by Wolf » Mon Mar 07, 2016 7:56 am
If I may add my 50 cents ( inflation).
As I am sure that you are aware of this bird is just a baby and all alone in a strange new place with a strange new human that he has decided might protect him as this ( in his natural environment ) is a recipe for becoming a snack for the first predator that comes by. So he is very scared and wants to be with you. This may very well be a blessing for you as it could help you to focus less on your own anxieties and more on his. Don't really know, but it does help some with depression.
Will come back to the toy issue directly, but would like to continue in this direction a little longer. Since this bird is so young it has missed out on a lot of the things that its parents would have taught it which now falls to you. You will have to teach your bird things like what to eat and not just whatever it was weaned to from its formula and it may need to be given supplemental feedings of its formula and be allowed to wean itself and this may also be a part of why it is coming to you so much. Please at least consider it. Now back to toys, most of the time the information that we receive about how a bird will be only applies to the adult bird and I believe that this is the case here. This bird has not yet been taught about toys and as its new parent it is up to you to teach it what the toy is and all the ways that it can play with and even destroy them. There is only one way to do this and that is to play with the toys and the bird together, paying attention to which ones it is afraid of and working on these later and starting with the ones that it is least afraid of.
Sneezing. This could be an indicator of illness or it could be as suggested, dust, it could also be caused by the air being too dry for the bird. A simple check to see if the humidity is low enough to cause this is to make sure you bird can't get to the water, but to use you shower on hot to fog up your bathroom and then take the bird in there for 10 to 15 minutes. If the sneezing stops, get a humidifier for you bird and run it part of the time each day.
I would never suggest that you place you bird in direct sunlight unless you can also provide it a way to get out of it whenever it wants to or it may overheat and die. If you can put up curtains than you ma be able to place the bird in front of a window using the curtain to block the sunlight either fully or partially for your bird. I do not know how your home is set up but you might also be able to use some of the larger houseplants to help with providing some shade from incoming sunlight as well as with air quality in the home.
I think that I have addressed most of the external factors that you expressed concerns about and hopefully my suggestions will prove a benefit to the both of you or at least start your thinking process to solve them with things more suited to your lifestyle. Back to the bird and I will let you be in peace.
First thing that you need to be aware of is that regardless of what this birds personality is at this stage of its life, it is going to changes, I can't say how dramatically it will change as sometimes it may not be much and other times the changes are very dramatic. This is a fact and the changes will begin when the hormones begin to affect the bird as it begins puberty and will continue until the bird is fully mature and again I can't tell you how long that will take as it varies from species to species as well as from bird to bird. But I can assure you that it will happen. That will come a bit later and you need to come to terms with yourself and this bird long before then, like now.
The first thing that you should have realized by now is that the bird responds to your every mood, it is its nature to do so. I doubt that it does so through smell like many predators do ,but it is quite an expert on body language and observation, so if you are anxious the bird will see this and it will also be anxious, the benefit to you and best way to deal with it is not by expecting the bird to change you but to understand that it is responding to you, often before you are even aware of the change in yourself and that can cue you in to the fact that you are beginning to become anxious and to calm yourself. This will help you by allowing you to gain better control of yourself and knowing what affects you, After all it is up to you to master this problem and no one can do it for you. This bird is much too small and fragile to do it as it can only respond to it as a means of self preservation. One anxiety attack in you could do irrepairable harm to the bird. All of my birds tell me valuable information about my moods from the little parrotlets to the CAG and Amazon. My CAG is larger than you baby but is probably the most responsive to changes in both my outlook and mood than even the parrotlets are. I suffer from severe depression brought on by the results of injury. Don't look to your bird to do any more than to alert you to anxiety issues in you that you may not have yet become aware of as it is an impossible task for any bird to accomplish, but they can help you to be more aware and help you to redirect yourself part of the time.
As many of the others here, I would get the paper work straightened out and keep the bird and give him a chance. Which by the way is a wonderful name for him, Chance. I firmly believe that sometimes the universe move to give us all what we most need even when we don't recognize it at the time. In this case I firmly believe that this happened as both you and this bird need what the other has to give more than the other bird. as this type of thing never works in only one direction or on just one level. Please consider these thing and let me know what happens. I can only hope that this will be helpful to the two of you.
