A fear of household cleaning devices?

[birdlover123]

My sun conure, Sunny, freaks out every time I bring a broom or (unplugged) vacuum cleaner into the room where he stays.

Even before the whole thing is visible from his perch he goes off on his panicked calling and doesn't stop. Familiarity in this case doesn't breed acceptance as he is as freaked by them today as he was the first time he saw them.

Has anyone else witnessed this kind of aversion? I'm wondering how best to chill him out since obviously the room needs cleaning now and then. He is never locked in the cage but he never flies, which I also don't understand because I've never had his wings clipped, but that's another issue.

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[sunnysmom]

Elvis completely flips out over the vacuum cleaner, step ladder and dust pan with small broom. I have to keep all of them completely hidden from him. What I end up doing is just taking him upstairs when I vacuum downstairs and vice versa.

 

[Lesley Yeung]

Bird loses his mind whenever he sees the windex bottle. We have never sprayed him, or even in the air around him. And only windex makes him mad.

Well, he doesn't much like the vaccuum or floor cleaner. But the Windex makes him so mad.

 

[BrianB]

My blue crowns could care less. The green cheek screams when it’s running but it seems more like making noise to match the noise the vacuum makes. My cat is another story. He’s terrified of the carpet monster.

 

[macawpower58]

I think it's perfectly normal. They could be 'PREDATORS!'. Big scary monsters.

My way of dealing with it is to play. With a new vacumn, broom, etc., I make rum rum noises, like a big Harley Davidson.
I run around in circles, showing my birds it's not that scarey. Chaos now makes the 'rum rum' sound when something new scares him.
You should have seen my trying to show them the flashlight was benign. .

Since they feed off of us, don't soothe them. This can backfire as they think 'I was right! It is scary'.

It kind of works for the most part.
Of course somethings are the devil himself and no explaining will convince them otherwise.

 

[Farlie]

Farlie, my sun conure, doesn't care one way or the other. He'll fly to his cage and watch me from within while I vacuum and mop the floor. His cage is on wheels and I will roll it around when cleaning. It doesn't bother him any.

 

[Farlie]

Forgot to mention that he would rather ride on my shoulders but I do too much jerking and bend for him to ride comfortably there so his cage is where he goes.

 

[itzmered]

Tango has no issue with the vacuum, in fact it usually triggers him to take a bath

the broom is an evil monster to warning everyone about though

 

[Leih]

Tango has no issue with the vacuum, in fact it usually triggers him to take a bath

the broom is an evil monster to warning everyone about though

I sometimes watch Love of Pets on YouTube and one of her suggestions to get your bird to bathe, if they're reluctant, is to run the vacuum! So weird! My conure grumbles like crazy when I use it, but fortunately he didn't seem to scared.

 

[Farlie]

Tango has no issue with the vacuum, in fact it usually triggers him to take a bath

the broom is an evil monster to warning everyone about though

Oh my, what a beautiful baby you have there.

 

[d_msparkles]

Waffle is TERRIFIED of the vaccuum. If I’m carrying her around on my shoulder and she even sees it, she flies off.
I just try to keep it out of her sight unless we need to use it and figure maybe eventually she’ll get that it’s not going to hurt her.