Hello there!

[Wolf]

Alright, I made it back.

Parrots are among the most intelligent of all animals, they are self aware, just like we are, They are not only capable of learning to speak human words but they will use them in proper context and they usually understand far more than they are able to speak. On of their biggest problems is that they don't handle change very well and because of this they need schedules and routines in order to make sense of the world around them. They need to know that certain thing are supposed to happen at certain time such as feeding times or bedtime. They need to be secure in the knowledge that an hour after breakfast that they are going to have free time to explore their surrounding or to play with and destroy their toys, they nee to know that after an hour of this free time that it is time for a training session, and so on, these were put forth only as examples. They also have problems with human light schedules as they need to wake up with sunrise and go to bed at dark, their bodies are designed to work in certain ways and they are strongly photoperiodic so they can't adjust these natural cycles in their bodies to the degree that they can remain healthy if they do not get the right amount of daylight and dark.

Parrots are territorial and this means that they have a certain area that they live in and only feed in certain areas and they use the same nesting areas to lay their eggs nd raise their young in. They are monogamous and remain mated for long periods of time with a large percentage of them remaining mated for life. They even name their offspring just like we do and they use that name for their entire life, just as we do. This mate bond is the same bond that they make with their special human and they tend to be jealous of their rights to their mates and their special humans and will try to run any rival for the affections and attention of them and in many cases if they are unable to make the interloper leave then they will turn on their human and/ or mate and try to drive them away from their rivals. They often have a sort of perverse sense of humor and they will plan little tricks to play on their humans just for the fun of getting a reaction out of them. They think and solve problems , make and use tools for the purpose of getting at foods that they could not otherwise get at. They are some of the most remarkable creatures that I have ever encountered. They have the same emotions as we do and if their mates or humans leave and don't return when they are supposed to they get severe depressions and begin to grieve for the loss of their human or mate whom they believe is dead.

All of these things mean that it is not enough to know what behaviors that they are doing, we must also work out why they are reacting in the manners that they do if we are going to be successful in behavior modification.

I am starting off this way because I do not know what you know about parrots or their natures and I want you to begin to understand why they do the things that they do. I want you to understand for instance that if your parrot is biting you that it has a good reason for doing so and one of these reasons is that despite its repeated attempts to communicate with us that we are not listening to them or perhaps not understanding them and we really need to put forth the effort to do both of these thing if we are going to have a good relationship with them. Just as good relationships with humans are based in love, trust and communication ,those are also how we build good relationships with our birds, with trust being the most essential ingredient in that relationship.

Please feel free to ask as many questions as you want and need to and we will try to help you.

[liz]

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.

So sorry. This old lady picked it up as NY.
I agree with what Wolf said. I have watched them premeditate. They will even torment you just to get a response. There is one place in the room that I am in most that Myrtle is not allowed to be. Some times when Myrtle is bored and needs to liven things up she will go there. She knows better and does it just so I will tell her she is a good girl when she gets down. She comes down on my first request that she does so but will continue until I find something to give her as a distraction.
My Aunt Betty is 85 and a screamer. When bored they will pick on her just to make her scream.

[Wolf]

I guess I need to run down one of my links to parrot body language for you, perhaps by the time I finish this post. I know that I do not have one for just macaws but a very large majority of the body language is workable regardless of the parrot species., although there are some differences, for example cockatiels and cockatoos have crests that they use to communicate with so that part can't be used with birds that do not have crests. Although I do not have any macaws or cockatoos, my research indicates that many of the macaws do what is often referred as a macaw lunge which includes the body language for a full blown macaw in full attack mode, but they are not trying to attack you, they are trying to get some sort of strong response from you and they seem to take great pride and pleasure for scaring you and that is enough for them to keep doing this behavior. There must be some body language or behavior just before they do this that would allow you to know the difference, but I do not know what it is. It could vary according to the species of macaw or even just due to individual personality differences. I did mention cockatoos in this since some of them will also do this same type of thing, but not as often, they are more inclined for it to be a real attack. The thing with body language and birds is that since they use it for communication they can elect to not give any warnings so it is not 100% also you need to look at the birds whole body to know what the body language means as some of it uses the head and beak area as well as the tail feathers or other body feathers. Looking at just one area and not the whole body will cause you to read the body language wrong.

