Where to start to make sure we are on the right track.

[twilamarie2003]

Hey everyone. I want to start off by saying thanks for all of the great information and advice you have posted here. It is really appreciated. So here goes. We brought home a hand fed, just weaned GCC about 1 1/2 weeks ago. He is about 10 weeks old. He is doing well at being handled. He likes pretty much everyone. We have a pretty crazy house, with 4 kids, and other birds. It is always loud and there is always a ton going on. I am curious where to really start with training him, what to do and not do to teach him good behaviors and curb the bad ones. I am hoping all of you "experts" out there will lead me in the right direction. I know he is a baby and he has to be taught all of these things. I just want to make sure we are doing the right sorts of things. If you have specifics and examples that would be great.

1. He hates being in his cage and rarely plays with anything. He has a plethora of toys at his disposal. We are trying to teach him what the toys are for, but no such luck yet. He really only wants to be held, all day long. He goes in his cage fine, but immediately jumps for you. He just paces by the front door and has a perch that he sits on and makes his chirp. I would like to leave the door open for him, but he is only interested in getting to someone to be held. So he always ends up jumping down to the floor. He doesn't like the play top either. Ideally, I want him to be a cuddler/snuggler but also to be okay just being out, playing on the play top, or on his perches/stands. Do you have any suggestions for getting him more interested in his cage, toys, the play top, etc. and just being okay without being held by someone 24/7. We have him out of the cage a ton during the day, but it is hard with him only wanting to sit on your shoulder or be held. Is this something that will work itself out in the end and we just need to keep at it by putting him on the stands/play top?

2. With the squawking, he has two different ones. He has a quieter chirp that he makes pretty much constantly. I am guessing that is the one he uses to try and get our attention and communicate. Then he has a squawk that is much louder and more annoying. This is the one he uses when you know he is upset. Is it best to ignore the loud squawk, by just continuing on with what we are doing or try to replace it with another word or phrase?

3. He is doing well eating fruits, veggies, and other foods. His main diet is roudy bush pellets. How often is too often to be offering the "table" food? Do you think it is a really bad habit to let him eat meals with us? We give him his own plate/place mat. He likes to eat at the table with us, but he can get bent out of shape when he can't eat from our plates.

4. He is doing well at target training. He is doing "step up", "step down", "turn", and we are working on "wave", and "flex". I am also working with him on being touched and handled all over. He doesn't like being on his back and doesn't love having his wings touched, but he still tolerates it pretty well. I would like to work on the potty training, but no luck with that yet. Any suggestions or things that would be good to be working on as far as early training goes?

5. What are the best things to do to encourage him to talk?

6. He is pretty nippy. Sometimes it just the little nips that don't really hurt, sometimes it is the full on bites that make you bleed. He likes my boys ears 0_0 Some recommend saying "no bite", some recommend "the earthquake", some recommend putting them down for a little bit. We have been saying "no bite", but that hasn't worked terribly well. He seems to be getting nippier as the days go by. He doesn't bite me a ton, but I would venture to say that I react a lot less than my other family members. What do you think? This is really one I would like to fix sooner than later.

