First off, she's beautiful!
This is a massive surprise to me! I skim a lot but I don't remember you talking about cockatoos so wow! Big leap!
Secondly, I met Pixiebeak before I joined this forum. She helped me get through my first parrot Cotton's Chlamydia infection, and sometimes said things that were hard for me to hear because 1. I didn't want to admit to myself I'd jumped in to a complex situation and 2. I wanted to be perfect at all of it LOL - but her early intervention and ongoing support is 100% the reason Cotton is alive today. So I know her feeling like a Grinch is coming from a place of deep love for all of us in the parrot world - birds AND humans.
I LOVE Cockatoos - I'm super lucky that I have a local sanctuary where I can volunteer because I don't think my work schedule would be ok with a cocky, but their personalities and mannerisms across all of them are just delightful to me. I told my shift manager there that I felt like Opie, my baby Quaker, is like a 1/10th 'too - a too with training wheels - because he's just as silly and a troublemaker toddler, and wants attention all the time, but he's so much quieter and easier than a too when he's bitey or yelling lol.
I selfishly hope you post EVERYTHING about your new family member and ask lots of questions so I can live vicariously through you, since we're baby blue Quaker buddies but I sadly won't be a 'too twin at this stage. I'm sure it will take her some time to grieve her former family and settle in, but you can start working with her now to build a good relationship. Target training is my personal favorite way to establish communication after initial trust, because it translates to every animal species and you can start before she's 100% comfortable with stepping up.
Don't give up on your little ones just yet
I'm fostering a bonded friend-pair of 30+ year old parrots and they both now are good with me, after a couple weeks of working with them individually a few times a day. Not for very long, because I work a million hours this time of year, but a little bit here and there.
I've also totally noticed that if I DON'T give Cotton some 1 on 1 time every day, our relationship takes about 20 steps backwards. He's not impressed that I spend more time with Opie even though he doesn't want to be a shoulder bird or do target training himself.
In general with all the animals I've worked with - and my kid! Ha! - I find that working on a specific behavior 5 times a day for 5 minutes is way more successful than a long session once a day. Some days it's 5 minutes in the morning and 5 at night with just out of cage time in between, sometimes it's more sessions to burn mental energy but less out of cage time because I work. And some days I find myself feeling defeated by not having enough time available for lots of free play time :/
Everyone here can help you figure out what will work the best for your household to allow all the birds to build a relationship with all of you, too
If you keep posting pictures lol
Oh lordy
I've typed long enough I can't remember what you said in your first post that i wanted to answer!
Tteok was up Jay’s nose, and Pudge and Burt were preening each other and wouldn’t even accept treats.
