jaciesaur
New member
A year ago, I brought in an Alexandrine parakeet. I went to the place where the "breeders" were keeping her, and my heart just BROKE. She was a year old already, and they were still housing her in the same cage as her mom and dad, and the mom was nesting. The poor thing kept trying to go into the nesting box, where she felt safe, and the mom would bite and lunge at her, causing a really stressful environment.
On top of that, in the cage, there were NO toys, only a SINGLE concrete perch-- for three full grown Alex's!
There was NO person-bird interaction aside from some chatting occassionally through the bars, so the birds were not hand tame.
I immediately took the babe home with me, and the other two have since been rehomed as well... but all of my previous experience with birds was with birds that were already hand-tame, so this has been a learning curve for me.
Because of her stressful environment, Mozzarella "Mozzie" came to me with stress bars, irritated feet, and a high white blood cell count.
Since then, the irritated feet have been handled, the white blood count has gone back to normal, and she has moulted a few of her long feathers out and regrown them, and I have seen no evidence of stress bars.
We are, however, slooowly working on hand-taming. She is a VERY anxious bird, and very much cagebound. My husband and I have been able to get her trained to take treats and food from our hands, and she loves to chat and interact with us through the bars, but she is very much defensive of her territory when in her cage, and will often bite or lunge at us if we try to do more than "gentle beak" (we say 'gentle beak' and gently stroke the top of her beak). She will step up onto a dowel, but NOT onto hands.
Because of this, in the past when we have travelled, we have had to use a towel to catch her and get her into her travel cage... which, sadly, has made her very anxious about towelling. This makes trimming her nails, which are VERY sharp, almost impossible to do at home.
In the past week, though, we've made a huge breakthrough! I got her to step up onto the dowel, and gently removed her from her cage. In previous months, she has made accidental escapes and, because she had never been able to practice flight, has done a lot of crashing into walls. It breaks my heart and scares the poop outta me! Recently, though, she has learned that Walls Can't Be Flown Through, and Feet Are Used For Landing, so she has been crashing MUCH less, and gaining control of her movements. I'm so proud!
She DOES, however, breathe very fast through an open mouth, like panting, when she is outside of her cage. I can only assume this is because of anxiety?
She does her best to IMMEDIATELY fly back to her cage, though the concept of the door does not exist to her, so she just lands on the top or side of it.
When outside of the cage, I can get her to step up onto my hands without any biting or lunging (only recently, though), and she still does her best to climb onto my head, find the location of her cage, and take off for it.
ANYWAY, all of this is to say:
Any tips from fellow owners? Tips on beak and nail conditioning would be fantastic... her beak is a bit flaky (though she does a good job of rubbing it on items in her cage and preening on her own), and her nails are very sharp.
Tips on her anxiety and breaking this cagebound habit?
On top of that, in the cage, there were NO toys, only a SINGLE concrete perch-- for three full grown Alex's!
There was NO person-bird interaction aside from some chatting occassionally through the bars, so the birds were not hand tame.
I immediately took the babe home with me, and the other two have since been rehomed as well... but all of my previous experience with birds was with birds that were already hand-tame, so this has been a learning curve for me.
Because of her stressful environment, Mozzarella "Mozzie" came to me with stress bars, irritated feet, and a high white blood cell count.
Since then, the irritated feet have been handled, the white blood count has gone back to normal, and she has moulted a few of her long feathers out and regrown them, and I have seen no evidence of stress bars.
We are, however, slooowly working on hand-taming. She is a VERY anxious bird, and very much cagebound. My husband and I have been able to get her trained to take treats and food from our hands, and she loves to chat and interact with us through the bars, but she is very much defensive of her territory when in her cage, and will often bite or lunge at us if we try to do more than "gentle beak" (we say 'gentle beak' and gently stroke the top of her beak). She will step up onto a dowel, but NOT onto hands.
Because of this, in the past when we have travelled, we have had to use a towel to catch her and get her into her travel cage... which, sadly, has made her very anxious about towelling. This makes trimming her nails, which are VERY sharp, almost impossible to do at home.
In the past week, though, we've made a huge breakthrough! I got her to step up onto the dowel, and gently removed her from her cage. In previous months, she has made accidental escapes and, because she had never been able to practice flight, has done a lot of crashing into walls. It breaks my heart and scares the poop outta me! Recently, though, she has learned that Walls Can't Be Flown Through, and Feet Are Used For Landing, so she has been crashing MUCH less, and gaining control of her movements. I'm so proud!
She DOES, however, breathe very fast through an open mouth, like panting, when she is outside of her cage. I can only assume this is because of anxiety?
She does her best to IMMEDIATELY fly back to her cage, though the concept of the door does not exist to her, so she just lands on the top or side of it.
When outside of the cage, I can get her to step up onto my hands without any biting or lunging (only recently, though), and she still does her best to climb onto my head, find the location of her cage, and take off for it.
ANYWAY, all of this is to say:
Any tips from fellow owners? Tips on beak and nail conditioning would be fantastic... her beak is a bit flaky (though she does a good job of rubbing it on items in her cage and preening on her own), and her nails are very sharp.
Tips on her anxiety and breaking this cagebound habit?
