I just got cosmo, i have had him now almost a week (6days) so i dont expect him to be well adjusted.

a little background on him:

he was owned by an elderly man, who passed away. His wife had no idea how to care for him, and said she was so allergic to his dander so she brought him into the humane society where i work. I adopted him sight unseen lol i wanted a quaker and i jumped at the chance to have him. I came up and played with him and he was extremly sweet with me, though he was lashing out at everyone else. i was the only one who got down on his level, talked slow, moved slow, took my time and knew how to handle and deal with a bird, so he took to me easily.

i took him home 2 days later (after exams and stuff, he is healthy)

HE was not fed well before, he was fed fresh foods which was great, but some werent good like lucky charms (grrr) and canned veggies....but at least he did get some good fresh stuff and loves them.

his main source of food however, was a big bag of wild bird seed from walmart. so sad. but quakers are tough birds and he has made it 6 yrs and is in pretty good health and now he is eating like a king, getting the best of the best in the bird world LOL

the lady was so allergic to him, as his ENTIRE head was covered in pins, i mean every single feather was a pin feather on his head and neck, he could hardly move his head at all. they werent hard pins, they were old and ready to come off and had the texture of candle wax, well cosmo let me preen him, actually demanded it, and i got almost all the pins off at this point, if she had bothered to preen him or give him a bath dish her allergies would have been fine ... but oh well i have him now.

ok so ... he is extremly attached to me. I know he has lost ALOT in the last couple weeks, and been shuffled around, and he must be extremly sad. I know this, and my heart breaks for his loss.

however ... i cant have him screeching non stop everytime i put him down. I can not hold him 24 hours a day, though i certainly wish i could lol ... i do have other birds to give love to and a cat that needs some love too... not to mention a husband that cosmo cant stand HAHAHA

In no way am i getting rid of cosmo, we will learn to coexist and shape our lives and find a compromise somehow.

but HOW do i get him to stop the screeching ????? bed time is the worse, he gets SO SAD, i cant explain it but he is just sad and wants to be with me so badly, the first two nights i actually let him sleep on my pillow but he cant do that everynight.

he does eventually calm down and go to sleep, but my heart breaks at having to put him in his cage and force him to stay in there and sleep.

i go to work 8 hrs every day, i do come home at lunch and check on my pets and give them their fruits and veggies for the day ... also so that cosmo knows i didnt leave him, he is never alone more than 4 hrs at a time and he has 6 budgies in the same room that keep him company.

will the screeching stop over time?? how can i train him to stop, while still letting him know i love him and will not abandon him ?

Well truth be told I am not having much fun getting past this with quakerquaker either. Luckily, he only screams when I first approach the cage and for a few seconds after I leave the cage. But for my conure Tsuke.....I noticed the louder I get the louder he gets. I talk softly to him and sing a song to him quietly until he settles down. I then take him out and sit him on my knee and we talk. When worse comes to worse, sometimes I warn him twice that I'm going to cover him. Then I cover him on the third warning and walk away. Have you tried music? Birds don't like it when it is quiet.....at least mine don't. Or turn on the cartoon channel and face his cage towards the TV.........yes, it works. My conure becomes really engrossed if it is a kids show and it is on quiet. He will be quiet........or he can't hear it.
Also, birds are most vocal during the morning and evening.
Don't give up helwa. I may be having problems with my qp too but my conure stopped screaming after trying new things. At least I know Quakerquaker can be trained to stop that.....not sure about the biting though.

yea they always have music or the tv on, they listen to alot of nature sounds and food network and i also found cartoons to work with my budgies haha, nunu will actually come out and sit there watching the tv which is too funny

thankfully he doesnt bite, im SO thankful for that, he is just a sweetheart and loves to be snuggled up on me which is wonderful except when my human life must begin lol

grrrrrrr he is sitting on my shoulder and he was preening then i just look over just now and he has preened a hole in my favorite tshirt

