Hello there!

[SkyBirdie]

Those are my two beloved birds ^^
Benio on the knee, and Petra back there on the couch

We've had these for i believe 7 years now.
But those 7 years of having these havn't been great, and i should not post this here.
Maybe this can be as both introduction, and Asking for advice?

When we first got these 2 birdies, they were of course very calm, and lovely, specially Petra.
Whilst Benio is all out crazy, but in a funny way
Everytime he is on the floor, he takes his beak down the floor, and goes back and forth, just like a vacuum cleaner
Well, we believe Benio is a "He" we have not tested him.
but Petra we do know is a She.
Also, with Petra. i believe she want's to be a dentist, as she tries to clean my mouth whenever she gets the chance.

Anyways, the problem is that in the start, we haven't been good parrot owners, and still aren't kind of :/ which i do really want me and my dad to Improve.

I would really love to have advice for how to make them super friendly again.
As with these, they bite quite hard, and have their nails sharp.

I'm actually out of words to continue.-.
Anyways, Sorry for my english, i'm Norwegian.

Hope i can get some advice

[liz]

Welcome to the forum. Your English is as good as mine and it is my only language. You also spell better than me.
We really like it when someone joins the forum to learn from the other members. I am sure you have things to teach us too. Don't hesitate to post what you have learned or to ask questions even if you think they are stupid. If you have a question it is important enough that the others will respond with the info they have. We even talk about birdy poop quite often.
Parrot humans have no counter part in the rest of the world. We are all consumed by our birdies.

[SkyBirdie]

Welcome to the forum. Your English is as good as mine and it is my only language. You also spell better than me.
We really like it when someone joins the forum to learn from the other members. I am sure you have things to teach us too. Don't hesitate to post what you have learned or to ask questions even if you think they are stupid. If you have a question it is important enough that the others will respond with the info they have. We even talk about birdy poop quite often.
Parrot humans have no counter part in the rest of the world. We are all consumed by our birdies.

"Consumed by our birdies" that is true indeed, Hehe.
And thank you

What forum section is best to find/ask questions at?

[Wolf]

What section is the best to ask questions in, depends on the question. Most of us make it a habit to try and read every post and some people seem to frequent some parts of the forum more than other parts, but regardless your posts will be read and answered by someone.

Now back to your first post, I wish it were as easy to give you advice about your birds but due to the intelligence of the species in general and also of the individual birds intelligence and their personality it usually take some detailed background about the bird as best as possible along with what was going on before during and after a behavior issue in order to begin to understand what may be going on with your birds. It also takes information that most people do not think of as being related to a behavioral problem because like us they are affected by the environment in which we live and what our routines are. So such things as cage size and placement are important for understanding some of their behaviors as are things such as waking and sleeping times, diet both when they get what foods as well as what foods they get, Time out of the cage and what type and how much interaction they receive is also important Even down to how much of what types of lighting they are exposed to can change some of their behaviors.
So the more information that you can share with us helps to give you as accurate information as we can. Try to remember that what you tell us and show us through pictures and videos are our only window into your birds world, so you are in effect our eyes and ears towards understanding your birds.

[SkyBirdie]

Wolf, Thanks for your information

I do not know Details of my birds background, really. As i was not with my dad when he bought them.
And basically, when we first received Benio, both me and him were scared of eachother xD

I was around 11-12 when we got both, We got Nemesis(Benio) few months before we decided to get Petra.
So i do not have information regarding How many homes they had, or of such.
We got them when hey were young though.
so i guess they weren't in many different homes.
I wasn't able to give them much attention at that time, but now i'm 18, 19 in sept.
so i can have much more time with them

As for my dad and Step-mom, their interactions with the birds i have little information of :/
As i used to have to move back and forth between my mom and dad's house..
Anyways, our routines are that we give them breakfast at around these times, 08:00 - 12:00
now i'm not the one Who prepares their breakfast, but i hand them to them, as they do have their own room, They get 4 small bread slices, 2 with Nugatti, and 2 with Jam, and then they receive 2 peanuts each, and Sunflower seeds, and the usual parrot food from the animal store.
that is what i know, sometimes the remains of what we had, like Noodles, Spaghetti.

We do not have much Parrot toys, which i do want to get, but i don't know what xD

Also, in their room, they do have access to Outdoor cage, which if they want when it's warmer outside, and we've taken the pillow away from the blockage.

Forgot to mention that, the times we do take them out of their room, is between 17-18 on Mon-fri and have them till around 19:30-20:00. whilst on weekends, maybe from 15:00 to around 20:00
I guess that seems to be to liitle time to spend with them :/

It actually depends on how much they annoy my dad :/ He can't easly Ignore their screaming, which i can.
Which is why i want advice to how i can improve all 4 of us relationships :/

i may have missed something to tell here, which i have forgotten ._.
and some things may be confusing, sorry.

[liz]

You are in NY but are you from another country? I ask only because of what you are feeding them.

[SkyBirdie]

You are in NY but are you from another country? I ask only because of what you are feeding them.

Does it say i'm from New York? .-.

I'm from norway, and i still live here in norway.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum!

Now, the birds' ages should be easy to figure out as they must have leg bands (rings around their legs) with the year they were hatched. As to helping you with their 'issues', what exactly are these issues you need help with? You talk about sharp nails (easy to take care of), screams and bites (not so easy but perfectly correctable) but when do they scream and bite? How often? Do they do it to everybody or is there somebody they never bite?

