New Member + new Blue Headed Pionus!

[flappybird]

Hey all,

I'm new here.. first post. A little long.. but I guess some of you might enjoy story time.

A bit of background I guess is in order. I've loved parrots since I was about 6 or 7. My dad had three pairs of Hispaniolan Amazons (Amazona Ventralis) in addition to two pet Iguanas. This was in the Dominican Republic, where the wild-caught pet trade was (still is?) large and unfortunate. Only one of those three pairs was wild caught though, they eventually got given away. Anyways, the main bird, Lola, was my dad's buddy. One person bonding - trying to bite when I tried to hug my dad - kind of bonding. I loved it though, and it went EVERYWHERE with us. In the DR no one really cares if you bring your pet parrot around. She came to the beach with us and I would hang out with her while my dad surfed, she hung out on car rides and picked the ceiling cloth, she came into restaurants, she even pulled out one of my loose baby teeth and my dad had to pry it out of her beak. I babysat her and her other birdie buddy one time and laughed when she climbed down her cage and waddled over to the dinner table to nip my grandmother's foot.

ANYWAYS. Since then, I've been around a couple other Amazons, a teacher's African Gray, and a friend's cockatoo. I had a parrotlet in highschool for less than two years. I didn't know anything, and one day I accidentally let it fly away while cleaning its cage outside. Sad mistake. All that bird wanted to do was hide in my hair or fly around the house. I've been wanting another [bigger] parrot for a long long time, and I finally decided to pull the trigger. I also decided to go with a rescue / re-home, which I wouldn't have expected.

Today I drove three hours away to meet and it turns out, bring home a Blue Headed Pionus named Luna. Before this I contacted every rescue I could find in Florida, and other breeders/contacts as well trying to find a Jardine's. I also purchased no less than four books, one of which is Michael's Parrot Wizard book, and spent every minute of my free time the last two months researching online. I almost went with a Senegal, but the one I met didn't really click with me. The Jardine's I was trying to meet got adopted. This Pionus was super sweet, but really nervous. Once away from her IMO inappropriately small, dirty cage that she loves, she was all about getting scritches and sitting on my shoulder. Took her home, made a stop at a bird store in Orlando, FL, she was terrified, I left her in her cage inside the store while I got supplies, and then we drove the rest of the way.

At home I cleaned the bottom of her cage and got her settled in a corner. She suddenly went to the door, and when I opened it she immediately wanted to come out and sit on my shoulder. The previous owner told me she was really into shoulder riding. I'm concerned about this, since she's a "run up your arm and nothing else" kind of bird so far. She won't eat anything from my hand, and didn't see her eat or drink anything on the way home or afterwards. I'm hoping she'll settle down and get comfortable. It's strange that shes tame enough to handle but I can't really get her to fully relax. Any first time advice on where to start with our lives together would be appreciated. She will be living in my house with my boyfriend, who had never held a bird until today. She seems fine with him too. Eventually I hope to have a well socialized bird that will accept a harness and want to go outside and see lots of sights. I want to have her out and about as much as possible and hope that her nervous demeanor will go away. So far, she seems really scared and upset to be anywhere other than in her cage or on my shoulder.

Oh, I don't know how old she is. Previous owner said she will locate her papers that are kept at the rescue she volunteers at and get back to me. This would be super helpful information. She has a band, but I haven't been able to read it properly. The only thing I know is that she was a plucker about three years ago when the previous owner got her, and is only rehoming her now because she feels she does not get enough attentions as there are two cockatoos, one amazon, a conure, and a cockatiel in the house as well. She was sad to see Luna go.

Thanks for anyone who read all that. I'm an excited Parront, and will read anything you send my way!

[liz]

Welcome to the forum. Yes I enjoyed your long post. Others will come on and ask specific questions to learn more about them.
There are bird rescues everywhere. I am new to Florida and live in Citrus county. Have you lived here long?

[Wolf]

Well, if the today in your post is Aug. 14th, you will have had this bird for nearly 24 hours by the time that I am typing this. The first thing is to relax and give Luna a chance to relax as well. Right now she is scared and everything that she has known is gone, she is in a new place with strange new humans and all she wants is some reassurance and it appears to me that she gets this mainly by perching on your shoulder. It is not unusual for a bird to stop eating for a couple of days when they are rehomed in this fashion, just keep an eye on her to make sure that she starts eating. She will probably be eating by the time you read this.
Spend lots of time with Luna just walking around with her on your shoulder, if that makes her happy, and talking and singing with her without asking anything else of her. Right now you need to establish yourself with her as a person that she can trust.
This is a good time to put her on a solar light schedule and to evaluate her diet. It is a good time to find out what her favorite foods are. She is likely to change how she acts when she relaxes enough so kind of look at this initial period of time as Luna being on her best behavior and expect some changes as she gains confidence.