LMAO grrrr

Awwwwwww how cute. Not for your shirt though I suppose. Lucky you.......my qp seems to be possessed right now. I've only had him two weeks though. You would think with a litte iddy-biddy beak it wouldn't hurt so much when they bite....OWWWWWWWWW

yea i know he can bite hard, cuz he bites other people

my keets bite hard and i cant believe such a tiny bird can inflict so much damage

Hmmm... I have a very quiet Quaker. He is "my buddy and my world" but I've only coddled him for a very short while when he was showing aggression a long time ago. Now, he is sweet and quiet. The only time he screeches is when I oversleep, when my Nature Sounds Of The Tropical Rainforest CD is playing, or when the neighbors Conure is calling for him. On the rare occasion when he does screech, I change the situation - If he is inside of the cage sitting there screeching, I will remove him to the outside of the cage or vice-versa. Only on a rare occasion will I have to cover his cage with the cover to get him to stop screeching.

Just give your bird some space - dont enable him to be your "one and only" - allow him to flourish on his own with your guidance. Maybe leave him alone for an entire day, excluding meals. Activities such as sleeping on your pillow & being on your shoulder for long periods of time is just enhancing his desire to "overbond" with you. Better yet, go on vacation & have a parrot sitter come into your home for a long weekend. Trust me, some of that behavior will stop once you remove yourself from the situation - when you are able to "let go," you will be able to enjoy a more well-rounded parrot.

I say this because my Quaker was overbonded with me at one point - I ended up moving his cage a little further from where I normally hang out - anyway, giving him that space worked wonders.

Best of luck!

First of all, don't come running to him when he is screaming. I know that's hard not to do because believe me, Simon can really belt out the noise, and for the first few weeks after we brought him home, our apartment sounded like a tropical jungle or something. One thing we finally had to do was to get him an outside cage to go sqawk to his hearts content..although since at that time we lived in an apt., we could still hear him. What you are going to have to do is to just ignore his screams, and continue talking to him. I found that the more Simon learned to talk, the less he screamed, but don't be dismayed if this doesn't happen overnight, because it was a good 3 months before the noise level at our place was tolerable. Now, when he calls for me, as long as I call back to him (which for me is a simple "hello") he will be fine. He just wants to know that I'm close by.

We are going through this now with our caique Pogo. He wants to be where ever we are ALL the time. He HATES being in his cage, but won't stay on the playtop for 3 seconds, which isn't a problem at all for Simon. I think we have made the mistake with him of allowing him to always be with us because he is just so danged funny and entertaining...so now he thinks he NEVER should be left in his cage if we are home. Caiques are relatively quiet parrots (lol...what an oxymoron...quiet...parrot???) but he makes a piercing scream when he's put back in his cage. We are just having to endure it and MAKE him 'cage up' for a few hours everyday so he will learn that his cage is a fun place to be too.

As far as bedtime goes, I'm not going to be a lot of help on that. Pogo will stay up late with us, but Simon has always "put himself to bed" as soon as it gets dark outside. He climbs down and gets into his cage and goes to his sleepy rack without any prompting from us. Maybe if you have an extra room you could get him a small cage for sleeping, and set a time each night to put him in bed and turn the lights out. Simon doesn't care what is going on around him, if it's dark, he's in bed, but Pogo on the other hand will stay up all night if we let him.

He will calm down and get used to your routine. Find one and stick to it. If you cant hold him just dont hold him. When you are at work keep the radio on for him to keep him company. Every time you run to him when he screams you are contributing to the learned behavior. He has learned thats what he needs to do go get attention. Its flock calling. Like anything else reward the good and ignore the bad and eventually it disappears. It wont happen over night. Earplugs help

Hugs
IMPy

unfortunately you'll have to deal with the screeching until he gets used to your routine. cricket used to yell a lot when i would go into a different room... and sometimes he still does. when i'm home it doesn't bother me so much but i don't know what he does when i leave for work so i started repeating the same phrase every time i left the room and every time i left for work.

