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Excessive contact calling

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Jacob

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I've always answered with a pleasant call and I always get the loud yell back so for me that isn't working :shrug:

I've started to ignore the calls when he's obviously just looking for attention. I've learned that when he comes flying into the living room and lands on his swing he will call until I stand up and talk to him or even give him a kiss. Just continuing sitting on the sofa and talk to him doesn't work. Me and my boyfriend even gave him a big cheer, with clapping when he came flying this afternoon but he just continued to call until I stood up.

If I don't want him to be on me in the kitchen while preparing food and put him repeatedly on his stand so that he can be near me but not on me, he will then start flying and landing on the kitchen cabinets and contact call.

If he is hungry and not happy with the food offered in his cage he will fly into the kitchen and contact call.

And one strange thing, if he hears water running he will start contact calling.
 

Sharpie

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Those sound less like the "where are you" of contact calls and more like "Gimme gimme" demanding calls.
 

Greycloud

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I agree, Jacob wants attention. I rescued a U2 with a horrible screaming problem. The trick is to totally ignore the screaming, especially if you are in the room. No eye contact, no words. If you are in another area of the house wait for the slightest pause and maybe give him a check. I do this to make sure he isn't upset by something he sees or hears. I still do not acknowledge him. Here is where you start to see a change. The only time my Sammy gets my attention is when he is showing correct behavior. If I am in the room, he gets my undivided attention. Praise, praise for good behavior. Praise him when he is busy eating, playing with toys, foraging. If you are in a different room, and you hear him play with a toy, praise. I gave Sammy a new bell. Everytime I heard that bell ring, no matter where I was, I called a praise to him. Sammy has dropped his screaming down by 75%. Positive reinforcement is what works. Learning to read your birds body language is very important. Some birds scream because they are happy and love to hear themselves scream. Some use screaming for excitement, curiosity, stress, loneliness. It is our job to figure out the reason and either ignore it, encourage it or use positive reinforcement to handle it. I a 99.9% sure your bird is not contact calling. Don't take him everywhere with you because that makes him quiet. Would you take a barking dog or CRYING CHILD WITH YOU TO THE BATHROOM OR WHEN EVER YOU HAD TO DO SOMETHING IN ANOTHER ROOM. Oops sorry for the caps! I know I would not. Patience, praise, positive reinforcement! PPP!
 

Danita

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Can you predict the times he does it? Maybe give him some 1:1 before he starts. Lots of flying is good to get out that energy. Does he have a game he likes to play with you? Sometimes a good tiring game before the contact calls start. Or how about a bath? Then he is busy preening his feathers, not calling to you.


Bea screams to me, so I whistle back. I ignore her until she whistles. Then I run over. Now she has it figured out to scream, then whistle LOL Hopefully, one day, she will drop the scream part :rolleyes:
 

Sadieladie1994

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Could you describe what you mean by contact call? Is it a screach, yell, etc. I just want to make sure what you are calling a contact call. Contact calls are a few at a time and short lived. Now a contact call can get into party time flock calling if you have an instigator (my house it is a severe macaw). I also have birds that have calls that are not as pleasant on the ears. Normal calling is fine and that is being a bird. Excessive makes me think you could benefit by changing the call. Answer back Hello. They screech...you...hello they screech you hello they screech you ....silence....they screech.....you silence they.....silence. you....good bird. and a reward.

When you have some of the loudest conures or anoying caique calling or the loudest B&G on the face of the earth who knows how to call out in bloody murder....well it is a good thing to retrain the contact call and it does work. Mine don't get a response to ongoing calling. some of our phrases are"hi baby" for the Queen of Bavaria conure. For the bonded pair of suns I fostered it was the microwave beep. They would beep and I would also. My blue crown conure sometimes when into major alert mode as a contact call....nope, not here fella. He would immitate me sneezing so I added "hows your cold" he would sneeze and I would bless him" We then reverse the roll. We do this once or twice and we are done with "contact calling". another is they learned "what does the duck say....quack quack" They learned how to say the phrase and everyone quacks.

It is a little easier in a household with multiple birds as they have other birds around for sentry duty and helping alert. I have less contact calling with my current flock than when I had fewer birds. Increasing your flock size though is not one of my recommendations! :omg:

I think the call can be changed. Something cute appeases a spouse who can show off the birdie talent to friends and the bird gets what they needed.

Just a thought from the sneezing, hi baby, quacking flock that lives we me

PEggy
 

Lunasmom

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Question: Is your parrot an only parrot? Could he be lonely for the company of his own kind? Do you think his contact calls are for trying to contact anouther parrot? There are DVDs you can get that your parrot can watch and listen to. Mabey you could try letting him watch a parrot DVD to see what his reaction is.
 

