First Time Bird Owner Help

[dotaphex]

Hello Everyone, I'm new around here.

My partner and i have recently purchased a Quaker (Monk) Parrot named Chloe a couple of weeks ago.
Neither of the two of us have had birds in the past. We have found over the last couple of weeks after bringing her home she has become somewhat aggressive towards our hands when taking off shoulder or asking to step up off her perch. I know Quakers can be quite territorial, but it almost seems like she is scared of our hands.
Also makes a lot of screaming high pitched noises on her perch and around the house (never in her cage) which almost seems she is frustrated, i understand birds are noisy and i'm fine with that i just wonder why is can be so constant i feel although i can't understand what she wants.

( I have been doing trying to encourage her by using sunflower seeds as a reward and lots of praise each time she does step up off her perch but the shoulder seems to be one place that if she doesn't want to get off she resorts to biting.)

Some info:
She is about 5 months old, We have had her two weeks. She spends her days on her perch while we are at work ( sometimes an evening if she wont come off)
Sleeps in her cage upstairs at night. If theres anything else i should state please let me knoe

Any advice at all will be appreciated. Like i said we are new to this and want everyone including Chloe to be having a good and relaxing time.
Cheers Ben.

[Wolf]

As you are new to the world of parrots and in particular to Quakers I offer you two links to help you understand you little Chloe a little better. http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww12eiv.htm
and this one on body language http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww15eii.htm
The first one is an entertaining introduction to the nature of the Quaker parrot and the body language one will help you to understand things that she tries to tell you during your interactions with her.
Since you tell me that she is left out of her cage during the day with no supervision I am assuming that you have no other animals such as a dog or cat in the house. I am concerned about you doing this even if their are no other animals as a human area is a very dangerous place to be if you are a little bird. What if there is an open container of water that your bird gets into and can't get out of, such as a glass of water or an open toilet. There are always those pesky electric cords just lying in wait for a curious bird to chew on. There are little nooks and crannies that must be investigated that may catch a bird and from which it can't get out of. There are fabric to get those cute little toenails caught in from which many a small bird could not escape from and either chewed off its foot, received other serious injuries from such as displaced hips or bones broken in the attempt to escape or even coming home to find your precious bird hanging dead from a curtain. Human areas are dangerous for an unsupervised bird and even more so for an unsupervised bird. I am not an alarmist and my birds live with me in human living spaces, but they are always supervised when out and about and I am always on hand to help them if they have a problem. Thankfully there have been very few of these in the few years that I have had bird friends in my home.
It is not uncommon for many people to confuse being afraid of hands with merely avoiding them due to our use of hands to move them to places that they may not want to go or to be removed from a place that they prefer to remain at. Many times this hand aggression is directly due to our removal of them from a favored perch to place the bird in its cage. They realize that we are asking them to step up on to our hand from our shoulder and then we put them in the cage, they prefer to be on our shoulder and try to let us know this at first by just not stepping up or by avoiding the hand and then finally when we don't listen to them by biting the hand. Bad Hand, Stay back. Chomp, chomp.
Try this. Don't wait until you are short of time to ask the bird to step up. Ask for step up, if the bird does give it a treat and take it to another perch and step down. Wait a few minutes, ask for step up, if bird does not, wait a couple minutes ask for step up, if bird steps up go to top of cag and step down and give treat. Wait s few minutes, ask for step up, when bird steps up place in cage, step down and give two treats close door. Vary this procedure with four or five different perch places and change the order so bird never knows when it will go to top of cage or in cage and don't always leave bird in cage when placed in it. This is likely to solve the issues that you have described.
sound to me an awful lot like begging to me although I can't be sure without seeing and hearing this behavior, a video would be helpful here. It sounds like she is clipped, as most birds of this age won't stay on one perch very long especially if there is a human to perch on nearby. So does this perch have food and water cups built in or not? She could be begging for food and water or she could be begging for companionship and if this is the case either or both should be given. If she is not hungry and you can't hold her or let her perch on your shoulder, you should at least answer her calls to you. A nice easy two note whistle would work very well for this and in time she will also use this whistle if she is calling for your attention. This is a flock call and they usually will call for you if you are not in sight or are too far away.
Hope this helps you.