Here is a link for cockatiel body language, most of the things in it you will see that your macaws also do so this will give you a general guide to begin learning your birds body language.
http://www.drcockatiel.com/cockatiel-in ... ior-guide/
I should also have a different one that I can give you. Here is a better one for you.
http://www.tailfeathersnetwork.com/bird ... havior.php
And another one
http://littlefeatheredbuddies.com/info/ ... guage.html These should give you a general guide to beginning to understand what your bird is trying to tell you through its body language. Study these and watch your birds closely and put this information to use and watch how your relationship with them begins to improve. Our parrots work very hard at communicating with us and just like we get frustrated when someone we are talking with chooses to ignore us or otherwise blow us off our parrots also get frustrated about this and often react the same as we do when this is done to us.

I hope this will be useful to you, it helped me when I got my first birds. Use it and watching for it will become natural and you will greatly improve in understanding your birds.

[Pajarita]

When it comes to body language, although there are generalities (feathers very close to the body means the bird is on high alert, fluffed up feathers all the time mean they are running a fever, etc), each species has its own distinctive 'language'. The most different thing with macaws is that they like to bluff. They don't always mean it as a warning, sometimes is nothing but a game to them, but you do need to be aware that just because the bird looks to be lunging at you with the beak, it might not be aggression at all so reacting as if it was is the wrong thing to do because you are not only confusing the bird, you are also, in a way, telling it that you don't understand it. See, the thing with parrots is that, unlike dogs, we don't really share body language features so it falls to us to learn theirs (they do learn ours, by the way).

Now, in my personal opinion and without been able to observe them in person, I think your birds scream both from sexual as well as emotional frustration. ALL parrots scream. ALL OF THEM! But, when a parrot feels relatively content with its life, it's healthy and feels well-loved, it only does it at 'key' times during the day, usually at dawn and dusk (when the flock gathers to feed together). Sometimes, parrots that are by themselves scream during the day. This is because parrots were never meant to be on their own but always surrounded by their large families so, when they are by themselves, they call out trying to get somebody familiar to come to them (loneliness is not only depressing for them, it's also a cause of high anxiety because a parrot by itself is an easy prey to predators).

Good that they live in a room! It will make it easier for you to set up a fake sunrise and sunset so you can get them to produce sexual hormones ONLY during breeding season and thus, eliminate sexual frustration from the equation (most parrots bite from sexual frustration than any other cause).

Now, another question: are you or your father afraid of them? What I am trying to get to is: do you or anybody in your household have a physical relationship with them? Do you preen them? Scratch their heads? Give them baths? Play games? Dance? Share food? Is there ANYTHING at all that you do with them except let them out and just sit in the same room?

[SkyBirdie]

Now, another question: are you or your father afraid of them? What I am trying to get to is: do you or anybody in your household have a physical relationship with them? Do you preen them? Scratch their heads? Give them baths? Play games? Dance? Share food? Is there ANYTHING at all that you do with them except let them out and just sit in the same room?

Sorry for late response :/

When they are in the living room with us, they do come close enough so that i play with them, and scratch their heads and such.
As for baths, no.. they're scared of spraying water...
as for playing games, and dancing, i don't know, Benio is often on the floor thinking he's a vacuum cleaner, with having his beak on the floor and running back and forth xD
sometimes petra does the same

as for sharing food... we don't have food with us in the living room.. or atleast i don't
as i don't feel comfortable eating when other people are nearby, i'm not so very social towards people, even if it's my family

No idea what preening was again...
and no, neither of us are afraid of them.

may or may not have forgotten to answer some of these .-.

