Help Rehomed Alexandrine

[Holly]

Hi. We recently re homed a 3yr old Alexandrine. She smart and wants to play. But she has never been handled . She will take food from my hand and sleep with us around her.. I need help shifting her away from screaming. She gets so excited she screams. I dont care but if my neighbors complain to much I wont be able to keep her. We are in an apartment so i close all the door and windows in the morning to lessen the scream for everyobe. I try and repeat back her other noises that are less loud to her. Is the a way to get her the use her other noises more often. It will me easier if i can train her to step up to as i can just let her fun around outside her cage in the morning but for now she will bite through the gloves so handling is difficult. She come from being outside with no human interaction so im sure she is just excited.

[Wolf]

The first thing that I would do is to ditch the gloves as many birds are terrified of them and may be why she is biting them.

There are so many reasons for a parrot to scream that it is difficult to say what will work to stop or change the screaming. I f the bird is screaming when you are leaving or in another room it may be that she is calling for you, this is like the flock call and I usually answer it by using a short two tone whistle every time that she calls and then in between the calls I show myself to the bird and make sure that it is alright. This does make for a bit of running back and forth but it usually ends up with the bird copying the whistle when calling for you instead of screaming. The thing about this is that parrots are never alone from hatching until they die they are always with either their parents, their mate and / or their flock, but never alone as a lone parrot will soon be a snack for a predator so they are afraid of being alone.

Screaming is very dangerous for a parrot to do especially if they are alone because predators know that the bird is alone and will hunt it down. For this reason, no parrot screams without a reason for it and it is up to us to learn what the reason is. The more you can share with us about what is happening when your bird screams and what occurred just before and afterwards the better we can help you to figure out the why of the screams and what to do about it.

It would help if you were to tell us how long recently is and then as much as you can about the birds history. Also helpful would be dietary information and the birds daily schedule including the lighting that it is exposed to , both natural and artificial and when the bird gets up and goes to bed.

[Holly]

Thank you. She is 3yrs old and has lived in a yard with ringneck to squak to. She has had very little human contact or toys. She is cover for 12hrs now but was aloud to wake up with the sun previously. She is super excited when i uncover her in the morning and loves to climb to the top of her cage and wiggle her head for me. I dont know it thats a happy dance or mating dance though. I think shes quaking for interaction but shes not tame yet as we have only had her a week do it had to play with out contact. Mostly im talking softly to her and trying to get her to do the same.

[Pajarita]

Well, parrots always make flock calls early in the morning and again in the evening so she will always scream at those times regardless so do keep your windows close But, if she used to living in an outdoor aviary setting with other birds, she is calling for them. Psittaculas are not very people-oriented to begin with and aviary ones suffer the loneliness much more than the ones that were handfed and don't know anything else -and even most of those are not 100% happy without mates when they are sexually mature. There are exceptions but that's what they are: exceptions. I would advise you to bird proof the room very thoroughly, put perches all around the place and let her out to fly - at least, that will distract her a bit because been in a cage, all by herself, indoors, and with strange humans must be real hard on her right now. Aside from that, you seem to be doing what needs to be done, namely, spending time with her in the same room, talking softly, etc.

Now, I am not saying this because I want to be the party pooper but it's not going to be easy to get this bird to a place where she is content with her new life. It will take a looong time and a lot of work and patience, you do realize that, right? I just don't want you to get impatient or become disappointed...