7. His temperament has changed a bit in the last couple of days. I am not quite sure what it is, but he gets extremely annoyed on the turn of a dime. When he goes "Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde" he will kind of go for you to bite at you. He squawks and squeaks in a very angry way and gets extremely agitated, pacing and whatnot. We usually end up having to put him back in his cage for him to calm down a bit. He will go into his box and rant and scratch at the box and pace around. Usually he will calm down and he is back to his loveable self. There has been a time or two that we have had to put him to bed for the night because whenever you approach the cage, he would start carrying on again like he never really go over what was bugging him. We have been unable to figure out if there is a certain thing that is setting him off. About the time this started happening he began sitting in the window sill and he doesn't like being moved from there. We thought it might be that sitting by the window got him all riled up. We also thought that is might have been that about that same time he didn't get his way at snack time that night. We had ice cream and he didn't get any and when he went for the bowl and was moved away from it he was pretty upset. It has been about the same time each day for the last couple of days (except for today, it started earlier in the afternoon) that this happens. It is usually later in the evening, but before it should be "bedtime". He was handled before we brought him home, because he was hand fed, but perhaps not as much as he is handled now (by everyone in the house). He was also caged with 3 mustache parrot babies. I wonder if he is a bit over stimulated with everything and everyone here and that is how he is reacting. But he still doesn't want to be in his cage, either. I am torn on how to handle this or deal with it. This is certainly not a behavior I want to reward or have continue. I have also wondered if he is still adjusting to being here with us and is testing his boundaries and limits and just gets cranky.....this one concerns me a bit since it just started happening a couple days ago.

8. Right now his cage is in our living room. We have a multi-level home so he is not far from the family room, kitchen, and dining room, where most of the action is. Is it better for him to be in the family room where we are most of the time or is it more torture for him since he just paces at the cage door whenever he is in it?

I apologize that this post is so long, but I thought I would just throw it all out there and see what comes back. I feel a little like a first time parent again, with tons of worries and concerns. I want to give him the best start I can and know that the likeliness of that depends mostly on us and how we train him from the start. **sigh** Thanks in advance!

[Michael]

1. He hates being in his cage and rarely plays with anything. He has a plethora of toys at his disposal. We are trying to teach him what the toys are for, but no such luck yet. He really only wants to be held, all day long. He goes in his cage fine, but immediately jumps for you. He just paces by the front door and has a perch that he sits on and makes his chirp. I would like to leave the door open for him, but he is only interested in getting to someone to be held. So he always ends up jumping down to the floor. He doesn't like the play top either. Ideally, I want him to be a cuddler/snuggler but also to be okay just being out, playing on the play top, or on his perches/stands. Do you have any suggestions for getting him more interested in his cage, toys, the play top, etc. and just being okay without being held by someone 24/7. We have him out of the cage a ton during the day, but it is hard with him only wanting to sit on your shoulder or be held. Is this something that will work itself out in the end and we just need to keep at it by putting him on the stands/play top?

Just ignore him. Leave him in the cage and he'll figure it out on his own. He's just really young and not used to this sort of stuff. Don't pity him and give him attention all the time. It will create problems down the road by making him too needy. You can encourage toy play by showing him how to play and doing it together sometimes.

2. With the squawking, he has two different ones. He has a quieter chirp that he makes pretty much constantly. I am guessing that is the one he uses to try and get our attention and communicate. Then he has a squawk that is much louder and more annoying. This is the one he uses when you know he is upset. Is it best to ignore the loud squawk, by just continuing on with what we are doing or try to replace it with another word or phrase?

Ignore.

3. He is doing well eating fruits, veggies, and other foods. His main diet is roudy bush pellets. How often is too often to be offering the "table" food? Do you think it is a really bad habit to let him eat meals with us? We give him his own plate/place mat. He likes to eat at the table with us, but he can get bent out of shape when he can't eat from our plates.

This is a terrible idea. The bird will only get more annoying/testing if you do this. He will get into your plates and someday he'll get hurt. I know others will say its ok and think its cute, but it really isn't a good idea to have a bird out during meal times. As for quantity of table food allotted, basically it should never be more than 10-40% of all the food they eat in a day. If it's simple/healthy stuff like some fruit, veggies, etc... then it can be up to 40% but if it's junky stuff then much less.

4. He is doing well at target training. He is doing "step up", "step down", "turn", and we are working on "wave", and "flex". I am also working with him on being touched and handled all over. He doesn't like being on his back and doesn't love having his wings touched, but he still tolerates it pretty well. I would like to work on the potty training, but no luck with that yet. Any suggestions or things that would be good to be working on as far as early training goes?