Sorry

[Wolf]

If they are not getting misted or sprayed down for a bath then you should have seen them preening each other quite a bit. This is when the one helps the other to clean its feathers, usually about the head and neck areas as these are the hardest places for them to reach on their own, They also help each other to remove the sheaths on the pin feathers.
As for bathing they normally love it especially getting sprayed down when it is done as a gentle spray and allowed to fall down on them like rain. Their excitement in receiving this could make one think that they don't like it as they may get very loud, flap their wings and move in and out of the falling water a lot. This behavior is not so easily recognized by humans for the sheer pleasure and joy that it brings them. Now their are some that actually do not like getting sprayed and for these you need to find a large flat container that is pretty shallow and east for them to get in and out of so that they can bathe themselves.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is correct. Tropical birds (macaws are all tropical or semi-tropical) usually like to bathe 'in the rain' so why don't you try putting them in the bath tub and opening the shower a bit (so it's just a thin treacle of water that falls and not Niagara Falls ). Don't push them to get under the water, simply give them the opportunity to do so if they like. They will not do it the first few times but, eventually, they will (all birds love bathing -some might not do a good job of it or might not do it often but they all enjoy it because clean plumage is needed for survival).

Now, if I were you, I would start sharing food with them. For parrots, eating together is a bonding tool because, in the wild, the entire flock eats together and it's more a social event than anything else. Also, parrots learn from watching other parrots and babies learn what to eat and what not to eat from their parents so when you eat something in front of them and offer them a piece of it, you are achieving three goals:
1. You are telling them you are part of their flock.
2. You are teaching them to eat new things.
3. You are telling them you want to be their friend.

But don't give them human food, you have to eat their food which is not that hard if you start with some type of fruit you like (like apples or oranges or whatever). First you eat your own piece without offering them any - then, when they approach you, you offer them a piece (not from where you have put your mouth, humans have real bad bacteria in their mouth) and say a certain word or phrase -it doesn't matter what it is, the idea is that they start making the connection that this particular word or phrase means that whatever is being offered is good to eat.

Breakfast is a bird's most important meal of the day so try to do the sharing then.

Then, after breakfast, you can interact with them. I would start by putting music on and dancing in front of them. The 'dancing' is not really human dancing as they know it nowadays but more like bobbing your body or head and down and clapping in rhythm to the music (macaws love to hop like rabbits so you might try doing that, too). You can also play with balls. Get yourself a ball with a string attached to it (there are cat toys like that or you can make your own by tying a string around some paper scrunched up into a ball) and move it on the floor. Hard balls are also good -macaws and cockatoos love to push them on the floor (what you call the vacuum cleaner thing they do with their beaks). As they get used to the routines and schedules (it will take about two weeks if you are 100% consistent about it) and start regarding you as a source of good food and fun, you can start target training them. But, in order for the target training to really work, you need to identify what it's called a 'high value item' so you can use it only as a reward because if you give free-feed them peanuts and sunflower seeds and/or any other high protein item, they won't have any incentive to do what you are asking them to do. Parrots, unlike dogs, don't have an ingrained desire to please anybody but themselves and do not recognize authority because they did not evolve to live in a hierarchical society so you have to make it worth their time. I don't use anything but love as reward but my birds are deeply bonded to me and I don't bother them with senseless tricks so when I ask them to do something like to go back to their cages, to step up or down, to come to me, etc, they gladly do it just for the praise (praise is VERY important!) and the little head scratch or caress.

[SkyBirdie]

I'm really not good with my birds

I'm trying to interact with Benio and petra, but all they want to do is tear my clothes...
like literally, they both seems to think i'm their chewing toy ;_;
and we do have toys that they can play with, and chew, but they just ignore that, and using me as their chewing toy... Benio only goes for clothes, whilst petra goes for literaly anything, even human flesh.
Something sure seems wrong with Petra, she is often calm and such, but sometimes she does go for a nasty bite, and THAT is not what some of you said was Teasing to get attention...
When i'm with them, i try to give them attention.
Petra also seems to do it even to Benio, trying to bite him.
For example: Benio came up to my dad for a head scratch, but then petra comes up and just bites benio, like she want to have head scratch, which she doesn't... she just bites for unknown reasons that i do not know, which i wish to know :/

so far i don't think my birds are Comfy, Benio seems okay and crazy as he was when we got him, But petra is mysterious.

