ok.. it's been nearly a year and it's getting worse

[Annne]

Hi, I haven't been on here in a long time but really need help cause i've just had enough. Please excuse my grammer or spelling.. i've just jumped on here quickly to write this.

My sun conure is getting worse with his screaming. Me and my partner have ignored the screaming but for awhile now he is screaming his head off when i stand up off the coach, talk, open the fridge or cupboard.. pretty much i'm not allowed to do anything other than sit on the couch and it's causing me and my partner to get upset that when i start to talk, he's screaming is all we can hear.

His screaming has been a big problem even tho i tried so hard researching before getting him. I've tried every technique but he does not stop screaming.. i could be waiting to enter the room for over 20mins and he still will not stop screaming until he sees me. I'll cover him and he won't stop screaming. The only thing i have been able to do is give him his food with safflower seeds to distract him and push him to the window and cover the back of his cage so he can't see me at all. He happily chirps and talks away but i have to sneak around the house so he can't hear me. Also it only works until about 3pm because that is when me or my partner comes home from work on weekdays and from then on he has to be moved back to the lounge area otherwise he screams his head off at the window. So when i come home from work i have to be in his sight the whole time until he gets covered for bed. Now this has been happening for nearly a year... i have ignored his screaming when i've needed to leave the room and come back and ignored him until he stops screaming... and not once has he not screamed when i do something.

I've also tried training him but from day one when i try to do step up he either flys away or bites me. I try and try but he refuses. I've tried training him other things but after the second try he has had enough and flys off.

Also when he is out of his cage he is constantly on me.. constantly nibbling me and occasionally flys over to my partner and does the same. He does not stop moving... he does his rounds where he nibbles fingers.. climbs, jumps on everything to get to the ears... gets tangled in my hair.. back to my fingers so he can lie upside down.. he is never just sitting on his play gym or perch doing his own thing.. it's just so frustrating because it just gets annoying after awhile especially if i'm trying to do something and he starts biting angrily whatever i'm doing. He ends up back in his cage with the door closed because he can't just stay in his cage if the door is open. He seems like he has ADHD.. he also bites himself angrily out of nowhere and makes angry screaming noises at himself.

Does anyone have any advise for me? It just sucks that i'm having to sneak around and feel like a criminal in my own house. I feel like i can't handle his attitude anymore.. but i said i'd never get rid of him

[Naurthon]

Have you tried any clicker training with your bird? I've found it very helpful with mine. The point of the clicker is that the sound serves as a short-term substitute reward for behavior you're trying to encourage. Sometimes it takes too long for you to get your parrot a treat after it's done something you like, and by the time you've actually given your bird the seed it's forgotten exactly what it was it did.

Use the clicker when your bird is quiet, even if it is just for a fraction of a second. Click when it pauses for breath, then give it a reward. Over time, it should get the idea and you can start only rewarding longer and longer periods of quiet.

I'd be careful about "distracting" your bird with safflower seeds in its food. If it is being noisy and you give it seeds in a bowl, it may take that as a reward for being loud.

My BCC used to scream quite a bit, but I broke him of the habit by teaching him to say "I love you" and then responding back to him whenever he said that and ignoring any screams. Just today Nikko and Dante were calling out "I love you" from the bird room while I responded "I love YOU" from the kitchen. It sure beats listening to the screaming.

And forget about "sneaking around" in your house. Birds have excellent hearing, and they'll hear you wherever you are in your house, no matter how quiet you are trying to be. Best to try to control your bird's behavior than to let it control yours.

[Michael]

A) That's a Sun Conure for you. You picked it.
B) Sounds like you've been teaching him to scream and have been positively reinforcing it.
C) This is why owning a parrot can only work with a complete training minded approach. They are wild animals and completely unsuitable for home life except that they are capable of learning (for good and for bad, in your case bad).

It is very easy to teach all the "bad" behavior. It is nearly irreversible. If you'd stuck around and asked for advice at the very first sight of the problems, we may have been able to work out a strategy to stop before it gets out of hand. After a year of reinforcement for screaming and other unwanted behavior, you'd practically need a miracle. Of course, even if you did everything 100% right, it would still be a noisy, flighty, bitey bird cause that's how Sun Conures are. However, all the extra expression of those characteristics may have been prevented. Training is reasonably easy. Untraining is next to impossible.

[Annne]

ok thanks.

Firstly i'd like to say... i have asked for help a year ago and i HAVE been doing what everyone had suggested... I researched way before i got him and i knew exactly what i was getting myself into.. i spent time with sun conures before choosing to get one.. i knew how loud he would be. For a year i have been ignoring him while he screams.. i have done techniques i was told here... by the breeder.. and by a vet nurse who looked after him while i was on holiday. For a YEAR! and he is still the same.

