Rescuing a 3 year old female

[Ryssa]

Hello all,

Tomorrow i will be making the journey to get an eclectus that the previous family cant look after anymore. They have informed me that they got her after there african grey died seeing the "hand reared crazy/silly tame" add and was hooked to buy her shes now 3/4 years old. But said for a year now they haven't really let her out of the cage because she started to "bite" shes in a conure size cage for most of the day and claims she can be noisy, shes also just gone through a mojo moult. From what this person has been telling me its more a case of they didnt know what they got themselves into when buying the breed and have just left her mostly to live in this small cage.

My husband would rather me get a baby female because of her problems but wouldn't it be better to give a older female a loving home?

Also what advice would you all give for when i get her home to help with the problems she has.

 

[Flboy]

Love, time, love, patience, love! Give her time to feel safe! Oh, did I mention love?

 

[Uglow]

I'm not sure what to add to Flboy's comment. I would imagine since you have two that you're probably more knowledgeable than some of us.
I think you're doing an awesome thing by rescuing her. and I think once you have her and start experiencing what her "problems" are, you'll be able to ask folks here who have females and I'm sure they'll relay great advice.
Good luck and I can't wait to see updates.

edit: also, I want to know more about your boys if you have the time to share. Thanks.

 

[Ryssa]

Thanks both of you for the replys, I shall do an introduction post on my boys when I get a few spare mins

 

[plumsmum2005]

Hi I am assuming that your boys will help her settle in as she will be watching them doing their thing. Hopefully they will do some of the work for you because she will see what is expected.

Well done and hope all goes well with her.

 

[Dopey]

OMG, I love the ekkies and they are so misunderstood. My girl - she is fourish just loves to have me hold her...for about five minutes and then she wants to just be back on her cage. My male ekkie used to bite but after about six months he pretty much stopped it. He will bite if he is hormonal and doesn't want to go back into his cage.

Give her time and love. She will come around.

 

[Anansi]

Considering her history, she'll probably be quick to bite at first. Personally, I'd take it slow. Earn her trust. Offer treats and go at her pace. It's good that you'll be getting her out of her conure-sized cage, both because it was just too small and because a new cage environment will probably help with any cage-territorial behaviors that she may have after being cage-bound for so long.

One thing I've noticed with my female ekkie is that her body language is far more subtle than most parrots. Including male ekkies. Especially when she's hormonal. So a big part of a successful integration into your household will be learning to pick up on her oh-so-subtle cues. The cues that she probably thinks are glaringly obvious.

 

[camo]

As always great advice from everyone. The fact that you have two eclectus parrots means you already know that they all have very different personalities. I think take it slow and at her pace is the best advice. Some other things you may have already considered:

* Be prepared to be bitten, it sounds like it will happen. Think about your strategy for handling this (both the immediate bite and also the correction strategy). Everyone who interacts with her needs to be on the same page. There may be a honeymoon period, my two were adopted, so had their share of bad habits, but I found until they settled in, they didn't show all their personality. Gizmo had obviously learned to bite to get attention or correct his owner, he didn't do this at first, and given that he was our first parrot, I thought we were doing something wrong when he started biting (in hindsight it was just that he settled in, and we needed to correct this bad habit).

* She may not have flight experience, but probably has full wings, so prepare the room for crash landings, etc.

* Have a controlled introduction plan. Given you have two already, you many even want to consider a quarantine (although when I got my girl, I pretty much failed at that, and from what I read it is pretty hard to realistically maintain an effective quarantine in the same house.

* Obviously a health check. With this mojo moult, was her diet right to handle this, or also is this actually a mojo moult or some other issue causing the feather loss.

* Slow introductions and be prepared for unpredicted dynamics. As you have 2 already you have probably been through this before, but I just wanted to give my example. I always read that the females were the dominant and that you need to be careful that the male doesn't get picked on, but in my home, Gizmo (my male eclectus) thinks he is the centre of the universe, and is quite happy to push Pebbles (my female eclectus) around to insure he gets everything, including attention. Pebbles is a mature female and Gizmo is less than 3 years old, so I was not expecting this dynamic, when I introduced them both. The reality is Pebbles is just a gentle girl, but she has her limits and Gizmo quickly runs for the hills saying "No", when she decides enough is enough. My point is, when I was introducing Pebbles and Gizmo, I was being prepared to rescue Gizmo, Gizmo ended up being the one put into time out.

