Sisters Parrot Disrupts Convent

>>> Question sent in from a parrot owning nun:

Good morning Chet -

First of all, I want to tell you how great your programs are.  They have so many helpful ways of doing things.  I have purchased the following Video/CD’s from you: Talking On Cue, Flying on Cue, Parakeets and Other Small Birds Part 1 &Part 2.  Thank you for taking the time to provide such helpful resources.

Next, I want to introduce Buka.  He is a Pacific Parrotlets who is almost 2 years old.  I have had him since he was 8 weeks old and have enjoyed almost every minute.  I say “almost” because he has a vicious bite when he is mad.

I am a Sister of St. Joseph and live in a convent in California.  I got Buka because I had understood that Parrotlets were “Apartment Parrots” that had only a tiny voice and would not bother the neighbors.  Well, Buka’s voice is far from “tiny”.  We have 23 Sisters living here and no garage door to open when he makes noise, so nothing outside of me to startle him.  I have thought about taping a loud sound, but there is no one there to turn on the player when I am out of the room.  Do you have any suggestions?

Sincerely,

Sister Ann Marie Steffen

>>> My thoughts:

First of all, Thank you for being such a Valued customer Marie.  I appreciate it VERY much.  Without people like you who are eager to invest in learning what it takes to help make their pet parrots happy, my life just wouldn’t be the same.

But on to your question…

Oh the joys of a Parrotlet  

God stuffed WAY too much personality into these little guys.  They’re super hyper-active and like Sister Ann Marie discovered… not exactly quiet.

They can screech for hours on end.

But it’s not like the screaming of a Cockatoo or some other type of bird that’s just screaming because it wants your attention.  It’s just that they’re loud birds naturally.  They like to chatter and screech all the time.

I actually used to have a little Parrotlet, Ricky, but he died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  From my experience in working with my Parrotlet Ricky, his screeching would intensify when he was not getting his way.  He’d get louder when coming near his cage (cage territorial issues)  Or when he was bored.

The solution?

What you do to fix issues like this is first grab your trusty note pad and start writing down situations that cause your parrot to start screeching.  Does he screech when you leave him alone, or when you come back to get him out of his cage?  How long can he be in his cage before he’s territorial?

I recently did this exercise with my Cockatiel Magoo.  Many so called experts would say he is cage territorial.  He’s fully trained, yet is known to seemingly at random fly off his cage and bite at people’s faces.  It was getting kind of embarrassing to be calling myself a parrot trainer, yet running into this issue.

You know how I fixed it?  I realized that Magoo only defends his cage if it’s a day where he can see his own shadow.  He’s the kind of bird that will literally spend hours looking at his own shadow.  He gets all possessive of it and starts to defend anyone who comes near it.  But if it’s a cloudy day outside he doesn’t bite me, and calmly comes over to sing to you from inside his cage.

Mirrors are the same way with him.  If he can see a reflection of himself, even in a shiny metal food bowl, he’ll defend any intruders that come within a 3 foot radius to the death.  I was able to fix my bird’s situation by simply rearranging his environment so that the lights didn’t cast shadows. 

In areas where ceiling lights cast shadows on the wall, I had to buy some plants that would camouflage the shadow and break it up so it wouldn’t be as easily noticed by my bird.  The behavior was fixed instantly!

This Sister’s Parrotlet might not be the same way, but there’s a good chance that paying attention to what causes him to start his screeching, and then adjusting that situation so it’s not in his environment any more will drastically cut back on his behavior.