Adopted Quaker Advice

[Keltys]

Hey all. A few weeks ago, my wife and I brought home a rescue Quaker. She is about 2.5, and came from a very loving home where it was just her and her owner. The owner was moving in with her BF, and he had a dog so she decided to give up the bird.
We were introduced to the bird through friends at a parrot shop. Everyone at the shop loved the bird and said she was the sweetest quaker.

When she came home she immediately was attached to both me and my wife, talking to us, giving kisses, and generally soaking up the attention. For the first two weeks, she was an angel aside from a few behaviors:

- She refused to step up off her cage 90% of the time, requiring her feet to be gently pried off.
- She would get defensive and fearful around our other birds, a GCC and another female Quaker.
- She won't take food of any kind from a hand. That's the only other time she has nipped, is when I tried to give her a treat.

We also suspect she has anxiety. She shivers, bobs her head, and seems to have nervous ticks. I'm not a quaker expert, but Ive never seen similar behaviors in a quaker.


Now, three days ago we had a few friends over (the first visitors since she came home) for a quiet dinner. She was great at first, and even let one pet her (they didn't ask first, if they did I would have told him no). Later in the night she was on my wife's shoulder, and suddenly attacked, biting her cheek when she moved to adjust her glasses. When she was told to step up, she again bit the finger and had to be toweled.

Since that interaction, things have gone way downhill. She was nice the next morning but did the same thing later in the day.

Now today, she has gotten meaner and meaner as the day went by. Now, when she is on or in her cage she will run around trying to bite us if we walk by. If she is on the ground, she will chase us trying to bite our feet.

Just two days ago she would sit on her cage and beg for kisses. I've never seen a change like this, and I'm really worried.


To answer some inevitable questions.

- Her cage is smaller than I would like, Its about a 24 inch cube. What I would consider to be a good travel cage size for a Quaker. But, she has been in this cage her whole life so we wanted her to adjust to us before getting a new one. We are also moving in 3 weeks and wanted to wait until after that.

- She doesn't have a nest, hut, or any other hormone inducing things in her cage. I've rotated toys and changed the layout of her cage several times since she came home.

- She doesn't seem hormonal in any other ways aside from the aggression. She probably has been getting less than ideal sleep, so I plan on covering her tonight.

- She eats a diet of 90% seeds. We are working to get her on pellets and fresh food, but she is picky and wasn't given the best food by her previous owner.


Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Shezbug]

Welcome to the Avenue

I have never even been lucky enough to meet a Quaker in person I don’t believe so I’m of no help with information in regards to them.
@Mizzely had one @CrazyBirdChick has one I’m pretty sure @SandraK does too so hopefully one of them will be of help or be able to tag others for you.

 

[Mizzely]

So some Quakers are just naturally more cage aggressive than others. During the first few weeks a lot of birds are too scared to defend themselves and will tolerate a lot more than they really are comfortable with to avoid rocking the boat. They call it the honeymoon period.

The peeling her off of the cage may have damaged her trust because it removed her choice about what she was doing and where she was going and with who.

If she's really attached to your wife, with the friends over she may have bit her to "warn" her. It seems counterproductive but they will sometimes bite their favorite person to get their attention and warn them of a perceived threat, or to redirect their attention back to them (almost like a jealous, abusive lover).

She also may have just gotten over stimulated. New home, new people, new birds, etc.. its a lot.

My advice would be to give her her space for a bit. The harder I tried to reconcile with my quaker, the harder he pushed back. As soon as I gave him some space, it gave him the freedom to settle down some and work through his "emotions," for lack of a better way to phrase it, and he started to come back around to me.

 

[CrazyBirdChick]

Thank you for taking her in! My only advice would be not asking her to step up off of her cage. Give her time to get used to the huge change in her life and don't let her on your or your wife's shoulder until you've established a relationship and learned her body language a little more. Oop, while I was writing this I see Mizzely replied and I complely agree with everything she says.

 

[SandraK]

Hi and welcome to AA. Does your fid have a name yet and do you know his/her sex for sure?

I agree with what's been posted so far. Plus her cage right now is her "safe space" as it's the one thing she recognizes from her former life. If you could post some pix of her and her cage some of us might be able to give suggestions to minimize her cage aggressiveness. I was wondering if possibly the re-arranging of her cage over-stimulated her. What does she do if you just open her cage door but don't try to get her to step up?

My avatar Kiwi (RIP) tried being cage aggressive with me once and I picked her up and put her in the "time out" cage in the laundry room. Kiwi tried nipping and I literally grabbed her and put her in the cage; she never tried that again with me but she'd follow anyone else who was walking from the kitchen through the dining room to the laundry. We had Kiwi's cage and a couple of others lined up along the window and Kiwi would follow from cage to cage growling the whole time. The difference was that Kiwi was given to me as a baby and she was growing up - in your case you have an adult.