[dotaphex]

As you are new to the world of parrots and in particular to Quakers I offer you two links to help you understand you little Chloe a little better. http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww12eiv.htm
and this one on body language http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww15eii.htm
The first one is an entertaining introduction to the nature of the Quaker parrot and the body language one will help you to understand things that she tries to tell you during your interactions with her.
Since you tell me that she is left out of her cage during the day with no supervision I am assuming that you have no other animals such as a dog or cat in the house. I am concerned about you doing this even if their are no other animals as a human area is a very dangerous place to be if you are a little bird. What if there is an open container of water that your bird gets into and can't get out of, such as a glass of water or an open toilet. There are always those pesky electric cords just lying in wait for a curious bird to chew on. There are little nooks and crannies that must be investigated that may catch a bird and from which it can't get out of. There are fabric to get those cute little toenails caught in from which many a small bird could not escape from and either chewed off its foot, received other serious injuries from such as displaced hips or bones broken in the attempt to escape or even coming home to find your precious bird hanging dead from a curtain. Human areas are dangerous for an unsupervised bird and even more so for an unsupervised bird. I am not an alarmist and my birds live with me in human living spaces, but they are always supervised when out and about and I am always on hand to help them if they have a problem. Thankfully there have been very few of these in the few years that I have had bird friends in my home.
It is not uncommon for many people to confuse being afraid of hands with merely avoiding them due to our use of hands to move them to places that they may not want to go or to be removed from a place that they prefer to remain at. Many times this hand aggression is directly due to our removal of them from a favored perch to place the bird in its cage. They realize that we are asking them to step up on to our hand from our shoulder and then we put them in the cage, they prefer to be on our shoulder and try to let us know this at first by just not stepping up or by avoiding the hand and then finally when we don't listen to them by biting the hand. Bad Hand, Stay back. Chomp, chomp.
Try this. Don't wait until you are short of time to ask the bird to step up. Ask for step up, if the bird does give it a treat and take it to another perch and step down. Wait a few minutes, ask for step up, if bird does not, wait a couple minutes ask for step up, if bird steps up go to top of cag and step down and give treat. Wait s few minutes, ask for step up, when bird steps up place in cage, step down and give two treats close door. Vary this procedure with four or five different perch places and change the order so bird never knows when it will go to top of cage or in cage and don't always leave bird in cage when placed in it. This is likely to solve the issues that you have described.
sound to me an awful lot like begging to me although I can't be sure without seeing and hearing this behavior, a video would be helpful here. It sounds like she is clipped, as most birds of this age won't stay on one perch very long especially if there is a human to perch on nearby. So does this perch have food and water cups built in or not? She could be begging for food and water or she could be begging for companionship and if this is the case either or both should be given. If she is not hungry and you can't hold her or let her perch on your shoulder, you should at least answer her calls to you. A nice easy two note whistle would work very well for this and in time she will also use this whistle if she is calling for your attention. This is a flock call and they usually will call for you if you are not in sight or are too far away.
Hope this helps you.

Hi Wolf,
First of all sorry for the late reply and secondly thanks you for your fast and very informative reply
I've taken some of your advice and worked it into Chloe's day.

We have been doing a lot of step up training and step down on different objects like you advised and it really has made a difference I've already seen much improvement with hands. I've purchased a clicker which she is taking too really well
We have also changed her daily routine as for staying out all day, I never thought of all the dangers lurking around the house for such a little bird. So she spends her day in a larger cage still in the same room to keep it a familiar space, She spends all morning out with us before work and all evening until it's her bed time. Which she seems really content with.

The screaming has slowed down alot since these changes i guess it's all a trial an error as all birds have different personalities, Chloe is new to us as we are new to her. We all need to learn how each other work but as far as things are going we are seeing great improvement.

The links you gave have also made things alot easier to understand especially the body language we feel although we know alot more now.

One question i have to end this reply is food. Fruit and Veg to be precise. I read everywhere how important it is for a quaker to have these to things in their diet. I've also read how fussy quakers can be. I cut small bits of fruit and sometimes veggies and leave them near by and in chloes food for her to eat but i cant seem to find anything she likes or will eat. Do i just continue to offer them and she may take to something over time?

( i Share fruit with her, which she enjoys joining in and trying what im having but wont go at it alone lol)
I'll write an update on how she is in a week or so.

Once again, Thanks.

[Wolf]

, I am glad to hear of the progress that you are making, but remember you are still new to each other and she is also in a strange environment which always makes them more fearful and cautious, I am telling you this so that you can understand better just how far she has come as she has to overcome her fears to do this. Also don't go overboard with the training. This is one of the most common mistakes that people make as many trainers will try to tell you that training will enhance the bonding process and to a small degree they are right, but training will never take the place of plain one on one interaction and talking with your bird. This talking with your bird and the one on one contact while hanging out with the bird does more to gain their trust than anything else and trust equals a good strong bond over time.
The primary reason that your bird is not eating her veggies like she should is that she doesn't know that they are food or quite how to eat them. These are things that the parent birds would normally teach their young, but since we take the babies away before this happens, they don't get the chance to do this. You are now the parent bird and you have to teach these things to your bird. You do it the same way that the parent bird does it, you eat the veggies in front of your bird and don't share it until the birds is demanding to try the food and may even try to steal some of it from you. At this time you offer your bird a little piece of it to try. You will have to do this with each veggie and probably several times with each of them as well. Once the bird is trying the veggies a couple of times then you add it to their diet on a regular basis . You will probably have to continue a few more times with the introduction to each veggie before your bird begins to eat it normally. For most of us this is an ongoing process. For a parrot eating and sharing food is a social as well as a bonding activity.

