Hi everyone. My name is Beth Moss and I am new to this forum. I have had my quaker since Sept. of last year. Junior was actually my best friends bird for a little over a year. He was a gift from her mother. They do not know where her mother got the bird or even why, but he was aggressive from the start. My friend ended up getting divorced and her ex kept the bird. He had the bird for over two months when he decided he didn't want him anymore. My pastors wife is a bird guru and a rescuer, so we went to get the bird together. When we got to the house in the middle of the day, the cage was in a corner completely covered. When we uncovered Junior, he had no food, water that looked like sludge, and his cage was nasty. He was also very malnurished. My pastors wife kept him for a few days and then I took him. He's pretty much taken to me. He'll tolerate my husband and my children, but usually not for long. He definately had some serious issues when I first brought him home, so I tried working with him as much as I could. He didn't want to be away from his cage and would throw an absolute fit when I would get in his cage to change his food and water. He'd bite the you know what out of you if you stuck your hand in there! So I had to get a towel to get him out just so I could get some food in to him! He still throws a fit when I change his dishes now, but he doesn't try to take my arm off anymore. I do know that my girlfriends ex used to hit the cage when Junior would get loud or try to reach in and grab him. I'm wondering if he will ever get over the effects that can have on such a tiny animal? My dilemma now is he's actually very sweet, he just gets into these moods where he won't shut up! I thought at first it was just due to his past. But after having him and taking care of him and not BEATING him, I thought he would settle down. NOPE!!! He does these little shrill beeps over and over and over. He has this wonderful little screech that causes the hair on your arms to stand up. And then he does this great long noise (I call it his wrong answer button) because it sounds exactly like a buzzer on a game show! I do love having him, but he's driving me and my whole family crazy. He's just not a joy to have around right now and I don't know what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Do they make bird muzzles? LOL

Welcome to the forum. Im so glad that youcould help this poor little feller. Bless you for taking him in. Im sure that there will be others on here before long and they can give some great advise. Good luck.

wow good on you for taking this poor creature in. when i hear stories like this, it makes me want to shove the offender into a cage to endure the same treatment. ahem. sorry.

i don't have a lot to offer in the way of advice. i have heard that you can reinforce the behavior you want by heaping on praise, lots of "good boy!" when he's quiet. when he starts to display unwanted behavior, ignore it or redirect his attention with a toy or a treat. now, keep in mind that naturally birds can be quite loud at certain times of the day. near dusk, they call to their flock to get everyone rounded up for the night. or if he sees something that doesn't belong, he could sound the alarm to warn you.

he may never totally get over his previous life. just give him lots of love in the present and future. sounds like he deserves it.

kris

The poor baby! I'm with Kris -- I want to hunt the creep down and do mean things to him for being cruel to a helpless bird.

I've never dealt with an abused bird, but one of our dogs was a stray who wandered into the yard and decided to stay, and she had been abused. I should think what worked with her would work with any abused animal. Speak softly, always, be gentle and quiet and loving and patient, even when it's very difficult, and gradually he'll understand that you're not going to smack his cage or grab him or hurt him. He'll probably always be frightened of sudden movement and noise, but with time and gentle handling, he should eventually get over the worst of it.

That's a Quaker thing. They are LOUD buggers if they want your attention and aren't getting it. You'll probably never get rid of all that noise, except to try and distract him from it. Buy one of the bird skewers (stainless steel skewers with hangers that you can put fruit and veggies on) load it up and hang it in the cage, hopefully he'll play with that and enjoy some good eats instead of screaming. You can also make kiss kiss noises back whenever he yells. If you do it enough eventually it'll become a game where you guys kiss kiss back and forth. Some members here even get their birds to whistle tunes with them.

Try getting him a variety of foraging toys, simple and complex and let him try to work them out. Fill them full of favorite treats and hopefully he will spend more time trying to get snacks then yelling at you for them

I agree. Cage aggression is a quaker thing. Probably doesn't help to have it reinforced with a cage-bashing. Junior's probably thinking his cage is actually protecting him from nasty hands and defends it even more fiercely.

Put him in front of you (as opposed to the shoulder) and make lots of different noises so he gets to hear a range of sounds - make sure you like them! The buzzer is possibly what it sounds like - a "wrong" button from a TV game show that took his fancy. It might even be the sound of someone growling at him. To teach birds new sounds and words, get his attention, do whatever excitable things to get his eyes to start pinning and say your stuff at that moment of high excitement. Say it delightedly, or emotionally. The only way to get him to change the channel is to introduce him to something even more interesting, like Jamie said: food or some other activity. You can't stop him by ignoring him as he enjoys the sound in his ears and will keep doing it for his own amusement. He doesn't know it's driving you nuts. He may be reading your stress as some sort of desire to hear more. Sometimes we just don't speak each others' language. Pay him LOTS of attention when he isn't doing it. He's only doing it in the absence of anything else so even by default you are reinforcing it. Even if you bashed the cage it won't stop him. Put him on your shoulder or hand and show him colourful objects.

Try this: Turn your back on him and pretend to be busy with something very cool then when he shuts up so he can investigate, turn around and praise him excitedly. Birds need repetition of at least 20 times while they are in a receptive state so it'll take a while. Keep going with him, persist and do it with love.

I also have an abused quaker. Let me tell you the things I learned on this site that have helped me. Birds are most cranky when they are hormonal/tired, they need a lot more sleep than us. Get the bird a smaller sleep, travel cage you know one that would be small enough to be easy to carry around and put in the car in an emergency, but big enough that the bird can move around and not feel crowded. I got a cat carrier with a top and side door and added a perch to it. Now keep the cage in a quiet and dark area of your house so the bird can be put to bed a reasonable hour unlike the rest of us humans. My bird will now actually start yelling at me if it gets past 830pm and she is not tucked into bed.
The sleep cage will hopefully do several things for you. 1) it will give your bird a safe quiet place to get enough sleep, and will decrease the spring hormone rush if you can increase sleep hours during that time. 2) it gives your bird a second nest and thus decreases the territory aggression thing. 3) you have something that the bird is comfortable with ready in case of an emergency, when a big cage really can't be hauled around.
Quakers are loud, but they get louder when angry, scared, happy, excited, etc... My quaker did scream more when I got her but, it is in their nature, that is pretty much their natural call and while you can encourage them to talk and sing they will still do some screeching when things get them wound up. Also bored birds make noise. get toys, lots of toys. Move them around every time you clean and keep swapping them to prevent territoryness. I found that if my parrot is really busy rattling her toys she can't be making her annoying noises at the same time.
While a lot of people here say to ignore screeches and reward good behavior, I have found that actually I have to be careful about doing that. I have to figure out why she is screeching, because if she is screeching because she is terrified of something, ignoring the screeching will not make it stop. I have to go over and reasure her or figure out what is scaring her and move it our of her line of sight. Over time doing this has gradually decreased her fear of most of those objects and people.
Just remember with an abused bird you will have to go slower since you are not teaching it stuff for the first time but trying to replace bad memories with good ones.

I have had my QP almost two years now and she still has a fear of men (we think she was in a abusive household) my husband still can't get near her, its an acomplishment when he can give her a treat without her taking a chunk out of him. I took us almost a 6 months for us to get to the point where my husband could hug me or get near me without her screaming bloody murder. And almost 8 months before I could talk to a male without her biting me. Abuse takes time, a lot of scary things happened that you don't know about the bird needs time to forget and to really know it is safe.