With the safflower seeds i should clarify.. he isn't screaming when i give them to him. In the morning he screams until i uncover him. I make his food which is fruit and veg, with soaked pigeon mix that has the safflower seeds in it and he has his pellet mix. When i give him this he goes for the safflower seeds first and i'm able to push him to the window while he's eating and cover the back and sneak away. In the morning is the only time i can do this.. every other time i try to push him to the window he screams that he can't see me.

How am i teaching him to scream when i stand, talk, and not in his sight. When he screams i don't look at him. I don't talk to him.. i completely ignore him.. when he is quiet i talk to him give him attention and let him out. I have been doing this the moment i got him. The only time he gets safflower seeds is with his breakfast and when i try to train him. He doesn't scream when my partner does the things i do. Also some times he's worse than usual and i thought it was due to molting. He always has pin feathers and it seems as soon as he grows his wing/tail feathers to full length they molt again. I thought molting was at certain times of the year not all the time?

I've also tried clicker training.. as i have clicker trained my dog. My conure gets over it very quickly.. even when i have his favorite seeds.. if he doesn't get them straight away he flies at me or just flies away.

Also is it normal for him to not stop moving when he's out of his cage? I've seen videos of conures just sitting on a perch stretching, preening, just hanging around out of their cage. Mine won't stop moving.. his feet r constantly running and jumping.. his beak constantly chewing like he needs a dummy in his mouth.. I've had him out for a lonnnng time trying to see if he'll calm down but he doesn't and i have to put him back in his cage. It would be nice to have his cage open so he can come in and out.

[Naurthon]

Michael, your comments seem unnecessarily harsh. I appreciate your creating this forum and I enjoy the videos you post on YouTube, and I feel sometimes the things you say to people here border on the mean. Telling someone essentially "you f-d up, now live with it" isn't helpful. To borrow a line from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: For someone who studies human behavior, you could try showing some.

Annne, understand how difficult it is for people who aren't able to visit and assess your situation to try to offer diagnoses and treatment for parrot behavior problems on line. Since we aren't there, it is incredibly difficult to tell what is actually going on and the best we can offer are generalities and inferences from our experience with our own birds.

When I read your original post, I definitely got the feeling that you may be doing something to reinforce your conure's screaming. Without being there, it is impossible to tell if that's the case or to offer specific suggestions. Companion parrot behavior problems are going to fall into one of three categories: natural behaviors that are maladaptive to living in a human home, neurotic or illness caused behaviors, or behaviors that are being reinforced by the bird's humans. What you described in your original post could be any of those things. I don't know what.

Here's what I do know: conures are flock animals who want a lot of social interaction; sun conures in particular are notoriously loud screamers; parrots are extremely smart animals and they are capable of learning new behaviors.

My Nikko screams for a couple of reasons. First, if someone he doesn't know is in sight, he will scream as an alarm. That rarely happens. Second, he sometimes just seems to take joy in being noisy; that's a conure for you. Third, and most frequent, he screams when he wants my attention. In your case, we can rule out alarm calls. It also sounds like you're dealing with more than the usual conure vocalness, so we're left with the third reason: attention.

Nikko has two types of screams. The first is a pair of two short, loud calls. I've learned that this is a contact call. He gives them when I'm out of sight and he wants to know where I am. This is an absolutely normal, expected behavior, so whenever he gives these contact calls, I respond by saying, "I'm right here" in a normal voice, wherever I am in the house. We'll sometimes do this a few times, then he usually moves on to other vocalizations. (Dante has also taken to responding to Nikko's contact calls with "I'm right here" LOL)

The second scream is an extended series of short, piercing calls. I imagine what your sun conure is doing is something like this. Nikko does this when he wants attention. He is more prone do this vocalization when he is molting and right after a time change like we just had going back to daylight saving time. I don't know how natural this call is in the wild, but it is what I consider "maladaptive" for living with people. When Nikko screams like this, he is expressing a real need, but doing so in a way that isn't appropriate for my home. I don't respond when he screams this way. Note what I mean when I say "I don't respond": I keep on doing whatever it was that I was doing in the first place. If I was being quiet and reading or watching TV, I keep being quiet. If I was talking with someone else, or engaged in some other vocalization of my own, I CONTINUE IT. Stopping and being quiet is a response and birds are smart enough to put two and two together and realize they can make you stop talking by screaming. That is a form of attention and can reinforce the screaming behavior.

While this may be "maladaptive", it is more or less natural and it isn't going to go away completely. That's why I taught Nikko to say "I love you" -- he can use that as an acceptable substitute behavior to screaming for attention. It is MUCH easier to replace an unwanted behavior with an acceptable variation than it is to just make the bad behavior go away. When Nikko wants attention, he knows screaming won't get him any, but saying "I love you" will, so he is much more likely to say "I love you" than he is to scream. Try to find a less offensive, or possibly even pleasant, vocalization that your bird does, and reward when it happens while not responding at all to the unwanted screaming and see if you can redirect your birds behavior.

