Timeout For Yelling & Crying?

[Scotty]

Hi guys,

I have a 5 month old Green Check Conure I just bought last month.

I've never had a Conure before and I know that many friendly birds bond to you and demand attention in various ways and can become down right bothersome with all their yelling and screaming for your attention...

I'm not sure where I read this, but I have a small bird carrier and when Bebe starts yelling, crying or throwing a fit I pick her up and place her in the cage, telling her no yelling and give her a time out for a few minutes.

I'll be honest the timeouts have been working...

I've tried to not pay the bird attention, or walk away, but sometimes I don't see it working as well as the timeouts in the cage...

I do know she yells for attention, so I'm sure in time if I learn to show her that I won't pay her attention when she's like this she'll eventually get it, but in the mean time, what does everyone think about timeouts in a small cage?


THANKS

[Michael]

Don't do any of that at all ever.

http://trainedparrot.com/index.php?bid= ... th+Parrots

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=285

[ginger]

Time outs don't work! Period! Besides which you have a baby bird that isn't even a year old. If you keep going the way you are you will most certainly destroy any chance at a solid relationship with your bird that is based on trust. Are you sure that she is screaming and not merely vocalizing? I find it hard to believe that you are having this much trouble with screaming at this stage. How long have you had the bird exactly? What are you doing with the bird as far as scheduling time out of cage, feeding, etc.? How much are you home? Really would like to offer some help but would need LOTS more information.

[Scotty]

Thanks Mike I'll read the link...

Ginger, I've only had the bird about a month, I work at home so I sit right next to the bird, which I have a playpen for her on top of her cage to try and keep her busy and learning how to play also on her own.

Since I'm at home working all the time, I pretty much have the bird in and out of my hands all day long, quite a few hours of attention, target/clicker training, training doing tricks, and training to be good amongst other training things...

Since I'm home and with the bird all the time I see that she is now really demanding the attention and getting pretty attached to me as the Entertainment Center, LOL...

So I realize now she yells and crys for me...

Yes I certainly don't want to ruin this new relationship and in the beginning I'll admit, I made a few mistakes grabbing at the body and yanking her out of her cage and putting her in a timeout, being a bit to harsh. Now it seems like BeBe has gotten a bit more aggresive towards me and it saddens me...

So I promise I'll no longer do this and be very gentle with her, but yanking at her tossing her into a timeout, I hope that just doing this only for a few weeks hasn't permanently gotten into her mind and personality and I hope in time, maybe it will be forgotten by her, being a baby?


THANKS

P.S. I really see now Mike why not to punish, because no matter what we do, we end up in some way the bad guy, after all the bird at some point won't want to interact with us, so we have to always keep it positive so the bird will always want to be with us. I really see that, it's not so complicated to understand...

[cmaygar]

I have 2 very young GCCs (5 mos. and 4 mos.) that I've had since they were 2 months old and they vocalize a lot at the decibel of a parakeet or a cockatiel but I've never heard either one of them SCREAM. I understand parrot screaming pretty well because I had a Quaker for 24 years and I have an amazon. It's quite normal for the GCCs to vocalize a lot. Perhaps you can move the cage to a location that isn't directly next to your work area. Let the bird get used to playing with his toys and keeping himself occupied so he doesn't expect your attention 24/7. It's better for the bird to learn how to play on his own. The GCCs love swinging toys. They are super acrobats and they also love balls. They should be able to keep themselves occupied for hours with fun toys.

[ginger]

cmaygar has great advice and I think if you start there you will see a vast improvement. Good luck and keep us posted.

[hooligan]

My GCC is about 10-11 months old now, we've had her since she was 3 months, and she did try to use screaming as a way of getting our attention (these were calls that were about as loud as a human voice yelling). It didn't last long though, and we curbed it by doing what cmaygar and Michael have said.

Scrubby is *super* needy and wasn't interested in toys if we were around, so if the problem is that Bebe isn't playing by herself, you might need to show her how to play with toys. Scrubby would examine them when we presented them to her or put them in her cage, but she didn't really play with them until we showed her how to. We would scratch things to show her how they had different textures and would tear paper toys a little bit to get her started. Now she's happy playing by herself in or out of her cage, and has also decided some things (like plastic bottle caps... and keyboard keys, unfortunately) are toys when we wouldn't have thought to give them to her on our own.

Ignoring the calls for attention did take a little while to start working. She needed to figure out that it wasn't effective. Once it clicked, she tried wing flapping instead. As soon as she started doing that, we made sure to always respond to reinforce the new, quieter behavior.

At the same time though, we also needed to pay attention to things that were putting her in a situation where she wanted to scream. If she's alone during the day, we make sure to shut windows so that she can nap without being bothered by noise outside. If we don't, she'll be cranky and more likely of screaming when we got home. If she needs to be in her cage (because we're cooking or something), we avoid blocking her view of us with open doors/furniture because hearing us but not seeing us gets her all riled up. Things like that.

[liz]

You wouldn't put a 5 month old baby in time out. You would figure out what is wrong.

My Myrtle is 2 and acts like a 2 year old child. She is into everything. She says some words that she understands but still has a lot of baby babble.

When she and Rambo are in different rooms it can get loud with them calling back and forth but I know that they are just communicating. In the same room they talk at a normal level.

The birdie brains are smarter than most people can understand. Just like raising a child you have to do it right or you could really make the rest of their lives miserable. And yours.

Too many people rehome or throw away birds because they don't want to take the time to understand them. I can see you are not one of them.

I only have Amazons, tiels and a lovie so I can't help with the species.

[Scotty]

Well, I guess by scream I meant that Conure chirp/screech they have...

BeBe is doing much better, when I leave the room I make a sound like rattling keys and then rattle them when I return, like also when I go out the door to do something in the yard, letting her hear them rattle on the door leaving and returning, hoping she'll soon realize I'm coming back and it seems to be working.

I've been leaving the room longer and longer and returning only when she's quiet, or if she's noisy walking right by without paying attention and keeping my back to her, then when she's been quiet I rewarded her with some millet telling her she was good and praising her for being quiet and it working slowly but surely...

I'm starting to figure her out pretty quick her little emotions and body language and I do have a playpen I just bought that sits on the top of the cage with toys and treats and so far she's been keeping pretty busy with them.

It's just that other day I bought a new toy after she ripped through and killed the old one and she's not liking this new one so much, so off to find some popsicle sticks to put the back into the old toy so she has something more of what she was chewing on before...

THANKS guys I'll keep you posted, but it's certainly better now, less nippy and more cuddly too...

CHEERS

P.S. Gave BeBe a chop stick now she's target training me and with her clicker too, LOL...

[liz]

She is preciouse and I like your P.S.