"See ya later"

after lots of repetition, cricket now knows when i say "see ya later" it means that i'm leaving but i'll be back. i try to only say it when i'm leaving for an extended amount of time (like work)... and i HAVE to wait until he repeats it back to me "see ya later?" and i tell him yes and he'll say "bye-bye". a whole OCD routine!

cricket has also learned that "are you ready?" means it's time for bed and sometimes he asks me if I'M ready lol. he also knows "wanna take a nap?" but usually it's me who asks for that!

repetion is the key... he's smart, he'll catch on. poor little guy! it breaks my heart too having him worry that you're not going to come back.

ive been ignoring it for as long as i can stand to, and it does go away after about 15-20 minutes but he then will justs it there staring at me, waiting for me to come get him again.

for all i know the old man who had him before was more than content with him being on his shoulder 24/7 so i may be trying to break 6 yrs of behavior in a parrot LMAO ... which i know can be extremly hard to do.

he gets very jealous when i hold the budgies, and like i said he doesnt like them at all haha, and the budgies honestly couldnt care less that he is even there at all. he has began to mimic their sounds though, which is funny cuz he does it then waits for their reply HAHA

he is for sure a talker, and you can tell he understands things, earlier i put him on his cage and said just one minute and he fluffed and made a hmmppff kinda sound like ... ok ok mom but just ONE minute. lol and he did sit there quietly for just ONE minute LOOL

and as far as bedtime goes, he will say lights out when he is sleepy or he thinks its bedtime and ill cover get him to his cgae and cover him but then he starts this whimpering sound and looks so desperately sad

i do leave the front uncovered for about half an hour to let him unwind and calm down before its total darkness, and after a few minutes ill hear 'lights out' again and i know he is ready to sleep.

i know it will take time for him to get comfortable and trust life again, i just hope it doesnt take forever, i want him to be happy and playful and carefree ... not this emotional fearful little guy he is now.

Poor parrot! He's insecure because of all the changes but he'll settle down once he realizes he's home to stay. When he hollers for you, try just sticking your head into his line of sight and saying something like "I'm right here!" very cheerfully. Even if you have to do it several times. Clyde gets like that sometimes if I go out of his sight and all he wants is reassurance that I'm nearby. He's not nearly so bad about it as he used to be, because he's learned the routine now. He knows "mama's going to work, be a good boy" means I'll be gone for a while and I always get a lot of loud screeching when I come home at night. Of course, both dogs are barking and the budgie is chirping and it's a regular cacophony. Right now, for example, he's hanging on the side of his cage and being completely quiet.

You can stop by his cage and talk to him when you don't have time to carry him around, just for a moment, to reassure him and pumpkin seeds are a GREAT distraction. Stop by, say something like "How's my birdie?" and give him a pumpkin seed every now and then. Eventually, he'll get over it.

yea i do stop by and give kisses and talk to him, and give him a dried fruit which he goes crazy over and i get a laugh ... he does this 'laugh' sound, heeheehee in a whisper.. when he is happy or excited he does that.

but when he is said he makes this god awful, heart breaking whimper that makes me just want to hold him close and love him and i do, but i know i cant do it ALL THE TIME, it isnt good for him or me.

he did play with one of his toys this evening though, i noticed he had been quiet for a while so i turned to look and he was shredding the paper toy .... ive never been so happy before haha but soon as he saw me turn around he was out leaning over to be picked up haha like ok mom i did a good job can i have love now

and of course he got what he wanted

Skye too has these screeching moments. Sometimes I don't mind so much and other times it bugs me...at first I'd tell him "I'll cover your cage" and do it. It only took 3 times of that for him to stop after I just say the words. Other times he's reacting to a rather loud scene on the TV-cars racing and sqweeling, gunfire and all the music that tends to go with it. Thank god for TiVo- I can pause it...then I speak quietly to Skye and he stops the noise so he can hear me and then does some talking of his own (cant make it out yet) and quiets down. Usually I can return to the show-with volume down a little with no problem. He also screams when I leave the room. And I took everyones suggestions early on by saying "be right back" which works when I remember. If I forget and return to him screeching I go to him and quietly say "Skye" and he'll immediately say "peek-a-boo!" It is so sweet!!!

haha peek a boo !! thats adorable.

today was a trial i tell ya. i was off work today so was home all day, and all day he wanted to be on me, and he was for most of it, but i cant take him out of the room because of the cat, which sees cosmos and thinks HUGE PLAY THING (uggh) so i have to put him down and he was getting so angry.

