She is Angry in the Mornings

[tumaykilinc]

Hello, My CAG is acting weird in the mornings. When i get in the room she climbs down her cage, walks on the ground a little and climbs back on her cage, and then she is angry for another 2 minutes and then calms down.

I usually let her sleep at 8pm-9pm, i turn the lights off and take my laptop to another room. I sleep late because i am often working online with an international company. Because of that i wake up late, compared to her.

Do you think she is angry because she wakes up with the sun, and be left alone until i wake up?
I also tried offering her food from hand, thinking she might be hungry (she has food in her food bowl) and she refused.

She is doing that for 6 days we own her, i am trying to understand this behaviour and fix it if it is an issue between me and her, so i decided to ask some experienced people on here.

Thank you!

[liz]

If you have only had her for 6 days you are doing good. Most parrots will not leave their cage in that amount of time.
Where did you get her? How old is she? Has she been in another home?

[Wolf]

I don't know as to me there is simply not enough information to go by to be able to reach any real conclusion as to what your Grey lady is doing or even if she is indeed angry. I may be a bit dense, it would not be the first time, but what makes you think that she is angry?

Like Liz, your post poses more questions for me than anything else, especially if we are to try to give you honest answers. You already know that they are not like dogs and cats and their intelligence causes them to try to communicate with us in ways that are unique to each bird and this is why it takes so much more information to figure these things out.


Six days is not very much time and it appears that she is doing fine from what you have said. Could you share with us what her daily schedule is at this time? What foods does she eat, as opposed to what you offer her? Do you know how old she is? Has she been to the vet yet?

I would love to try o help you with this so could you elaborate on exactly what it is that she is doing in the mornings that makes you feel that she may be angry with you. videos and picture are always helpful, not to mention that we like pictures too.

[tumaykilinc]

Thanks for the answers, she is used to eating seeds and i am trying to change her diet to more healthy foods like carrot, apple and banana. Those are the 3 things she at least takes some bites. I am going to try more fruits and veggies. I do my research before i give her anything to keep her safe. So, to be honest she still eats seeds 3/4 of the time.

I am her 3rd owner but all her owners didn't have her for a long time. Last owner had her for only a month, I adopted her from a guy who was moving. She is about 2.5 years old and has DNA certificate showing she is a female. I didn't take her to vet, i took the vet to our house. I didn't want to cage her and move to another place because she hates it and starts screaming.

I will explain the situation more in detail. She never leaves the cage in the day time, she doesn't scream if i don't get too close (too close i mean 2-3 centimeters). She accepts the food from my hand, actually she eats from anyone's hand. She does "beak grinding" after she eats, after i talk to her. She is on top of her cage 99% of the time(The cage opens from top and There is a perch, she stays there) . I am not forcing her to go into the cage even though we need her to go into the cage from time to time but we are putting food bowls and water bowls inside the cage, she only goes inside the cage when we are not around.

In the mornings (Which is 10.30am for me) when i open the door say good morning, she starts climbing down the cage and starts walking on the ground, there is a couch and she goes behind it and then goes back to her cage and climbs to the top. I think she is angry because she makes that "grrrr" voice(i don't know what it is called), which comes before screaming. She won't scream if i don't get too close but keep doing that "grrr" voice as i talk and try to relax her. And after 2 minutes she stops and gets back to normal.

The first thing that came to my and wife's minds is that she is angry because she wakes up early, and we wake up late and she is alone from the time she wakes up until the time we wake up.

I try to make everything as clear as i can, English is not my main language but i am trying my best to describe everything.

[Pajarita]

Well, if English is not your first language, you are explaining VERY well!

OK, now let's see. Yes, leaving her alone for hours in the morning (she knows you are in the house) would make her anxious and possibly despondent (parrots hardly ever really get mad, what people think is anger is often a completely different thing). Parrots do most of their socialization at that time because they go out to forage a bit after they wake up (at sunrise -and the foraging is a social event for them), after that they bathe, preen and interact (again, social events all of them), it's only at around noon that they rest or nap so, although no parrot is ever alone in the wild, this is the best time for our captive-bred ones to be by themselves; then they become active again and interact, chew things, etc (always surrounded by their flock) and, at sunset, they again go out foraging (another big social event) and, by the time that night falls, they are all in their favorite roosting spots and going to sleep so, although I don't know where you are physically located, unless the sun is setting at 9pm there, the schedule you mention is screwing up with her circadian cycle which would affect her mood as well as her health.

Also, with this schedule, you will never get her to switch to a good diet because the best time to offer them healthy food is for breakfast. Does your wife work the same schedule as you? Because somebody should get up early, clean her cage and feed her the 'good' food (which is not just fruits or veggies but cooked whole grains and beans mixed with veggies as well as raw fruits, veggies and leafy greens) and then, if this somebody wants to go back to bed for another couple of hours, fine -not the best situation because after breakfast is a great time to interact with them which is what you should be doing right now (bonding!) but better than her been alone and hungry for hours (and if she is not hungry because she has seeds in her bowl, you are shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to her diet). Parrots are not like dogs that get used to our schedule so as long as they go out regularly two or three times a day, it doesn't really matter at what times during the day this happens or whether they eat at 8 am and 8 pm or at 12 am and 12 pm. With parrots, we need to live on their schedule which is the same as any bird out there: up with sunrise, to bed with sunset. Mind you, this is not my opinion, it's the way that nature made them.

[tumaykilinc]

Thanks for your informative post. I will start waking up early from tomorrow on and keep her a company

[Wolf]

I have a very bad back for which I am on a very high dosage of morphine and sometimes the pain is so much that I must lie down for a while. I have found that my birds accept this action much better if I lie down on the sofa in the room with them, this allows them to talk with me and crawl around on me, they will even allow me to take a hour long nap with them either on the back of the sofa or on top of their cage, I think that they do well with it because I am right there with them and can respond to anything that they do.

[marie83]

I have a very bad back for which I am on a very high dosage of morphine and sometimes the pain is so much that I must lie down for a while. I have found that my birds accept this action much better if I lie down on the sofa in the room with them, this allows them to talk with me and crawl around on me, they will even allow me to take a hour long nap with them either on the back of the sofa or on top of their cage, I think that they do well with it because I am right there with them and can respond to anything that they do.

Hah, your lucky you can do that, Ollie will not allow us to relax or sleep on the sofa if he is out as he will start nibbling on our ears/eyelids or anywhere that gets our attention really. If we are lucky he will refrain from the nibbles and just crawl in our clothes, push his body under our hands etc... I had to put him away yesterday for an hour as bf fell asleep on the sofa- he was more than happy with attention just from me until he realised my bf was sleeping then he was on a mission to wake him up no matter what I did to try to keep him busy or with me.

[liz]

I put sheer curtains on my bedroom door. Myrtle was coming in and tormenting me to get up. That stopped her but the little pedestrian walks under the curtains. There are many mornings that I wake up with him sitting on my chest.

[Wolf]

Kiki will wake me up if I lie down for more than an hour, she does this through the judicious use of her beak up and down my body, biting just hard enough to cause enough pain to make me jump just a little.