Given these information, is my birds uncomfortable?
I really want them both to be comfortable, and friendly

[Pajarita]

Well, my dear, there isn't a single parrot that is 100% happy living in captivity if that is what you mean by 'comfortable'. We all do the best we can but even the best parrot keepers cannot reproduce the conditions that nature evolved them to have in their environment.

Your parrots are overly hormonal and were not interacted or even fed correctly for many years so it's going to take a loooong time and a lot of work to make things right again. Petra might be nipping (I don't think she is actually biting him) Benio to warn him about not allowing the human to touch him. When parrots perceive danger, they nip their companions to let them know about it - they also do it when their mates are loving or too friendly with somebody they perceive as competition. Overly hormonal birds react more aggressively than birds that are not (been hormonal all the time causes them chronic pain and that makes them react more often and more aggressively).

As to chewing clothes... my dear, ALL parrots do it. Most of us have clothing we wear only when we interact with the parrots because we know it's going to end up full of holes. They can be taught not to do it but it takes time, persistence and consistency. Personally, I don't even bother, I have two shelves in my dressing room with parrot clothes and, when they get too many holes, I just throw them away. My family and friends save the clothing they are going to donate so I can go through it and get 'new' parrot clothes Try holding a stuffed toy in your hand and, when you see Petra going for your clothes, give her the toy to chew -you can also try using a piece of balsa wood, a piece of untreated sisal rope with a big knot on it, a block of wood, a nice clean tree branch (make sure the wood is safe), etc. The trick with living with parrots is not to try to 'teach' them not to do things that are natural behaviors (parrots chew, that's a fact of life) but to re-direct them so they can still do what they want to do but are not destructive about it.

Have you tried using a ball to play with them? My cockatoos do the same thing you described (the dragging the beak on the floor) and love to do it with a ball. I got them billiard balls (they are a good size, very head and hard) and they love to push them all around the floor.

Have you started the better diet yet? The solar schedule? I warn you, you can't do much with their aggression until you get the sexual hormones problem under control...

[SkyBirdie]

:lol: Well, my dear, there isn't a single parrot that is 100% happy living in captivity if that is what you mean by 'comfortable'. We all do the best we can but even the best parrot keepers cannot reproduce the conditions that nature evolved them to have in their environment.

Your parrots are overly hormonal and were not interacted or even fed correctly for many years so it's going to take a loooong time and a lot of work to make things right again. Petra might be nipping (I don't think she is actually biting him) Benio to warn him about not allowing the human to touch him. When parrots perceive danger, they nip their companions to let them know about it - they also do it when their mates are loving or too friendly with somebody they perceive as competition. Overly hormonal birds react more aggressively than birds that are not (been hormonal all the time causes them chronic pain and that makes them react more often and more aggressively).

As to chewing clothes... my dear, ALL parrots do it. Most of us have clothing we wear only when we interact with the parrots because we know it's going to end up full of holes. They can be taught not to do it but it takes time, persistence and consistency. Personally, I don't even bother, I have two shelves in my dressing room with parrot clothes and, when they get too many holes, I just throw them away. My family and friends save the clothing they are going to donate so I can go through it and get 'new' parrot clothes Try holding a stuffed toy in your hand and, when you see Petra going for your clothes, give her the toy to chew -you can also try using a piece of balsa wood, a piece of untreated sisal rope with a big knot on it, a block of wood, a nice clean tree branch (make sure the wood is safe), etc. The trick with living with parrots is not to try to 'teach' them not to do things that are natural behaviors (parrots chew, that's a fact of life) but to re-direct them so they can still do what they want to do but are not destructive about it.

Have you tried using a ball to play with them? My cockatoos do the same thing you described (the dragging the beak on the floor) and love to do it with a ball. I got them billiard balls (they are a good size, very head and hard) and they love to push them all around the floor.

Have you started the better diet yet? The solar schedule? I warn you, you can't do much with their aggression until you get the sexual hormones problem under control...

No, I don't know how to begin with the solar schedule :/
Neither with better diet :/

I have tried using another toy on both birds to get their attention on that, but they ignore that and goes for my clothes xD

Thank you, Pajarita for quick reply
Soon we're gonna have the birds in our living room again, as we put them in their room for a break, as we had them earlier today out for like 1-2 hours