Kuzey
Meeting neighbors
Hello everybody!!
I am relatively new in this forum. I introduced myself and my flock in the Welcome section.
Me and my flock have been going thru such a difficult time lately.
My sun conure Nikki has been extremely agitated for the past few weeks. Anything and everything scares him causing him to throw that annoying conure screech!! It’s not just a scream but it’s an alarm call that puts rest of the flock on defensive perching. When he screeches like that me but most importantly my other birds get alarmed and become on edge for the next few minutes. Each time, first I have to calm myself down then talk to the rest of the flock to calm them down. This happens multiple times a day and I am not sure how much longer I can take it. It used to be few times a day when he saw things that scared him, like umbrellas, spray bottles, backpacks and many more. In those times, I would remove the antecedent and the screeching would stop. But now, he screams for almost anything, like me moving my head or grabbing my phone.
I had a vet appointment yesterday for recheck his butt which was inflamed and he received medication for it. The vet said His health is great and the infection has completely cleared out. I brought up the screeching and asked if she could prescribe a medicine to calm him down a bit. Of course she did not recommend medication route and referred to the problem as “he is being a conure”, which to a large degree I agree. However his behavior effects my physical and mental health, as to every time he screeches I get startled, my hearth rate goes up and I had to calm myself down. I get distracted from whatever I’m doing just to calm down. Then I have to talk to my cockatoos so that they know there is no danger. When I talked to them softly, they stop the defensive perching and start to act normal again. Until they hear me saying “everything is okay bub bubss” with gentle voice tone, they stay at that defensive perching position ( heads down, wings are tucked up, ready to fly) watching out for danger. In order to calm them down, I need to be able to calm myself down which I’ve been struggling with.
Within last two weeks, I even considered the possibility of rehoming him (just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes) but then it makes me feel worse as I know sun conure are one of the most rehomed species due to their loudness. I feel like a failure and do not want to contribute to this huge problem. Also he is bonded with my green cheeked conure, so if I rehome him, I have to send her with him. I can’t separate them as I feel like this would devastate both of them. Finally I love both of them so much!!. I don’t want to give them up but I have to take care of myself in order to be able to take care of them. Because of his behavior and my response to his behavior I can already feel that my bond with Nikki is breaking. Not on my end but mostly on his end. He doesn’t trust me as much and not fully relaxed around me. I don’t want the bond between us to break!!
When I brought up how much distress Nikki is causing to rest of us, the vet wanted to consult some of her colleagues about possible pharmaceutical intervention. Reluctantly she said we could try Gabapentin, a non-psychoactive medicine used for pain management that causes reduced alertness and drowsiness. She insisted that I should try behavior modification and referred me to someone in upstate New York but I do not have the resources, mostly the time, to take on such an extensive and long treatment trial, which doesn’t guarantee the behavior would go extinct as he is a conure.
I’ve read some of the threads here and bunch of other blogs about how to handle screeching in conures. In the past, I used the spray bottle. Such a bad bad idea!!
My latest tool is to put him (with my GCC) in bathroom, which I converted to an oversized bird cage. When he goes bunker I scream “ go to the bathroom!!” From the tone of my voice they know so they fly down and I close the door behind them. I feel horrible for doing that but if I ignore his screeches by putting an earplug or headphones, he becomes louder and puts my cockatoos on edge. I don’t even want to know what my neighbors are thinking. After I put him there, he stays quite for maybe an hour then he starts his contact calls which I ignore. I watch them thru my camera that I placed in the bathroom to make sure they are ok. 5–10 minutes after he stops screaming, I go downstairs and let them out of the bathroom. I bring couple sunflower seeds or slices of apple to reward him for being quite. Few minutes after he is out, Dane thing all over again!!
I know this is a classic scenario for sun conures but has anybody have another tip to how to manage this behavior or has anybody have experience giving Gabapentin to their bird?
Thank you in advance!
This is him being a clown!
I am relatively new in this forum. I introduced myself and my flock in the Welcome section.
Me and my flock have been going thru such a difficult time lately.
My sun conure Nikki has been extremely agitated for the past few weeks. Anything and everything scares him causing him to throw that annoying conure screech!! It’s not just a scream but it’s an alarm call that puts rest of the flock on defensive perching. When he screeches like that me but most importantly my other birds get alarmed and become on edge for the next few minutes. Each time, first I have to calm myself down then talk to the rest of the flock to calm them down. This happens multiple times a day and I am not sure how much longer I can take it. It used to be few times a day when he saw things that scared him, like umbrellas, spray bottles, backpacks and many more. In those times, I would remove the antecedent and the screeching would stop. But now, he screams for almost anything, like me moving my head or grabbing my phone.
I had a vet appointment yesterday for recheck his butt which was inflamed and he received medication for it. The vet said His health is great and the infection has completely cleared out. I brought up the screeching and asked if she could prescribe a medicine to calm him down a bit. Of course she did not recommend medication route and referred to the problem as “he is being a conure”, which to a large degree I agree. However his behavior effects my physical and mental health, as to every time he screeches I get startled, my hearth rate goes up and I had to calm myself down. I get distracted from whatever I’m doing just to calm down. Then I have to talk to my cockatoos so that they know there is no danger. When I talked to them softly, they stop the defensive perching and start to act normal again. Until they hear me saying “everything is okay bub bubss” with gentle voice tone, they stay at that defensive perching position ( heads down, wings are tucked up, ready to fly) watching out for danger. In order to calm them down, I need to be able to calm myself down which I’ve been struggling with.
Within last two weeks, I even considered the possibility of rehoming him (just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes) but then it makes me feel worse as I know sun conure are one of the most rehomed species due to their loudness. I feel like a failure and do not want to contribute to this huge problem. Also he is bonded with my green cheeked conure, so if I rehome him, I have to send her with him. I can’t separate them as I feel like this would devastate both of them. Finally I love both of them so much!!. I don’t want to give them up but I have to take care of myself in order to be able to take care of them. Because of his behavior and my response to his behavior I can already feel that my bond with Nikki is breaking. Not on my end but mostly on his end. He doesn’t trust me as much and not fully relaxed around me. I don’t want the bond between us to break!!
When I brought up how much distress Nikki is causing to rest of us, the vet wanted to consult some of her colleagues about possible pharmaceutical intervention. Reluctantly she said we could try Gabapentin, a non-psychoactive medicine used for pain management that causes reduced alertness and drowsiness. She insisted that I should try behavior modification and referred me to someone in upstate New York but I do not have the resources, mostly the time, to take on such an extensive and long treatment trial, which doesn’t guarantee the behavior would go extinct as he is a conure.
I’ve read some of the threads here and bunch of other blogs about how to handle screeching in conures. In the past, I used the spray bottle. Such a bad bad idea!!
My latest tool is to put him (with my GCC) in bathroom, which I converted to an oversized bird cage. When he goes bunker I scream “ go to the bathroom!!” From the tone of my voice they know so they fly down and I close the door behind them. I feel horrible for doing that but if I ignore his screeches by putting an earplug or headphones, he becomes louder and puts my cockatoos on edge. I don’t even want to know what my neighbors are thinking. After I put him there, he stays quite for maybe an hour then he starts his contact calls which I ignore. I watch them thru my camera that I placed in the bathroom to make sure they are ok. 5–10 minutes after he stops screaming, I go downstairs and let them out of the bathroom. I bring couple sunflower seeds or slices of apple to reward him for being quite. Few minutes after he is out, Dane thing all over again!!
I know this is a classic scenario for sun conures but has anybody have another tip to how to manage this behavior or has anybody have experience giving Gabapentin to their bird?
Thank you in advance!
This is him being a clown!