Lelushio
Meeting neighbors
- Joined
- 10/16/18
- Messages
- 21
So I bought a nice harness about 3 days ago and started harness training my lovebird, Lily. She seemed to be responding well enough, even though she seemed really uncomfortable with it, we were making good progress so I thought it was fine. She was starting to put her head through the hole herself so I thought it was fine. But for some strange reason, every time we got to the point where she would stick her head through the harness, she would stop paying attention and start preening and would just ignore me. Then I noticed that she was yanking and I could hear small ripping sounds. I immediately put the harness away and started freaking out. I tried calming down so Lily wouldn’t be more stressed, but I just felt so awful that it was my fault she was plucking and I hadn’t even known! It’s my first time having a bird pluck, but looking back I’ve only seen her doing it for two days, but I am determined to stop it early. She doesn’t have any feathers on the bottom of her cage, which is good, and she seems to only be plucking tiny tiny feathers for now. I rotated and added toys and her cage and have some nice wood and branches in there now. I’ve taken away the harness far from sight and she seems to be doing better, but I am still just so scared. I’ll be leaving the TV on from now on when I leave the house and will take her out and will give her mental enrichment and will play with her. I know I shouldn’t freak out or constantly correct her when I see her plucking, so I’m trying not to do that. I’ve been misting her more frequently as well, although I’m sure it’s due to stress and most likely also because she’s a female and has gotten very sexual recently. But still, I am really scared, is there anything else I should do? Will I ever be able to harness train her again without her becoming super stressed? Can I correct the behavior because I caught it within the first like 2-3 days of her doing it? Am I doing this all wrong?