Naughty Eckie!

[Jess357]

OK, so I have had my 5yr old female eckie for 2 days now, and already she is a little stinker. I knew I was going to be in for a rough ride when I got her because of her neglectful and abusive past, but she has thrown me a few curveballs I just cant seem to find the answer to, and I was wondering if anyone else had experienced these issues:

1. When im not in the house, she is silent or making normal parrot noises, but as soon as she knows im around (and not on me), she makes these little whimpering noises, CONSTANTLY, its like a high pitched puppy whimper, and she seems to do it every breath. If I take her out, she keeps doing it for a little bit, then stops she goes from that to quiet, or just making little cooing noises. Is this behaviour begging? Im tryng to discourage it by ignoring her when she does it, but its such a pathetic noise L
2. She HAAAATES my man, im trying to get him to feed her. And I get him to sit near me on the couch when I have her on me, ive even plonked her on the arm of the couch and sat away from them. she either freezes up, or bashes her beak on the couch violently while staring at him. she refuses to step up onto him and has nipped him twice. I really don’t want her to only bond to me, are there any tips to get her to slowly interact with him (without biting.. but to be truthful the bites WERE his fault)
3. She will not get out of my mouth. She dives right in there before I have a chance to stop her. I try distracting her with a cinimon quill or toy, but nothing is more interesting than the mouth. Im thinking im just going to have to keep her off my shoulder if she starts doing it, i know mouths are bad for them (as well as her for mine!) she just goes hyperchicken and it turns into a game.
4. And lastly, she doesn’t know what to do with toys!! I successfully managed to get her to play with 2 hanging destructibles (‘omg this is SUPER EXCITING!!’ ‘Really? Oh wow, it is too!!’ *rip rip rip*) but she has no clue what to do with foot toys, I get the impression she has never seen a toy till now, and I work full time, so I need her to be able to entertain herself during the day (I have the radio on for her tho). Any idea how I can get her to play with foot toys? Im sure she will take easily to anything ‘beaky’ if I show enough interest in it, but for foot things, she just picks them up with her mouth.. lol
Any help will be muchly appreciated

 

[Caesar]

Ok Lets break this down,
My aviation vet says that the moaning and whimpering is just Ekkie talk so like a canary sings very similar to that.
Ok that's the easy one Problem 2 Its going to take time for your bird to warm to your partner and Female Ekkies have a bad rap of being extremely uncontrollable (remembering she is 5 as well) and extremely jealous of other house hold members. A friend of mine had a female and she hated his wife and took a chunk out of her cheek witch resulted in a trip to the hospital.
There r a number of things you can try.(remember these traits 5 years worth and was her previous owner female?)
:try leaving the room where she is set up so she can just see your partner(not you guys together)
:Have him give her treats AT HER CAGE she will feel more secure there.
try these couple of steps and let me know how you go. But Just remember the road ahead will be a long on and require a hell of a lot of patience.
Its the risk you take with getting a older bird as you don't know what she has been through . Maybe she has been mistreated by men .Or anything really
I really want to help so get back to me with some more information no mater how small.
And good luck

 

[Jess357]

Oh im so glad the whiny noise is just normal eckie talk. Knowing that makes it sort of cute!!

She has come from a very bad environment. Apparently her "breeder" a male, used to yell at her and flick her beak when she was naughty, she was sold to the most awful pet shop you can imagine, where she was fed on cheap pellet and seed and not washed for 3 months. (Plus she is going through a mojo moult which can't help) We knew that she would have problems with my partner, but after she willingly stepped up to him the first day I thought it wouldn't be so bad. Now she will put herself between us on the couch, puff up a little and stare at him. (Its actally hilarious, but we need to nip it in the bud before it's an issue)

We are lucky that she is happy with me tho, this could have been a lot tougher!

 

[MikeyTN]

When we first got our pair of ekkies, Gracie was a bit nippy towards me. She will bite me if I touch her food dish. She's VERY protective of her cage but that calmed down over time. She was nicer towards my partner. She finally stopped being nippy or acting crazy towards me after about a year. JoJo on the other hand needed a lot of training. Both are sweet and wonderful babies now days but we've had them for about 4 years now?