[Pajarita]

I don't know where you read that quakers are fussy eaters because they are not. They are EXCELLENT eaters which enjoy veggies as much as fruits although they don't seem to be big on leafy greens. These birds are the ultimate survivors of the parrot kingdom and no bird could have this distinction if it was a fussy eater. Try offering cooked whole grains with a bit of seed mixed in (so she can realize they are food, too) and sweet corn (they love, love, love corn -back home, they destroy entire corn fields). And try dry figs, they are bit high in sugar but they are highly nutritious and all parrots love them (we used to fight the wild quakers for our figs).

Now, a word of caution, you mention interacting with her when you come home from work but, if you work full time and live, as I do, in a country where night falls early in the winter, you are going to have a big problem because quakers are not tropical or semi-tropical birds regardless what the sites say about them, they come from the temperate climate zone in South America (and I know because my country of birth is one of the countries that have them) and are HIGHLY sensitive to photoperiodism so if you keep her at a human light schedule all year round, you will end up with a bird that bites and screams.

[dotaphex]

Thanks for the reply Wolf and Pajarita.

Pajarita, i just read around the internet that quakers were a little fussy nothing of real source, just googled the question i guess some people thought the same. Yes i'm from Australia and we are in the middle of winter and im finding Chloe is quite tired when i get home so i try keep training and things not to a minimum but make sure its not to demanding. Chloe always gets a 10 or 11 hour sleep every night which i have found has made a huge difference with this routine.

On the food subject, Chloe is 5 months old now. How often should food be available to her. Should she be feeding when she pleases or? at the moment she has either a dish of fresh fruit or veg on offer and a feed bowl of seed and nutrient pellets, all day long. Is this ok at this age or should something change?

Wolf, things are going great she is very relaxed a lot of attention and chatter between us both, its starting to sound like she is practicing to speak which is exciting we talk on and on into the evening which is followed by a lot of beak grinding.
One odd thing i have noticed the last couple of days which she hasn't done in the past is when she is shouldered on me she raises one wing just a little and does a little jig followed by either more of the same behavior or snuggling right in close to my face maybe even repeat. Any idea what this is?

Our training together is limited like i said we do a little but not to much, enough to keep her motivated then it is chat time and time to bond and just muck around together

I feel each day i spend with Chloe we become closer and closer she is really beginning to open up i feel which i'm really happy with, gee does she have personality.
Thanks a lot for the advice in advance will keep posted and check back as soon as i can.
Thanks once again Pajarita and Wolf.

[Wolf]

I am not sure what Chloe is doing, I don't recall any of my birds doing this, it may be a GCC thing.
A parrot that is awake should always have food and water available to it. The fresh fruit or vegetables are a great idea, it would be better if it were fruit and vegetables. Also the bowl of seeds and/ or pellets all day in not a good idea as these foods are too high in protein and this can cause medical issues further down the road, such as heart disease, kidney disease and liver disease. A better ideas would be to leave her some fruit and leafy greens in one food dish and a mix of whole grains either, cooked or soaked and an equal amount of chopped mixed vegetables in another food dis. both of these for all day feeding, or better still would be to also add a small amount of cooked white beans and lentils to the whole grain/ vegetable mix making an easy version of gloop, which is what I feed my birds. Certainly worth the time to look into it, you can find a lot of information about gloop in the health, diet and nutrition section of the forum.

[Pajarita]

I don't know either what the one wing lift and jig means... I've never seen a quaker do it so I think this is just a personal quirk of hers

Yes, please, do check out the gloop recipes because free-feeding pellets is NOT a good idea.

A word of caution, it's not the number of hours of sleep that affects the endocrine system, is the exposure to dawn and dusk without artificial lights and going to sleep as night falls naturally that does. Be careful with not keeping her at a strict solar schedule because this is the reason that they ended up with the bad reputation of been super cage-aggressive, biters and screamers. They are not when their endocrine system is attuned to the seasons, only when they are overly hormonal (it causes them pain).