Too big?

[CheekyandMalolo]

We cover the conures (at my OH's house) cause otherwise they'd never sleep! We're usually up till 10.30-11pm, and they get put to bed and covered at around 8.30-9pm which they seem happy with, they jump in their house and dive straight into their tent and make happy little crooning noises to each other. And they're always bouncing out of bed at 6am when we get up so they must be getting enough sleep.
Our Australian parrots (at my house) never get covered cause one of my Tiel's has a big issue with night frights, she lived at my OH's house for a little while and was covered up for the first night, woke us up in the middle of the night screaming and thrashing around on the bottom of the cage. It took me a week or so to discover that some Tiel's are prone to night blindness/frights and that that was the problem. Even then when we'd leave the front of the cage open she'd still have frights, we figured out that at my house we have big bay windows and the moon shines in, plenty of light for a little scared bird, so we ended up leaving on a lamp pointed at the wall in the opposite end of the room. Perfect fix for her. Thankfully we haven't had a night fright since, it's quite scary to see you little feather head screaming and thrashing around on the floor of her cage, or stuck in a perch, to the point that the only thing that stopped her was to hold her tight and talk to her and turn the light on asap!

As for your birdie's dislike for toys, I'd bet there is something she would enjoy. What have you tried so far? Our Princess Parrot only enjoys toys that he can throw our of a bowl and onto the bottom of the cage, however he really likes having the cage filled with fresh gum leaves, native flowers and berries that he can munch on and 'prune' all day long. He also likes 'shredding' toys, but dad doesn't like them being encouraged to chew paper (not that they need any encouragement ).

Our conures really enjoy toys with bells, but they also like smaller toys, like beads/button that they can throw everywhere, or their 'perches' that're made out of plastic chain type things (one is a store bought one that has big leaf and flower shaped links, the other is made of shower curtain rings) that go between perches. I have toys hanging on these chains that bells and jingly things so that when they walk on them they make the noise, this grabs their attention and they start to play with them.
I'd suggest changing the cage around, lots of our toys didn't get played with until they'd been moved around a few times, the sleepy tent was 'scary' for 3 months until I moved it up high and they haven't slept on anything else since!
Also having toys to swap in every few days can get her thinking about what's in the cage, rather than always having it the same.

[liz]

Is she near other birds or alone? She could be missing the other birds at the pet shop. Is your house too quiet? Put something she really likes to eat outside the cage. That worked with Myrtle.

I have a large flight cage, in great shape. It housed my jenday, and my cockatiels. Now it belongs to Juniper, my Quaker. When I came home with her I bought her all new toys with the help of the lady I was adopting her from who knows/loves Quakers well. Juniper is about a year old. She was abandoned at the store, so I don't know much about her past. Juniper, does not play. She sits on one of two perches in her cage, ignores her swings, toys, ropes, and other perches. I leave her cage open the majority of the day and she sits on top, seemingly happy. I have a smaller cage, one I use as the outdoor cage for pretty afternoons and she seems happier in there? It is like, a third of the size of her cage now. It was just a Petsmart special too good to pass up and perfect for outside time. Kokomo now lives in it, until I can get my hands on another nice flight cage. This cage though, is more then enough for a lovie.

I've not rearranged her toys since bringing her home, I was told to wait a few months, I've had her since March 25th.

In the last few weeks Juniper has become SUPER nippy and pissy over her cage. She doesn't want to come out or be messed with. I thought she was hormonal, and was told to reduce her light time. Only way to do that would be to start covering her. Could she just not like her cage? Should I move everything around and start covering her? Ideas/thoughts?