i did put him in a time out 3 times, i covered his cage for just 1 minute and he calmed down and i uncovered him, but left him in the cage for a while.

he did play with one of his toys some today and he did some house keeping LOL cleaning the bottom grate for me and he did sit on his cage and eat his snacks peacefully

but he did screech so much today and i had a pounding headache from it, but im trying my best to just calm him down and NOT GIVE IN

bedtime was so hard ... he knows its bedtime and he hooks onto my shirt and wont come off at all, i had to get him off one toe at a time and it took 5 minutes. i didnt want to just pull him off

he whimpered and huffed and puffed ..he does this heeheehee heavy pbreathing thing and that with the whimpering just kills me ... breaks my heart

but i kept him in the cage and i sat in front of it and sang to him gave him some kisses and he calmed down and i eventually covered him... i can hear him eating in there now ... at least he is in there

OK, no offense intended, but he has got you wrapped around his little toe!!!LOL...I have been told 2 important things in the past. Think of a QP as a two year old child-they have the intelligents AND the manipulation skill of a toddler. Second, never spend more time with your Quaker than you will be able to consistently do each and every day. A routine is important but it must be a realistic routine. Maybe if you set up a schedule of how often and how much time you spend with him, that will be able to be done every day (work and off days) and stick to it, some of his behavior will smooth out. Of course this will take weeks to accomplish but if followed to the letter each and every day it will get better with each passing day too... Hope this helps, I'm no expert, and am passing on info i have read about here. Good luck

for sure, and im still trying to develope a routine that works for him and for me and the other birds as well.

ive only had him a week, and i have to be realistic, he does have some serious emotional scars so i cant really expect him to just chin up ... i am trying to give him some time to really get used to things as we get this routine, my keets have a set routine and they stick to it by themselves at this point lol they know it so well they keep me in line sometimes LOL

i have no idea what he did for the last 6yrs of his life or what his routine was then, if he was a baby then i could start fresh and do my own thing with him, but he is a 6yr old set in his ways so breaking him of his ways and getting him to follow mine is gona be trial and error i guess

right now the only problem i have with him is his severe fear of me leaving him, i am hoping in time (sooner than later) he will learn i am not leaving him and he can relax and enjoy his life.

cosmo is doing better, he still fusses and pants and whimpers when i put him to bed, but i give him a kiss rub his head and say ill see you in the morning honey, its bed time now and i cover him and he stays quiet and goes to sleep. sometimes he plays some and eats before sleeping but thats just fine at least he isnt screeching for half an hour.

he is still screeching in the daytime if i am out of his line of sight, but ill pop back and give him a kiss and he will stop for a few minutes lol ... he just wants to be with me and he is learning that i let him be with him whenever i can, which is most of the time im home.

today he pooped on my arm and said "uh oh" and looked at me like he was so sorry hahahaha i nearly wet myself laughing so hard. his previous owners said he was potty trained and i tested it, and indeed he is... i just am not haha so i forget to offer him his 'poop napkin' when he is out of the cage so he has 'accidents' and he always says uh oh haha its the most hilarious thing ive ever seen in my life i just kissed him and told him its ok

he is starting to become more interested in the keets, i went to the kitchen to get some lunch and came back and found him in one of the keet cages and the keets all on the roof HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA he had evicted them all

Its getting really cold here in florida this week and i make tents for my birds and my friends birds (variation of the happy hut) i made cosmo one and he absolutely loves it

OMG that is SOOO cute....I need one of those for Simon!! I was actually thinking I might be able to somehow attach a tent to the top of the shelf thingy that he now sleeps on because he is right by a huge window and even tho I cover him every night, I always worry that he might get a little cool, or like something to snuggle into. How did you make it? I'm a bit of an artsy crafsy sort, so I should be able to make one of those with a little instructional help...lol.