* Lastly, but most importantly, you must take lots of pictures and possibly even videos and post them for us all to enjoy.


Thank you for choosing to adopt and give this girl a second chance, both of mine are adopted and although I wish I had had the chance to see them grow, I am so grateful they are sharing their lives with me.


Cheers,


Cameron

 

[Brittany741]

Our foster, Molly, absolutely hates me and bites me 100% of the time. She's a grey and has chosen my husband.

Our recent rescue Ekkie? They said she bit! They said she screamed! They said she plucked!

Guess what?! We got a naked bird who hasn't pulled out a single feather, has touched us SO gently with her beak I can barely feel it, and she squawks ONCE a day.

I am a firm believer that birds take their time figuring out their new environment before deciding how to act. I've fostered many birds over the years and more often than not, the fosters weren't at all what the people said they were.

She may bite, but how you handle the first few weeks will determine the rest of how things go. With our new Ekkie, this is what I did. We brought her home, gave her an immediate spray bath through her cage out in the sun, let her dry off, then I had my husband move her to our brand new clean travel cage. I set her in our warm bathroom for two hours to calm down after the long car rides, new owners, you name it. Then I placed her on my bed next to me (I am bedridden over 22 hours a day) and laid right next to her cage and spoke softly to her every few minutes while watching 2 hours of Gilmore Girls.

That's when we went to the living room, locked up all 7 dogs, and I finally went to have her step up. Giving her this introduction to us and our lifestyle really helped her see that she is now a PART of a family, not a kitchen showpiece to be ignored. I'm also careful to only spend the amount of time with her I will be able to spend in six months or six years.

The biggest mistake I've seen people make is to spend hours and hours the first few weeks and then go back to their normal life. This leads to all sorts of issues. The simplest approach is usually in the best interest of our new rescues, and that is to use restraint whenever we get a new baby.

That first day was a bunch of changes, but they were all medically necessary and I didn't want to even continue a single bad habit from her past. Her old cage never entered my home, neither did her old food. She got her new cage from day 1, and fresh Ekkie food for the first time in her life. She hasn't had a single seed since she's been here. Granted, that's incredibly rare for a bird to take to a completely different diet 100% overnight, but I credit Anansi and the suggestion for a small amount of melted coconut oil over the mash with making the transition absolutely instant.

I've had horrible fosters and I've had great ones. Some birds have been broken beyond repair. The best piece of advice I can give is to take the rescue in as a foster at first. This will help you to evaluate her and decide if you are the right environment for *her.* Sometimes people feel like they have to make a lifetime commitment, when the bottom line and truth is the bird desperately needs a safe environment NOW. This has saved me a ton of heartache and has led to some incredible placements of birds I've taken out of bad circumstances! This also means the birds end up in the right place for *them* as it's important to remember the purpose for taking in any bird is to improve their life. Improving ours is a fringe benefit.

This is probably not a common opinion or approach but I'm a firm believer in meeting a need if you recognize it. That means potentially taking in animals on a short term basis to ensure their immediate safety, evaluating their needs, improving their conditions and diet, and once they've gotten that triage out of the way, finding a good home. Since we have the time to give and the space in which to give it, this means we can take as long as two years to find the perfect placement. I've spent a lot of money getting unwanted birds here, even paying the owners if it meant saving the bird. It's a calling and not for everyone.

If this doesn't sound like something you want to do or can do emotionally (my husband is an absolute foster failure!) then a baby bird may be a better choice for your family. No judgment on my part whatsoever. I think every person must decide for themselves and their current animals what is best for everyone.

 

[Ryssa]

Just on the way to collect her, will update a pic and how she is after I get home be a long day I'll be out 8 hours but will be worth it.