[Pajarita]

Put her cage up high in a quiet spot (not too much human traffic but where she can still see and hear the humans) and cover half of it with a towel or whatever (half the top, the whole back and half each of the sides). This will make her feel safe and will help with her not eating. If she is so nervous, please don't take her outside or anywhere (keep her in the same room for a couple of weeks), strange places stress them out something terrible and she is already stressed out as it is (not your fault, it's the new human, new house, new everything that is doing it).

[flappybird]

I've been in Florida/ The USA since 2004, but in Gainesville since 2008. Gainesville is a nice place, I like it more than Miami where I moved to for highschool. Thanks for the welcome!

Update!

I did notice that new spaces stress her out initially. Including new rooms in my house. She does love being on the shoulder, and seems like she would much rather do that than anything else. She likes to sit on top of her cage and do nothing a lot. She had her first screaming fit this afternoon when I removed her seed dish so she would quit pecking at it and wait for the fresh dinner I was going to give her. Then it happened again when when I closed her cage so she would stay inside and maybe eat her dinner instead of ignoring it. Ignored the screaming for a little bit, then when she was quiet I came over and opened it. She came out immediately and I let her hang out with me in the kitchen. She has been eating more for sure, but doesn't seem to excited to take anything from my hand. I think she's used to having food in her cage ALL the time and as a result she seems to mostly graze all day and not eat a lot in one sitting.

I'm worried about her almost all seed diet. There are pellets in the mix but I've noticed she ignores them. This morning I gave her some kale, cooked split mung beans with turmeric, and some bits of apple. She seemed to enjoy that, but ate very little of it overall. Tonight I'll be making some chop to store in the freezer and try to feed her that in the morning.

She tried some fresh bananas, and eventually ate half a blueberry. She kept regurgitating those two and re-eating them. She is doing that quite a bit right now and I'm not sure whether I should be concerned.

She REALLY loves the windowsill, and staring outside. Her old owner took her outside in her cage a lot and apparently while I was at work today my boyfriend did the same for a little while and she seemed to really enjoy it.

She's definitely more relaxed and making more noises, but still scared of new things initially and when I finally do start trying to train or shape her behaviors I don't really know where to start. I also found out today that she's 10 years old.

I'm glad you guys are okay with long posts... haha. I'm mostly being descriptive in the hopes that I'll learn as much as possible!

[Wolf]

I love long posts, they have so much more information to work with in helping you and your bird to having a wonderful relationship. Take it easy with the Kale it is good, but in limited amounts. I have been giving mine romaine and am starting them on bok choy now. Some of them are just so picky that it almost hurts.

In my short time with keeping parrots I have never had one of them to regurgitate a food and re eat it much less to do it repeatedly, so I don't know what to say. Maybe Pajarita has some information on this.

I keep food in my birds cages at all times except for at night after they go to sleep and mine will eat off and on all day long. I too, would worry about a mostly seed diet as well. I feed mine a whole grain based food with vegetables and a few legumes, we call it gloop and you can read all about it in the diet section of the forum.

I would think that the screaming has more to do with you leaving the vicinity of the cage, meaning that the bird is calling for you. I never ever ignore my birds when they are calling for me. They are highly social and they really need the security of my presence since they don't have others of their own kind to talk with and to provide them with the companionship that they require.

[flappybird]

Luna is eating the chop that I made her as we speak. I'm super excited about this because I thought she would ignore it. I put it in the dish she's used to eating from. This is my first time making chop, and I ended up with a lot more of it than I thought. If I measure out 1/2cup a day (1/4 morning and 1/4 night supplemented by fruits, pellets and some of her old seed mix) then I made enough for a month. I am scared that she'll get sick of it, but I plan to add different spices and fruits each day. Egg, pasta, whatever else is on hand.