Finally, your description of your bird flying around and nibbling on you and your partner makes it sound like your bird is really out of control. My boys are not allowed off of their cages unless *I* take them off myself. I know this won't be a popular suggestion on this board, but you should really consider clipping your bird's flight feathers. There are probably good arguments to be made for allowing a bird to be flighted, but it sounds like your bird's ability to fly around at will is damaging your relationship. Clip the wings and your bird will learn if it wants off the cage, it will have to step up without biting. It will learn that if it misbehaves, it can be put in timeout and restricted to its play gym. Having a flighted, untrained bird loose in the house is not a great idea. You can always let the feathers grow back once you can trust the bird to behave itself. At the very least, you should try CONSISTENT, in-cage target training with your clicker. Being out of the cage is a privilege, not a right.

And finally, finally while I don't want to place any blame on you, I will place responsibility on you. Our birds' behaviors are largely in response to things we are doing. You need to be constantly asking, not "why did my conure do this?" but "what did I do to prompt this behavior?" Have you ever watched "The Dog Whisperer" program? Cesar Milan rehabilitates dogs with behavior problems, but he TRAINS the dogs' owners. It is nearly always a case that the dog's problems are caused by the owner's behavior. I believe the same thing is true with parrots. (Milan also demonstrates that you can, sometimes easily, "untrain" bad behavior, in spite of Michael's assertion to the contrary.) Parrots are not people, and don't respond to human motivations. You need to learn to think like a parrot.

Your original post sounded like you are very distressed by your conure's screaming. I can definitely understand that. I will say I admire you for sticking in there and for your commitment to your bird. I hope you are able to find a solution.

[pennyandrocky]

hi annne, i'm just wondering what kind of toys,and how much time do you spend playing with your bird not blaming you but all i heard was time outs and need the good things with the bad.i'm lucky enough to be a stay at home mom so i have alot of time to spend playing( i know not everyone can)but on days when i have to go to my son's school,or to a doctors appointment they act up with screams. my birds are spoiled rotten aside from my son no matter what i'm doing it gets dropped as soon as one comes flying so the days they scream are my fault for indulging.i have been doing alot of spring cleaning and putting winter stuff away so i got some paper bags to keep my cockatoo busy so she doesn't miss me so much right now now when i'm off doing what i need to do i throw her a bag and she entertains herself without screaming.

[animal_lover]

Hi there. Naurthon...you bring up excellent points in all aspects ...love reading your posts. I am by far NO expert in parrot behavior..at all. I believe your little one may be trying to dominate you at times and I know I might get some flack by everyone but have you thought of clipping him? Just a thought. I feel for you. A sun conure can sure scream Hang in there. Just wondering...would getting another bird cut down on the noise as the conure could focus on something else besides his human??? Best of luck

Sarah & Jojo

[Michael]

Michael, your comments seem unnecessarily harsh. I appreciate your creating this forum and I enjoy the videos you post on YouTube, and I feel sometimes the things you say to people here border on the mean. Telling someone essentially "you f-d up, now live with it" isn't helpful. To borrow a line from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: For someone who studies human behavior, you could try showing some.

This isn't being harsh, believe me. Not gonna sugar coat it either. When a baby parrot has been taught all the things you don't want it to do in its first year (which is the stuff that really sticks for life), it's a project of insizeable proportions to overcome. This is the time when a parrot is really moldable and establishing good habits makes them much better to work with in the long term. Once a parrot learns to scream for attention, not only do you have to overcome a ton of screaming to try to teach it that it won't be rewarded, but you are threatened with spontaneous recovery for life. It will keep reverting to the screaming even if properly counter-conditioned because at some point it worked. Primacy probably plays a role as well. The situation is not good at all.

I think biting (although very difficult) can be overcome. Feather plucking and screaming are almost impossible to reverse. I'd like to be more encouraging and when it comes to stuff that can be trained, I am. But when someone takes the baby stage of a parrot and rewards it for screaming, it's beyond my imagination how to overcome it. I've always said that prevention may be the only solution in many cases (biting, screaming, plucking).

The reason I say screaming may well be irreversible by training is because the damn bird will scream for hours on end all day. There comes a point where you just can't find the chance to give it attention and reward for not screaming because that's all it does. Or it is quiet and screams the moment you approach. Even though you started walking over when the parrot was quiet, by the time you got there, it began screaming. So in its mind, screaming still worked.

A lot of other points you made (like natural behaviors, learned, etc) are just a good expansion of the points I originally made. Sun Conures are difficult because they naturally scream a lot and then it's easy to inadvertently reinforce that for more. I do like your point about how ignoring means to keep doing what you're doing as opposed to "doing something to demonstrate ignoring."

