now (almost foolishly) through the roof, she acts better! We have trust and because I know she isn't that scared, if she snips at me, I get super pre-school teachery and do the opposite of her bluff (again...only because I know her well enough to KNOW that it is a bluff...) - Early on, you will want to build trust, but once you think you are trusted, you will have to start preventing these attacks somehow. Never hurt your bird or yell at it..OBVIOUSLY (you know this already)... Think about in old movies, when someone who is the strong, archetypal role gets slapped a thousand times, and while they may not take it, they don't react etc...I have a very specific image in my head so I will try to find the clip because I am failing to describe it clearly...basically, you want to be like a rock, impermeable without being foolish...

I also know I harp on ABA a lot, but a member just posted about a behavioral consult that mimics what I have been saying about people learning behavioral functions etc. I know you may not know the purpose of Rosetta's but ABC charts are great for figuring them out.

I will try to post the results of the consultation.
Don't lose hope.
Thank you for trying and know that FEELING like you are at your breaking point with some cockatoos is NORMAL (at least this early on).
Bottom line is, you have to get her out more, but I get why you are nervous to do so!

 

[chris-md]

I’m going to echo noodles here. You might very well benefit from having a parrot trainer come work with Rosetta.

I really reservations about the hormonal suggestion, as a change in environment usually abates hormones. Though it is spring down under, and if she’s just old enough to be going through puberty, maybe it’s possible. If it is, you can get a deslorelin implant to help cut the hormones dramatically and lasts up to a year.

 

[LaManuka]

Hormonal implants can be great! I had to have one done on a female cockatiel (sorry, quarrion, weero...depending which State you’re in ), for completely different reasons but it dialled her problematic hormonal behaviour way down and our particular problem was solved. It is not without risk given going under anaesthetic (which always gives me the heebie-jeebies!) and not a guaranteed fix but it’s worth thinking about. It may just calm her enough for you to be able to hold her attention for more than five minutes!

 

[ChristaNL]

The CAVs here are a bit more conservative with the hormones esp. long term.
(I am one of those women who just cannot handle "the pill" -> makes me superdepressed, so I would not want a bird to experience that)
They are okay with short-term if it helps with behaviourissues, but....

it IS a LAST resort:
first you take the obvious and more accessable routes:
change the environment (larger or smaller cage, more livey / more quiet spot, not enough toys/ too many toys)
change the food: too rich? Lacking in minerals? allergies? not enough greens? not enoug variation? too easy to get?
change the interaction: too much? not enough? is it the right kind?


this bird is housed too small with not enough out-of-cage-time, that is not fixable with an implant--- a larger cage will not be like a nest (so less hormonal stimulation), but more like a place to fly around in and exist, getting rid of all that energy a couple of hours a day would be so much better, make her work for her food instead of being bored an nibble away -> distraction from breeding-ideas.


Go the obvious route first, hormones if you have no other way to go.
No pill in the world can compensate for all the wrongs around the bird.