This is what I put in this one:
Kale
Fennel
Broccoli
15 bean mix (cooked - no seasonings)
Farro
Red Peppers
Poblano pepper
parsnip
carrots
inch long piece of fresh ginger
spanish squash
sweet potato
oats (as the main dry ingredient that would suck some of the water out of the root veggies)
millet
a teaspoon of ground up milk thistle seeds
I was about to put in ground flax but it turns out the bag I had was expired

This was my first try.. I'll be putting in more greens next time, like dandelion greens, collards, chard, etc. This morning I served her first portion with some cinnamon and some of her multivitamin powder that the guy at the local bird store in Orlando recommended. Her feathers don't look too great especially under her wings which is why he did.

As I'm typing this, I'm sitting on the couch in front of her cage and she can see me but all of a sudden she let out that crazy call again. The volume is very very high, but it's not necessarily the volume that bothers me, it's the fact that it's a very REPETITIVE, grating, unrelenting shriek that doesn't stop even after I respond. I was calling to her trying to get her to hear me, but I didn't get up from the couch to get her (which is what she wanted) until she quit screaming. I don't want to reinforce this extreme screaming as a way to get me to come running. This is the first time she does it with me in sight to get herself picked up. I don't want this to go downhill!

Her wings have been clipped at least the whole time the previous owner had her and maybe before that, it looks really jagged and crappy, the first 2-3 primary feathers are intact, it's just all the ones in the middle that are snipped off. If she's desperate she'll try to fly off a surface she's on, but it's definitely a dangerous crash landing kind of situation. I don't know how long it'll take them to grow out though. She was on my shoulder just now and went to the back of the couch, only to fly from the back of the couch to the floor by her cage which is about two yards. (She quit eating her breakfast after a few big bites because I guess she expects it to be there all day, but it's fresh so it won't. Wonder how to teach her that..)

[Wolf]

That is why I feed gloop instead of chop, it lasts much longer and there should always be food in the cage unless the bird is sleeping.
You can work on changing her flock call to a whistle, provided that you can whistle. Just whistle in response to her call, choose a one or two note whistle and use it only in response to her call and over time she will start to use it instead of the call that she is using now.
Depending on Luna's light schedule and when she last molted in relation to the last time she was clipped it may take up to two years for her to regrow all of her flight feathers back.

[flappybird]

Yeah, I'll try the whistle. Hers is so loud I don't think she can hear anything above it, heh.

I bought her a travel cage (poquito hotel) that she'll be using on occasion, but for now I have it near her cage and now she prefers sitting on top of it because it has a proper perch on the top. Her original cage doesn't have anything, and while I know she likes to sit out and on top, it's not as comfortable. I also introduced a shredding toy, and she's taken a bit of interest in it. Yay!

[Pajarita]

Well, I don't like chop but the only reason why I don't like it is that my birds don't like it. Too watery and mushy. They do love gloop so that's what they get but if yours likes chop, then by all means, use it. Only don't put collard greens, spinach and chard in it (too high in oxalic acid) and just a bit of kale (and then only the blue one because the regular one has too much sorbitol in it and both of them have goitrogenic side effects). Use broccoli instead but not a whole lot, either.
Don't use any colored beans, only white ones, and be careful of what needs to be organic (like kale, carrots and peppers). Farro is good but you would be better off with wheat kernels, and I don't know if by oats you mean oat groats but it seems to me that you are talking oatmeal which is not bad but not as good as whole oats. And they need their breakfast to be there all day long.

Also, a teaspoon of ground up milk thistle seeds will not really do anything one way or the other. You need a good, non-alcoholic liquid extract instead as well as dandelion root and methionine because after 10 years of a bad diet, I bet his/her liver and kidneys are already showing problems.

As to not allowing a bird out of its cage or responding to it until it has stopped screaming... well, I know that this is what most birdsites will tell you to do but it's exactly the same as ignoring a crying baby and for the life of me I don't know how people do it! Parrots might have gotten into the habit of screaming all day long but they got into it because they were lonely and neglected so ignoring them is not the right thing to do because you are not really training the bird not to scream, you are just making clear to him/her that you don't care if he/she is upset and that no matter what, you will only approach it when you decide and not when he/she needs it. Not a good thing, if you ask me. I've taken in several screamers and they all stopped once they realized that they no longer needed to call incessantly for attention because they had it even when they did not scream. And the 'method' I used was to go to them and reassure them every time they did scream. It takes time and it can get on your nerves, no doubt about it (took 10 months with a cockatoo)! But it's what I would do with any creature that has been neglected and asks for love. I would not ignore a crying baby, a puppy, a kitten, a bird or any creature that asks for my love and company.

For good plumage you need sesame and hemp seeds but be careful with the quantity because of the protein content.