Finally, your description of your bird flying around and nibbling on you and your partner makes it sound like your bird is really out of control. My boys are not allowed off of their cages unless *I* take them off myself. I know this won't be a popular suggestion on this board, but you should really consider clipping your bird's flight feathers. There are probably good arguments to be made for allowing a bird to be flighted, but it sounds like your bird's ability to fly around at will is damaging your relationship. Clip the wings and your bird will learn if it wants off the cage, it will have to step up without biting. It will learn that if it misbehaves, it can be put in timeout and restricted to its play gym.

I'm not going to get into why I disagree with clipping on all other parameters, but I want to point out that in this case clipping definitely won't help on the screaming front and will most likely make it worse (if that is even possible). Clipping/caging restrict a parrot only to vocalizing for attention (which in most cases ends up as screaming). Luckily, when a parrot can get what it wants by flying, it usually doesn't involve screaming. Also, flying uses a LOT more energy than walking and sitting around on feathered butt all day. So flight is good. Sometimes if my parrots are being annoying, I'll intentionally make them fly a lot and they get tired. Then they're quiet and mellow for a while. It's a way for them to work off extra energy. I think screaming issues are more prevalent in clipped than flighted parrots (unless the flighted parrot is being caged all the time because the owner doesn't know how to train and manage flight and I think this is exactly what is happening in this case). This is why I say a complete training minded approach is necessary for all around tolerable companion parrots.

[Annne]

This isn't being harsh, believe me. Not gonna sugar coat it either.

To be honest I consider you being harsh.. i remember why i stopped coming on this forum now.. because i was reading posts that made people feel like sh*t and instead of offering advice was offering accusations. But i'm desperate and appreciate any advice people have to give right now. Now like i have said before... I have been trying to address this problem for nearly a year.. NOT letting him learn bad behaviors for a year and only just trying to address it now. Jun 17, 2011 i first post a topic called "screaming for attention.. help please" and did the whole ignore and prevent.. but somehow his attention screaming has led to screaming at me when i do certain things.

Naurthon thank you for your detailed reply! i will have to read over it and put certain things into place.
I have considered clipping his wings. From day one he refused to do the exercise step up over and over. He seems very bratty and doesn't like being told to do things... this started back when i first got him. I think his ability to fly has come in between proper training.. even with seeds he would rather just fly to my ear and start nibbling it or find something else he can have RIGHT NOW.. rather than the treat even tho he absolutely loves safflower seeds and sunflower seeds. How am i suppose to train him if he keeps flying away??? I watch how attentive others birds are while training but ever since i've had him he doesn't care. However with his flying he has so much fun ... he dive bombs, flies around certain spots and plays "how fast and close can i go to things".. You can just see he really loves it. So i don't think i can take that away from him.

i'm just wondering what kind of toys,and how much time do you spend playing with your bird

His cage has those big rope hanging things with blocks of wood, plastic ring things, a perch with plastic ring things around it, a foraging box to rip up (mostly all on the floor now) a bowl with different colored and shaped blocks which he goes through and they eventually end up on the floor, a foraging toy to put food in, other hanging things i can't remember at the moment. I'll have to get a photo and not all his toys r in there for rotating.. sorry it's passed 1am and i've just come off night shift so i probably don't make sense . He does spend a lot of time out when we r home. He really is a lovely bird when he is out of his cage.. very loving and affectionate.. loves to play upside down in hand and makes laughing noises when i kiss his belly. He gives kisses and makes the noise A LOT.. But anyway i'm no stay at home mum and i have recently started a new job which is shift work.. so he would probably not like that. Also when i got him i was only working casual and a few months after that i have been doing full time work. Now with a more reliable roster i can observe better what is going on and i really think Naurthon advice on understanding the situation is going to help.

Thanks to everybody else who replied. I'm always reluctant to ask for help as i watch other people shot down and stamped a bad person. I didn't think i would be in this position. I watched michaels videos, i read countless threads on sun conures and preventing screaming i did so much research before my conure was even hatched or hand over of my deposit. I think people are way too quick to judge and unless you've owned a conure (especially a sun conure) you won't fully understand what i'm going through.. also every bird is different.. i think i have an impatient one but i'm going to have to step back and understand what he specifically needs.

[GlassOnion]

I don't think you should clip, I really think that it would just make him more desperate for attention. He needs to wear out his energy, have you considered harness training him and taking him outside to fly? What about running around the house flying and giving him a soaking shower afterwards? I do agree with Naruthon(sp error) that it would be best to replace his screaming with a different sound. Does he do any clicks or whistles or have any human words? Perhaps you can reinforce that strongly so he knows that when he makes that sound, he gets what he wants.