My 3year old galah won't stop chewing!!

[RubyKiba]

Hey,
I recently adopted a 3 year old galah from an abusive family, she's very sweet, rarely bites and, unfortunately , never makes a sound (because of her last owners), BUT I can't get her to stop chewing on cords and remotes! I've researched a little on it, and I've given her heaps of chewable toys in her cage, rotate them so she doesn't get bored, I give her 10-15 minute time outs when she goes to chew on them, i try to give her things she can chew while she's out of the cage and I've tried hiding everything that she's not supposed to chew on. But whenever she's out, she's completely disinterested in anything I give her to play with, and every 5 to 10 minutes she's flying over to chew on the cords! If I do hide the tv cords and all that under a blanket or behind a pillow, she remembers where they are, and starts trying to chew on them either by destroying what I made to hide them or simply chewing through the blanket! And I can tell she knows that it's bad, because she tries to be sneaky about getting there... I just don't know how to get her to stop!

Any ideas?

 

[Featheredsamurai]

my galah was also abused, the only noise she would make was purring and a quite peep. She now peeps a little louder.

Have you tried foraging toys? Also do trick training with her. All those things are even more mental stimulation. Also, your bird doesn't know it's bad. She just thinks it's fun. make sure to not over react when you see her chewing on things, that only rewards them. When you see her chewing calmly pick her(no talking to her, but don't be mean) up and put her back in her cage for 10 minutes then take her out again.

 

[MikeyTN]

When you start hiding stuffs from them like that, it's almost like a foraging play. The bird should never be left unsupervised anyways. The only time they should be out is IF your in the same room with them. Unless they don't leave their play stand, but still....

 

[SandyBee]

Can you re arrange your furniture so that the cords are not accessibleIn my main room all my cords are behind a tv stand or under the couch.

 

[weco]

I hate to be so blunt, but if you cannot watch her every minute, she needs to stay in her cage.....no matter what the reason she chews cords, she will chew the wrong one and it will burn off part of her beak, if it does not also kill her.....

While it will be unsightly and possibly expensive, if you do not know an electrician, but if you are not OK with keeping her caged, you can have all cords placed in hard metal conduit that the bird cannot bite through.....

If you have a high end sound system, some of today's speaker systems handle enough power to kill small & medium sized birds.....

 

[Thingamagigs]

Best and shortest answer is this. You can not stop her from chewing. Its a natural behaviour It would be like someone trying to get you to stop chewing your food

So best to put those cords somewhere she can't get to them, as suggested, rearrange furniture. If that doesn't hide all the cords, then you can buy products from (don't know if you are in Australia?) Bunnings and Masters... or other hardware stores... that cover the cord. You can also get small clips (even rental safe ones from 3M) which you can use to stick the cord to the wall out of her reach. Also invest in a remote caddy, a solid one that is enclosed or almost enclosed.

My lounge room and computer room is completely bird safe/proof. I have placed the TV stand in front of the power outlets... I removed the thin back panel of the tv stand so that it could sit nearly flush with the wall, hiding the power outlets completely. All cords are behind the tv stand, mostly contained inside of it. All cords going to the tv and various other devices I have are placed in such a way that if a bird was to fly onto the TV stand, they couldnt access any of them.

My computers are in the same room. I extended out from the back of the computer cases with titanium cookie cooling racks, so that all cables on the back of the box are out of birdy beak reach. I then used cable ties to secure the cords to the underside of the table and behind the monitors. There is little access to any cables, but birds aren't allowed on the top of the table, full stop (keyboards and birds never mix lol). To teach them this is pretty easy, they are continuously removed and this is one occasion where I pull out the birdy no-no noise. You know that noise a galah makes when you do something it doesn't like? I use that noise to alert my birds to the fact they are doing something I don't like. Because I use it sparingly it works every time.

 

[Thingamagigs]

Not only that Weco... but the copper contained in the cords can cause heavy metal poisoning. Which is a very distressing condition and very costly to remedy.

 

[SandyBee]

Of course the bird must be supervised, my Amazon tries even in my presence hence to make life easier and not to always chase him off them finding a way to make them not visible is a good idea.