Akimi (and some GCC behaviour questions)

[Saerphe]

She's currently sitting by my ear and making quiet peeping noises. It's kind of adorable.

She's still a little nippy, but she hasn't drawn blood from me since her second day here... can't say the same for my brother, but she's been behaving a little bit better for him the last couple of days. Tomorrow marks one week since we brought her home. She likes to sit on my shoulder and preen my face for long periods, but hasn't let me pet her yet. She's simultaneously nervous and fascinated by my dog (they're always supervised together). XD

Sometimes she gets a bit carried away when she's preening me and nips, but a reminder to 'be gentle' or 'be nice' is usually enough to curb the behaviour for a little while. Sending her to bed around 9:00 PM every night has helped too, and I'm planning on starting her on a gloop diet tomorrow so maybe a better diet will help with her temperament as well.

When she's in her cage though, and we're anywhere in her line of site, she begs incessantly. If we're not in her line of site, she screams - though she's getting better about that as well and doesn't scream nearly so much when we leave the house. This morning she was saying 'pretty bird' over and over (I finally deciphered her conure voice ) so I think I'll work on trying to make that her contact call (I can't whistle).

I worry about turning her into a velcro bird, though. She does have toys, but she really only plays with the ones brought from her old home. Asides from letting her get more comfortable in her new home, does anyone have any tips to encourage her to be more independent?

Also, she sometimes makes these little grunty, snorty noises in my ear while she's preening me. My brother calls them 'mouthbreather noises'. There's no nasal discharge and she seems plenty healthy and has no trouble breathing normally, so I was just wondering if anyone else has a GCC that does that?

She also does this head-bob thing where every time her head passes my skin she preens it, and is very fluffed up when she does this. It's like 'rage preening' or something. Anyone else experience this?

She co-starred in my vlog this week.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxh44UBSJ7U

[Pajarita]

Aw, she sounds adorable! But, my dear, if you did not want a Velcro bird, you should never have gotten a GCC because they are worse than toos when it comes to neediness!

[Saerphe]

I'm kind of realizing that now. She wants to be on me all the time, and that would be less of a problem if she didn't preen my face obsessively to the point of painfulness. I had to put her away for a bit this morning because my skin started feeling raw. I would be more than happy to have her hang out with me all the time if I could just get her to curb her nippiness habit (a common problem with conures, I know).

And though she's happy to preen me for hours on end, she won't let anyone pet her. Whenever I try, she nips pretty hard. I find it kind of hard to really bond with a bird who won't let you pet them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very much committed to her and to her well-being... but sometimes I think I should have waited a bit longer and gotten a pionus instead. *sigh* I have to remind myself that it's only been a week since I got her and she's already improved quite a bit (and we made some great strides today), but it's hard to not get discouraged sometimes. I can be kind of over-eager with animals, and as much as I'd like to think I have a lot of patience, I do get discouraged kind of easily.

[Wolf]

Some of the individual behaviors I can't help with as I don't have any GCC's. You don't have to be concerned about her turning into a Velcro bird as she is just naturally that way already. Al you can do is to encourage but not insist on independent play time as her natural predilection is to be with you 24/7.
Saw you post as I was going to post this. You just have to be patient and consistent with the be nice or which ever phrase that you use and persistent in using it and she will eventually get it. This bird is trying to bond with you, but she has to reconcile this desire with the fact that she doesn't know you very well yet and because of that she doesn't trust you fully right now. I am sure that if you will just be patient and let her set the pace that you will be very happy with this bird and then after a while you wouldn't want to imagine your life without her in it.

[Saerphe]

Thanks. I know I can't expect her to let me pet her and hold her and whatnot all at once and I need to give her more time. We were able to spend some quiet time today with her playing in/on her cage while I sat nearby. I figure the fact that I didn't go to work today - it being the weekend and all - probably threw off her established routine a bit. Normally I would leave for work around 8:15 AM and get home around 5:00 PM.

She gets let out of her cage for the evening around that time, goes in again for a few minutes while I walk my dog around the block, and comes out again for the rest of the evening until her bedtime around 9:00 PM. She's usually out with my brother for part of the day while I'm at work (he's still working on getting a job, so he's home during the day). I would really like to be able to take her outside with me when I walk Bruno. I just got my Aviator harness in the mail today, but we are so far from even being able to attempt that yet, since I can't even pet her without getting nipped.

She's usually at her most cranky in the last hour or so before she goes to bed for the night, which can make it tricky to end the day on a positive note. Like I said, she's made some great improvements for it being only her first week. When I have to leave for any reason, she usually stops yelling at me once I'm out the door, and she rarely resists going back into her cage when I need her to (I also reward going in with a treat pretty consistently, since I want her to keep that habit). She steps up for me without nipping pretty regularly now, she took to her new gloop diet with almost no hesitation (I don't think I've ever seen her eat so much, in fact), and even let me take her into the shower this morning... though she didn't really enjoy it as much as I'd hoped she would, she didn't seem overly frightened either. We even did a little target training today, something that I hadn't been able to do earlier because she was basically afraid of everything, including the target stick.

I think at least part of her problem is she's kind of a low-confidence bird. Even her previous owner described her as having kind of a nervous temperament. She is getting a little bolder about exploring her immediate vicinity now (she even popped a key off my laptop today... nothing vital, thankfully) so here's hoping she becomes a bit more self-assured as time goes on.

[Wolf]

She hasn't been with you very long and has already made wonderful progress, despite everything being new to her, I just don't see this as a low confidence type of bird, it takes a lot to make this amount and kind of progress in her situation.

[Saerphe]

That makes me feel a lot better actually. I think being able to end the day before her bedtime on a positive note would be good for both of us, but with how cranky she gets just before bed that is a bit tricky. I have to regularly remind myself that it's only been a week and she's already gotten a lot better and she will keep getting better with time.

[Pajarita]

No, she doesn't have low confidence. She is in a strange place so she is leery of everything and everybody. She is also on her honeymoon period so don't be too upset when she starts been more assertive (and that usually means more nippy ). This is the reason why we emphasize the need to bond with the bird first... because, if you don't, once the honeymoon period is over, they get very bitey.

[Saerphe]

Akimi actually let me pet her today... sort of. With intermittent nips.

[Saerphe]

Akimi's only been here about two weeks and we had kind of a rocky start, but now when I look back, she's come along in leaps and bounds. Today she actually let me cover her with one hand and flip her over so she was lying on her back in my hand for a few seconds. She's still pretty nippy and screechy, but she's been much nicer to me and my brother the last few days and I can be a little more hands-on with her every day. She seems to like getting kisses, and even makes kissy noises when she preens me sometimes.

I hope to be able to file her toenails down a little bit in a few weeks... though they also aren't as bad since I swapped out her old dowel perches for natural apple perches from an untreated tree back home - I have fewer pockmarks on my hands and arms than I did before.

She also doesn't panic-scream at her training perch anymore when I touch it or move it around. It has a little mess-catcher base, so for now I've been putting sunflower seeds on it and making a show of taking a seed out of it whenever I give her a treat. She hasn't perched on it yet, but considering I couldn't even pick it up when it was on the opposite side of the room from her without her screaming, she's made a significant improvement.

She also dropped two very pretty primaries today. All I can say is, if she's starting moult then it's no wonder she's cranky.