As far as the noise level, man I can relate to that. I posted this vid yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCxAfwDujUE which is Simon back about 2 months after we got him. (beware, don't listen at full volume!!!) I swear, it took him about 3 months of this noise non stop before he finally settled down. We were living in an apt. at the time and thought we would loose our minds! Now he mostly talks, does wolf whistles, etc. when we aren't in the room or don't have him with us. Don't worry, he will settle down eventually if you don't give into his every whim.

I think what you are doing is great! You just need to be consistent, and pairing bed time with a phrase like "see you in the morning honey" will help him understand that when you say that it means time to sleep now and be away from my owner for a few hours. As for the screaming during the day, he will probably always do that if he can hear you and not see you. If you continue to pop into his view everytime, you will only reinforce the screaming. You just have to ignore that too, eventually the screaming during the day will reduce. If you do go into his line of sight when during the day, do it when he is quiet. Or at least 10 seconds after he has screamed so he doesn't associate your appearance with screaming.

I agree with slic I would love to know how you made the happy hut. that is adorable and it doesn't collect poop to be cleaned out...I would replace Thumpers that he has now and then make the baby one as well. If you can send me a message and let me know or post it. I will keep an eye out for it! Thank you!

update on cosmo

he is doing better by leaps and bounds!!!

he still screeches for me sometimes, which is totally normal and im ok with that, it doesnt last and it isnt constant, just a few screeches and he finds something else to do.

i noticed that he was always digging between the wires of the grate at food that had dropped, i also noticed he dropped alot of his food on purpose lol

so i removed the grate from the cage and omg the sheer excitement cosmo had !!!!!! he was literally squealing with excitement hahaha i was like wooooooow if i had only known it was so simple !!!

so he was foraging around for his food and arranging it in piles it was so funny. so i put in some foot toys and color craft sticks and beads and stuff i use to make toys with, and he was the happiest i have ever seen him !!!

thankfully he is potty trained so he goes to one spot in his cage and poops haha so he isnt walking around in his own poops while on the floor, once ina while he will have an accident though and he always says 'uh oh' when he does haha

but i do check it several times a day to make certain there is no poop, just to be safe.

tonight i took his happy tent apart and just put the fabric down for him to stand on and he was so excited he literally yanked it from my hands before i could lay it on the floor and he drug it to where he wanted it and that was that ! i did also put a small dish towel down to cover the bottom after cleaning it for the night, the sound of his seeds and nuts and stuff slamming into the metal floor would keep me up all night haha and he ran up under the towel and was squealing, i was nearly in tears at seeing him so utterly excited.

all the fancy toys and contraptions we buy these guys and all they want is a simple popsicle stick and towel LMAO

Sounds like he is telling you how he likes things......that is pretty cute!

I'm glad Cosmo is doing better!

We just cover the grate in Casey's cage with newspaper... a long time ago we tried it the other way (just leaving the grate and putting the newpaper in the tray below) and she freaked out, she would drop her treats/toys, go to the bottom and be like " Now how am I suppose to reach them!?" so we went back to the paper on the grate! Much easier!

i just didnt like the bare bottom and i didnt wana put paper cuz he would just shred it and it would serve no purpose other than his amusement lol

so i got some of those craft foam sheets ... they come pretty big and i was able to use two of them that cover his cage bottom perfectly and they fit right under the screws on there that hold his seed guard so he cant pull it up haha

so its soft on his feet and i cant hear him plumeting food to the floor... that metal bottom is just SO LOUD when those food bits hit hahaplus he was sliding around down there alot


also i can easily take it out throw it in the dishwasher and its brand new again
so he is happy now and rearranging his food crumbs

I'm actually having the same problem plus biting. We just got our little feathered friend, and he's about 7ish years old. He was with his last owner for seven years, and he's just moved into our home. I know he's not used to our environment and probably won't be for a while. I have a 1 year old conure who's not nearly as loud. We give Kiwi all the attention we can, but every now and again, at random intervals, he just starts screaming. My husband works from home, and this affects his job. He's extremely protective of his cage, too. If you walk over to him while he's in or on it, you'll most likely get a severe bite. He's drawn blood from me twice in three days. Once he's off the cage, he's a little better...I guess he feels more vulnerable. How would you go about correcting this?