As for being bitten on the cheek, it sounds like your Quaker might have been startled by your wife adjusting her glasses. JJ my green Quaker bit me on the chin a week or so ago when I was blowing raspberries at gcc Beni, so for now he isn't allowed on my shoulder. He'd never reacted to a raspberry like that but I don't really think I'd ever blown raspberries with him on me. The noise didn't bother Beni or Baby Blue, our other male Quaker.

As for changing her diet, try giving her small samples of fruit or veggies that you have or are eating. Eat some in front of her and tell her it's good, um-um and praise her over the top if/when she tries something. My Quakers like banana, apple, corn, rice, pasta, broccoli and peas among other things. They're usually willing to try anything as long as they've seen me eat it first.

 

[Keltys]

Hey everyone! Thank you for the replies.

Luna is doing much better today and stepped up for my wife to come out of her cage this morning.

Last night we moved her cage away from the other birds (same room, but far corner) and covered her at bed time.

We are 90% sure she is female. We don't have a DNA test on file, but the intermediary that we got her from says she thinks she was DNA tested as a baby.


I've never heard of a honeymoon period in birds, but then again every other parrot I've had I raised from an early age. This makes a lot of sense to me actually.
I think that I took her interest and attachment to us to mean that she had processed the change and was ready to explore.


I will post a picture of the cage in a few minutes as requested. Her cage is far from ideal right now, and I can't wait to get her a bigger one after the move.


I think the plan of attack is just to take things slow and start working on desensitizing her to hands.

 

[Keltys]

So some Quakers are just naturally more cage aggressive than others. During the first few weeks a lot of birds are too scared to defend themselves and will tolerate a lot more than they really are comfortable with to avoid rocking the boat. They call it the honeymoon period.

The peeling her off of the cage may have damaged her trust because it removed her choice about what she was doing and where she was going and with who.

If she's really attached to your wife, with the friends over she may have bit her to "warn" her. It seems counterproductive but they will sometimes bite their favorite person to get their attention and warn them of a perceived threat, or to redirect their attention back to them (almost like a jealous, abusive lover).

She also may have just gotten over stimulated. New home, new people, new birds, etc.. its a lot.

My advice would be to give her her space for a bit. The harder I tried to reconcile with my quaker, the harder he pushed back. As soon as I gave him some space, it gave him the freedom to settle down some and work through his "emotions," for lack of a better way to phrase it, and he started to come back around to me.

Agreed on the cage aggressiveness. The big thing that shocked me was that she went from mildly cage aggressive (she was fine with anything as long as we didn't try to touch her food or toys while she was in her cage) to running around lunging at us. Looks like things are better today though, the lunging has stopped and she is begging for attention again.

 

[Keltys]

Hi and welcome to AA. Does your fid have a name yet and do you know his/her sex for sure?

I agree with what's been posted so far. Plus her cage right now is her "safe space" as it's the one thing she recognizes from her former life. If you could post some pix of her and her cage some of us might be able to give suggestions to minimize her cage aggressiveness. I was wondering if possibly the re-arranging of her cage over-stimulated her. What does she do if you just open her cage door but don't try to get her to step up?

My avatar Kiwi (RIP) tried being cage aggressive with me once and I picked her up and put her in the "time out" cage in the laundry room. Kiwi tried nipping and I literally grabbed her and put her in the cage; she never tried that again with me but she'd follow anyone else who was walking from the kitchen through the dining room to the laundry. We had Kiwi's cage and a couple of others lined up along the window and Kiwi would follow from cage to cage growling the whole time. The difference was that Kiwi was given to me as a baby and she was growing up - in your case you have an adult.

As for being bitten on the cheek, it sounds like your Quaker might have been startled by your wife adjusting her glasses. JJ my green Quaker bit me on the chin a week or so ago when I was blowing raspberries at gcc Beni, so for now he isn't allowed on my shoulder. He'd never reacted to a raspberry like that but I don't really think I'd ever blown raspberries with him on me. The noise didn't bother Beni or Baby Blue, our other male Quaker.

As for changing her diet, try giving her small samples of fruit or veggies that you have or are eating. Eat some in front of her and tell her it's good, um-um and praise her over the top if/when she tries something. My Quakers like banana, apple, corn, rice, pasta, broccoli and peas among other things. They're usually willing to try anything as long as they've seen me eat it first.

Here is Luna on her cage. She isn't lunging anymore and has returned to begging for attention.