Misbehaving-territorial over laptop keyboard and biting

[DanaandPod]

I am now missing twenty one keys from my key board. Its difficult with only one shift key. I have had to have my cell phone replaced entirely twice. Had to replace my purse/bag twice because Pod chewed off the handles. several of my books are chewed up. My full cup of tea this morning went over the counter in a splash because i wouldn't come out of the bathroom that i locked him out of. Anything that i use instead of paying attention to him... he must destroy. And, thats that. Sole purpose of getting my attention.

[liz]

I have a king size sheet thrown over my desk to deter Myrtle. Then the cats want to sleep under the tent. I close my laptop and put it under the coffee table. All remotes have to be face down or under something to save the buttons. I put bread in a breadbox and put plywood on top of the cockatiels cages. The entertainment center in the living room has a table cloth on it. In the summer when I have the doors open I put something on the top to keep Myrtle from chewing door frames. My best idea was to used laminent flooring panels put together with cut outs for the nobs of the curtain rods to keep her from perching there. A fly swat waved in the air has finally taught Myrtle to stay off the lamps.

If you had a toddler in the house you would hide all your pretties until they were able to understand what not to touch.

[Wolf]

The placement of the cages in my house are such that all of my birds can see each other and more importantly me. Because I have also got 7 cats roaming the house and Kiki and Kookooloo both enjoy tormenting them, which is dangerous for them and the cats are fascinated with the budgies and parrotlet, no bird is ever allowed out of its cage unless I have the time to stay right there to oversee all that occurs. Protect cats, protect birds, whatever is required. If I go to the bathroom birds are returned to cages, every time.
Time in the cage is never a punishment, but some time in their cages despite my being home seems to help with them to amuse themselves part of the time. You should not feel guilty about Pod being a single bird or in establishing that you sometimes need some time for yourself. Pod will be fine until such time as the right bird companion can be found for him. Pod will get used to and be fine if he is left in his cage a little longer sometimes, especially if he can see you and you talk to him when he calls for you. You do not have to come running all of the time. You do need time for yourself and your life and Pod's are both diminished if you deny yourself too much. Teaching him to amuse himself some of the time and allowing yourself some breathing room may serve to enhance your relationship not detract from it. Just my thoughts.

[shiraartain]

I am missing my ESC and ALT key and they are barely usable. Fajr will listen to "no" now and will pretend to ignore my keyboard....until he thinks i'm not paying attention and then he will go for it.Many of my other keys are just barely hanging on. And my mom will walk in the opposite direction if she sees us with Fajr while she's holding the house phone which he has identified as a danger.

For Fajr, what I did during this winter break was buy him a bunch of basic things for him to destroy. Paper rolls for coins, mini rattles, plain wood clothespins (undyed), and got him to explore these things and watched him play with them under my supervision. Once I was satisfied that they were all bird-safe and he began to play with them more often, I put them in his cage. At the beginning i placed them in different locations, but in the end his sleeping tent became his toy box. Every morning, I pick up all the toys he dropped to the grate and place them back in. (The sleeping tent became dirty so it was taken out and now the toys are in Fajr's hanging coconut bowl). He plays with them when he's alone, chewing them and carrying/dropping them as much as he likes. Our birds are different in terms of beak size and strength, and so the exact same toys will not work, but this is just an idea of how your bird can amuse himself.

It doesn't have to be expensive or attractive, just bird-safe. Your bird doesn't care how much money you spend on him when it comes to toys, he just cares about how entertaining he finds the toy. Fajr spends much more time shredding clothespins than he does with his $13 wooden chew toy. I have a friend who spent a fortune on her blue crowned conure's (i think that's the correct name) toys, but the bird ignored them all in favor of an old scrunchie that she ate with, slept with, played with-she refused to part with it at all!

Figuring out which toys your bird will like is the hard part. When i grabbed the clothespins and rattles and coin rolls, I wasn't sure if Fajr would like them, but he likes chewing things up and making noise when he's in the mood, so I went for it.

[Wolf]

I save toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, small pieces of wood from my wood working, trimmings from bird safe shrubs, pieces of bird toys that were purchased and bailing twine ( the natural fiber twine) for putting together toys. My Grey's favorite thing is destroying magazines or newspaper. Our local newspaper is printed with soy based inks so it is relatively safe for them to tear up.

[liz]

My house is so critter oriented that my front door mat says Wipe your paws.
To kind of deter the destruction in the living room I have a box of stuff on top of the entertainment center. It has a few rattles that I have made by putting a few Skittles in clear plastic bottles, plastic bottle caps, toilet paper rolls, pieces of plastic clothes hangers and etc. They all manage to hit the floor. The other animals no long lay on the throw rug near her. I pick them up and give them back many times a day.

[DanaandPod]

It appears to be pretty common among parrots to become fascinated with keyboards. Most of them just want to play with it, but many of them claim it as their very own special toy. In this situation I would consider getting a used keyboard from a desk top computer or a non working laptop for him to play with.

i've done this with a remote control. Infact he was banging 'his' remote around just today... (as if I care...lol)

[Wolf]

Yeah, but it might keep him enchanted with it if you pretend to care about it a little bit. For the reinforcement principle involved. Your call, you know him better than I do.

[jane19]

A bit late to join the discussion... Thought I'd share my experience. Both of my bird loves my keyboard. One of them even used to pick the key off and hide them (or rather, lose them behind furnitures). All I did was replace the keyboard and GOT A KEYBOARD COVER. They now chew the cover With greatly reduced interest.

[Wolf]

Great idea! Thanks for the addition and for sharing with us.