You go over their routines in a very general way but, for what I understand, it appears they don't really have any set schedule and that is, most definitely, one of the reasons for the screams and bites. Their diet is also quite bad, I am afraid, as you are feeding store food (dry), bread, sugar and low quality protein (sunflowers and peanuts). Macaws eat A LOT of fruit every single day and, for protein, they eat nuts (peanuts are not really nuts). They are tropical birds and need the high moisture, high fiber of the fruit and the better quality protein of tree nuts. Bread and jam for breakfast is relatively safe for people but not good for macaws. All you are feeding is simple carbs which parrots are not very good at metabolizing. So, first order of business is to give them a good diet: raw fruit and vegetables, whole grains cooked al dente and nuts. Period. But, if you haven't been supplementing this diet with vitamins and minerals (check the 'store food' you have been feeding to see if it has any) you should do it for a few weeks until you get them to eat the better diet regularly.

Then you need to implement strict schedules and routines. Parrots need to follow the sun, which is a HUGE problem in Northern countries because you either have too long days or too long nights so you will need to work a bit on infrastructure so you can reproduce a 'normal' seasonal sun schedule (basically, you need to 'make' a fake sunrise and sunset and to switch the day light hours throughout the year in order for their endocrine system to follow the seasons they would be following if they were in their natural habitat. Because, as it is, you are giving them breeding days throughout the entire year and that makes them aggressive - B&Gs are one of the most mild-mannered species as well as naturally low hormone birds but been in pain and aroused for years without relief will make them bite same as any other species.

They should wake up with sunrise, get a fresh food breakfast no longer than one hour after, 4 solid hours of out of cage time with 2 hours of personal interaction, noon rest and dinner when sunset is beginning, sleep after sun sets. In your case, you will have to 'create' the sunrise and sunset with red and white lights at different intensities while keeping a good quality (CRI 94+ and Ktemp between 5000 and 5500) for during the day (birds are the most visually oriented animal of all the vertebrates and need good quality light to be healthy and content).

Once this new diet and schedule is in place for a couple of weeks, you can start working with them by target training and special rewards. You won't get a instant result because they will still be hormonal (it could take up to 3 seasons to 'clean out' their bloodstream of extra sexual hormones) and you need to undo the bad schedule and bad diet they have been under but slowly but surely they will start reacting to the better treatment. B&G are very affectionate birds and, if one could use this word with any parrot species, I would say that they are the most docile of them so it's just a matter of giving them the chance to show how good they are...

[SkyBirdie]

Sorry for late reply, me and my dad have had the birds out of their room for like 4-5 hours today,
i just about put them to bed.

Pajarita: They do have Leg rings, yes. but i do not have the papers for these birds, as i was not the one who bought them, but my step-mom should have them somewhere.

As with the sharp nails, those are hard to clip from Benio and Petra, as they are scared of the nail clipper, and we have not teached them to do it themselves :/

They bite literally anything within their vicinity, and to everyone... like for example, just 1hour ago, i was just sitting calmy, not moving at all, and then Petra just attacks and bite my arm quite hard,
Both do tend to do it, but it's mostly Petra, as she does it most, Benio rarely does it, but he's always crazy anyways xD As with their scream, they mostly do it when only my dad is looking out for them...
As when i was in the living room with them today, they barely screamed, maybe once or twice.
But they will do it when i look out for them aswell.
It's not the pleasure scream they make, they go all out in their screams, which i can be able to ignore, but my dad can not... so he gets mad at them and will chase them in an angry manner... which scares the birds, and even me. Which is why i wish for advice to minimize the screams.
I know that is natural for them to scream, but my dad' apparently does not.

We've had the birds since 2008-2009, We've done a poor job with them

And i really wish to learn more about them, whish unfortunately i could not before.
So any and all tips and advice i get, is really appreciated

Also, they are not in a cage, we made a room only to the birds, Which we need to clean up, as now it's really messy...
Their room is huge, and we have branches set up for them, and they do have 2 huge windows, maybe i'll take a picture once of their messy room tomorrow?

[Wolf]

Sorry guys a spammer got in on a couple of postings while I was out mulching my Lady's flower bed and I have taken care of it since I came back online.

Well Skybirdie, I am going to say this right up front and get it out of my system so that we can try to get this fixed. Yes you and your dad have been perhaps one of the most terrible caregivers that your birds could have had. Now this is not said to criticize you, it is to show you that I do agree with you about your assessment of your parroting skills. Now that this is out of the way, we will need to concentrate on making life better for these birds. We do have a lot of work ahead of you. Now your replies have caused me to have a few more questions. What are the living arraingements with you and your dad and the birds? You make it sound as though you are sometimes there and sometimes not. Who are the people that have interaction with these birds? Are there any other animals in the house. these things do not matter to me but they do affect your birds. Who is their favorite human and do they both like the same one or do they favor different humans. Pictures of their room would be helpful.

I have to agree with the improvements suggested by Pajarita. Changing their diet may or may not be very hard to do but with most birds improving their diet is an ongoing project, for instance I keep adding new foods to all of my birds diets as quickly as they will allow me to do so. One of the easiest changes to make is in their waking and sleeping schedule, unless you are far enough north that the seasonal changes in the amounts of daylight and darkness are too extreme. you know what I mean in the summer the sun not setting for more than just a few hours and in winter only being up for just a very few hours. If this is the case getting them the right amount of sunlight all year long is going to require special lights and timing for the lights to adjust it so that it mast resembles the lighting near the equator, and/ or most of the temperate zones. More on that later.

Can anyone in the household whistle? The reason that I ask is the although birds scream for many different reasons they have a very loud contact call that they use when their person is not in sight and especially when they can hear their human but not see them. I normally answer this call everytime that they use it with a short two note whistle and in time they learn to whistle this whistle instead of screaming. They are very smart.

My Grey is having an issue and requires my full attention at the moment so I will have to come back a little later and continue this reply.