Nothing. I think it's too early to be doing any kind of formal training. Just spend time with him, handle him, take him places that are acceptable for him to be, show him things. He can learn tricks his entire life but right now is the only time you can mold him into the routine and kind of pet he'll be. Of course informally you can train things plenty but I wouldn't sit down to 30 minute trick training sessions just yet. You can give treats for good behavior here and there but to do repetitious training, babies get bored quickly and don't learn much. GCC probably grows up quicker than parrots I'm experienced with so probably give it a few weeks before beginning formal training.

5. What are the best things to do to encourage him to talk?

Talk.

6. He is pretty nippy. Sometimes it just the little nips that don't really hurt, sometimes it is the full on bites that make you bleed. He likes my boys ears 0_0 Some recommend saying "no bite", some recommend "the earthquake", some recommend putting them down for a little bit. We have been saying "no bite", but that hasn't worked terribly well. He seems to be getting nippier as the days go by. He doesn't bite me a ton, but I would venture to say that I react a lot less than my other family members. What do you think? This is really one I would like to fix sooner than later.

Don't do anything. He has to go through an exploratory phase. He's just feeling stuff. Once he gets bored of it, this will go away. Any reaction can and will work against you. Don't punish him either because it will hurt your relationship. Basically get used to it cause from what I hear, GCC (and most conures) are real nippers.

7. His temperament has changed a bit in the last couple of days. I am not quite sure what it is, but he gets extremely annoyed on the turn of a dime. When he goes "Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde" he will kind of go for you to bite at you. He squawks and squeaks in a very angry way and gets extremely agitated, pacing and whatnot. We usually end up having to put him back in his cage for him to calm down a bit. He will go into his box and rant and scratch at the box and pace around. Usually he will calm down and he is back to his loveable self. There has been a time or two that we have had to put him to bed for the night because whenever you approach the cage, he would start carrying on again like he never really go over what was bugging him. We have been unable to figure out if there is a certain thing that is setting him off. About the time this started happening he began sitting in the window sill and he doesn't like being moved from there. We thought it might be that sitting by the window got him all riled up. We also thought that is might have been that about that same time he didn't get his way at snack time that night. We had ice cream and he didn't get any and when he went for the bowl and was moved away from it he was pretty upset. It has been about the same time each day for the last couple of days (except for today, it started earlier in the afternoon) that this happens. It is usually later in the evening, but before it should be "bedtime". He was handled before we brought him home, because he was hand fed, but perhaps not as much as he is handled now (by everyone in the house). He was also caged with 3 mustache parrot babies. I wonder if he is a bit over stimulated with everything and everyone here and that is how he is reacting. But he still doesn't want to be in his cage, either. I am torn on how to handle this or deal with it. This is certainly not a behavior I want to reward or have continue. I have also wondered if he is still adjusting to being here with us and is testing his boundaries and limits and just gets cranky.....this one concerns me a bit since it just started happening a couple days ago.

Welcome to owning a GCC. You can't punish him for this. Don't ever use the cage as punishment. Unless you'd like to get bit and have to put up with a fight whenever you have to put him back!

8. Right now his cage is in our living room. We have a multi-level home so he is not far from the family room, kitchen, and dining room, where most of the action is. Is it better for him to be in the family room where we are most of the time or is it more torture for him since he just paces at the cage door whenever he is in it?

I suggest for cage to be in a more quite/private place and for out of cage time to be more public. I treat the cage as a tranquil place of relaxation for the parrot and you'll see some of the benefits mentioned in this article.

Basically, calm down. You're over thinking it. Things will come. Take your time and enjoy the baby period cause it's a time of discovery. Things get more dramatic and difficult later on. Oh, and please don't clip his wings any more.

[twilamarie2003]

Michael,

Thanks for the info. It is really helpful. I wondered how much I was over thinking it all . I appreciate your insight and help.

[Khaiqha]

I vote we sticky this under examples on how people should describe issues with their bird.