Several questions - PLEASE I need help.

wildheart

Banned
Banned
Joined
Mar 16, 2010
Messages
1,374
Reaction score
2
Location
South Africa
Sorry this is a long post, but you need ALL the details. (For some who forgot or do not know, Sterretjie was abused and her leg was broken and just left to grow back abnormal - she luckily escaped and flew to my house)

PROBLEM 1:

The last time I posted I told you that Sterretjie got into a habit of climbing down her tree and went surging for me through the house. She stopped for a couple of days and reverted back to screaming when she does not see me and now she is back to climbing down her tree.

I honestly feel that I give her enough attention, please tell me if I am wrong. Hubby wakes her up in the morning and switch all my reptiles lights on while I get dressed, make-up etc. I then go to greed her (she acts like a baby and I scratch her head) and then she immediately hops onto my hand. She spends an hour + with me in the kitchen while 'we' make the food for all my other companions. I barely get time to greed my 3 reptiles in the morning. After begging her she finally climes off my hand and onto her cage and I am off to work. (I leave the tv on animal planet and we did put a huge mirror up for her.)

When I get home I immediately say hello to her first, she acts like a baby and I scratch her head. I then have to take my iguana outside for his toilet routine and say hello to my dragons. If the weather permits I also fetch Sterretjie and she sits outside in the sun until my iguana is finished. My reptiles get a bath 2-3 times a week, depending how dirty they are from playing outside, obviously Sterretjie has to wait until I am finished. After that she gets ALL my attention, at least 2 hours of it.

On weekends she maybe spends 3 hours on her cage maximum and the rest of the time with me.

This is not good enough for her anymore, she now immediately clime off her cage when my hubby opens her in the morning and walks down the passage to my room, clime up my leg and 'help' me with my hair!

In the afternoon when I get home she does not even give me a chance to take my iguana outside anymore, after I say hello and then turn around to go to my iguana's room -there she is on the ground following me!

She refuses to clime on her cage on weekends and even sits and sleep on me!

And believe me, when she is on me she refuses to clime off!

I dont know what to do anymore.
cry2.gif


PROBLEM 2:

She hates my husband and draws blood when ever he is close to her. When he is in the kitchen in the morning she will run on the counter towards him and bite him. He is not allowed to sit next to me and eat or watch tv, she climes off me and onto him and starts to bite him. I can not sit next to him anymore.
depressed.gif


PROBLEM 3:

From advice of other people I did close her in her cage yesterday and spend the time with my other animals outside where she could not see me. She is obviously not stupid and knew that I was home. She screamed and screamed and screamed. It absolutely broke my heart and I did cry, I felt SO sorry for her. After about 3 hours she went quite, it felt like a lifetime! I pushed through, thinking that I was doing right, the vet said it was the right thing to do. Another hour went past and I could not handle it any longer and went inside to go fetch my baby. She was sitting in a little heap in the corner of her cage. How can I EVER forgive myself!!!!!!!!!!! I am even crying now, writing this, I broke my baby's heart!

I was against locking her in her cage from the beginning, I refused, why, WHY did I let a vet convince me?

I dont know what to do anymore? All my other animals are suffering and I LOVE THEM WITH ALL MY HEART and I cant spend any time with my husband until after 19:00 and almost nothing on weekends.

Is there a solution?:(
 
Last edited:
I'm so sorry things have been tough for you and Sterretjie. I can only relay the advice I read in Parrots for Dummies when dealing with a 1 person bird (at least what I can remember of it):

Have the "least liked" person in the family take over feeding and care of the bird. I don't know if this is possible for you, but if she sees your husband as the source of her sustenance, she may warm up to him.

I hate the "tough love" method of keeping a bird from screaming, but unfortunately, I think it's probably the best. I never let my kids cry themselves to sleep when they were babies and I don't think they're worse for it - they aren't especially clingy or anything. You need to be the one in control of the relationship, not her. That may sound ugly, but she depends on you and your family for her well-being, you need to be able to do that without her "help".

Good luck and I hope things work out.
 
IMPO, the problem you have is that your bird thinks you are her mate and that's why she attacks your husband. He is the competition for your love and attention and, same as she would in the wild if there was another bird courting her mate, she defends what she considers hers. As to her looking for you, wanting to be with you all the time and crying when she is not - well, that's because, in the wild, mates are together all the time (and I do mean ALL THE TIME 24/7/365). You go to work and leave her alone for hours at a time and this is something she cannot comprehend so, when you come home, she wants to be with you and no amount of tough love is ever going to make her understand that this is not good.

Pet parrots are not domesticated, they are tricked into imprinting to humans so they 'think' that humans are part of their family and would not attack them as unimprinted parrots would. The imprinting is, in itself, is a double-edge sword because although it works in terms of making a wild animal into a pet, it doesn't quite work for the birds themselves as they lose their true identity (they are not birds and they are not humans, they are something in between). This becomes especially difficult when they are only birds that mate-bond to their owner, like yours has. It doesn't really do for a happy life for them because they cannot ever get true satisfaction. You cannot have sex with her, you cannot make babies with her, you cannot follow the rituals and behaviors of mating, you cannot sleep with her, etc. and, worst of all, you leave her alone for hours and hours, something that never, ever, ever happens in nature. In the wild, when a mate is not there, it's because something terrible happened to it.

I often caution people about avian vets advice on diet and behavior because the truth is that they don't really study in depth either subject in school. It would be impossible because, for one thing, nobody knows what the dietary requirements of all the different species we keep as pets are and the only way that one really learns about behaviors is by having a number of birds of the same species or similar for a long period of time and observing them for hours, something avian vets don't have the time to do even if they do have multiple birds (which most of them don't).

I am afraid that you are in a real pickle, my dear. Personally, I would make a room in the house into a birdroom, get her a mate/companion and keep them cage-free in there and I would visit with them. I don't believe in having just one parrot, I think that this deprives the bird of a necessary element that provides quallity of life. After all, parrots are highly social birds and nature meant for them to have peers all around them so been by themselves is really quite stressful for them. We might not all be able to keep them in flocks as they should live but, at least, we can give them a companion to ease their loneliness. It will mean less love for you but she will be happier and you will be able to spend more time with your husband and other pets and mucho less stressful for everybody concerned. But, make sure she likes the other bird before you make a commitment because you could end up with two birds that thoroughly dislike each other and vie for your attention.
 
Thank you for your answer and you make it sound so logical!

I also thought of getting her a friend but I am just not sure of the consequences. I can not change another room into a bird room, her cage and tree is in the lounge and I would like to keep it there.

Must the other bird be a boy or can it be a girl?
Do I have to get a separate cage although her cage is huge?
What is the disadvantages?
 
I already answered two of your three questions on the other posting but, as to the cage, you could get away with keeping the new bird in a comfortable carrier (you should always have one anyway so it is a good investment and one that will not go to waste in the long term) during quarantine and the transition period when they are getting to know one another. You will know when they are ready to be housed together because they will do it on their own -the new bird will go into your current bird's cage and make himself at home :-)
 

Most Reactions

Back
Top Bottom