Jacob

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I agree, Jacob wants attention. I rescued a U2 with a horrible screaming problem. The trick is to totally ignore the screaming, especially if you are in the room. No eye contact, no words. If you are in another area of the house wait for the slightest pause and maybe give him a check. I do this to make sure he isn't upset by something he sees or hears. I still do not acknowledge him. Here is where you start to see a change. The only time my Sammy gets my attention is when he is showing correct behavior. If I am in the room, he gets my undivided attention. Praise, praise for good behavior. Praise him when he is busy eating, playing with toys, foraging. If you are in a different room, and you hear him play with a toy, praise. I gave Sammy a new bell. Everytime I heard that bell ring, no matter where I was, I called a praise to him. Sammy has dropped his screaming down by 75%. Positive reinforcement is what works. Learning to read your birds body language is very important. Some birds scream because they are happy and love to hear themselves scream. Some use screaming for excitement, curiosity, stress, loneliness. It is our job to figure out the reason and either ignore it, encourage it or use positive reinforcement to handle it. I a 99.9% sure your bird is not contact calling. Don't take him everywhere with you because that makes him quiet. Would you take a barking dog or CRYING CHILD WITH YOU TO THE BATHROOM OR WHEN EVER YOU HAD TO DO SOMETHING IN ANOTHER ROOM. Oops sorry for the caps! I know I would not. Patience, praise, positive reinforcement! PPP!
I think you are right. I am now making an effort to praise him when he sits quietly on his swing or is playing. Also I have noticed a turning point for Jacob, he is a re-home and before coming to us had bounced around homes every few months. He has been with us for about 8 months now and it seems that he is now trusting that this is where he is staying for good. He is bonding with me and suddenly wants to be on me all the time. But he also needs to know where my boyfriend is at all times. It's like he's loosing his independence and feels a strong need to keep the "flock" together. The need to be on me all the time just started about a week ago so I need to start training him again to be near me on a stand/table/swing instead of on me.

Can you predict the times he does it? Maybe give him some 1:1 before he starts. Lots of flying is good to get out that energy. Does he have a game he likes to play with you? Sometimes a good tiring game before the contact calls start. Or how about a bath? Then he is busy preening his feathers, not calling to you.
Last two days I've introduced a flying game. It's basically the target training game except I put the target stick somewhere that Jacob has to fly over to touch the stick. Jacob's favorite game now is humping my hand and arm :rolleyes: He is a horny little bugger at the moment and seizes every little chance he gets to start rubbing his little bum on my hand. :o:
The bath trick I have tried but it doesn't work on Jacob because he is weird and doesn't preen immediately after a bath and would rather just sit soaking wet on my shoulder and supervise what I'm doing.

Bea screams to me, so I whistle back. I ignore her until she whistles. Then I run over. Now she has it figured out to scream, then whistle LOL Hopefully, one day, she will drop the scream part :rolleyes:
I am going to continue working with this but Jacob doesn't imitate sounds or is really slow in doing so. I haven't noticed him learning any new sounds since he's been with us. But I do try and engage in "conversations" with him when he's doing his pleasant sounds.


Could you describe what you mean by contact call? Is it a screach, yell, etc. I just want to make sure what you are calling a contact call. Contact calls are a few at a time and short lived.
I've looked through my videos on youtube of noisy Jacob but I don't have any of his contact calls. I will try to record some when I get home from work. But they are like you describe, it's not screaming, it's a loud short yell.

Question: Is your parrot an only parrot? Could he be lonely for the company of his own kind? Do you think his contact calls are for trying to contact anouther parrot? There are DVDs you can get that your parrot can watch and listen to. Mabey you could try letting him watch a parrot DVD to see what his reaction is.
Jacob is an only bird and I think he is lonely but I just don't have space for another bird at the moment though I plan to get another one later in life. I don't think he is calling out to another parrot. I've tried playing him parrot sounds and it was a disaster. He started calling and calling and looking through the window in search of his friends, I felt so guilty. But I might try a dvd where he can see the parrots.
 

Greycloud

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I think you are in a good frame of mind. Many of us have been where you are right now. Kudos to you for seeking help and doing your best to try and better Jacobs negative behavior. We are here for you.
 

Jacob

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Ok I videoed Jacob's calling. First clip is Jacob sitting on the curtain pole, second clip he's sitting on my knee and calling. Third is where he followed my boyfriend into the kitchen.

 

Danita

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Treat every day like a new day and you will find a solution :)
 

Greycloud

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How old is Jacob? His behavior is very baby like. It's definitely not screaming. It seems he is making the noise almost to hear himself. He is not in any discomfort, yet he calls out. He may just enjoy making noise. When you leave the room does the noise he makes stay the same or become more frantic? Hmmm...I have to think about this.
 

Jacob

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I think he will turn 5 years old this year. I don't know his hatch date but I was told when I got him last year that he was 4 years old. I've talked to the man that imported him and he told me Jacob was imported 4 - 5 years ago. If I leave the room this is his call and it becomes more frantic and usually ends in screaming until I return. Doesn't matter if I call back.
 

Jacob

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I think Jacob is just calling for attention in the first and last clip. The one where he sits on my knee... I have no idea why he is calling out. :confused:
 

Greycloud

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I honestly think Jacob just likes to be heard. In the event he starts to scream louder when you leave, this is a form of contact calling, but he really just needs to see you. We cannot always be in "birds eye view" LOL! So ignoring the excessive screaming is best. When he starts this loud chirpping while on you, you might want to try and cut the amount down by holding a toy for him to pay with. Do this prior to his noise making, otherwise you are rewarding with the toy if give to him after he starts. He is a vry vocal bird and I really think he is just very happy.
 

Jacob

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Thank you for the advise. You are right, Jacob is very vocal, did you look at my other videos? After I bought FS light and started covering Jacob at 9 pm every night I rarely get irritated screaming. He's still loud though, but different loud :)
 

Greycloud

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Yes, I ve been following your threads on Jacob. I think you handling things great. You live with a conure! Loud is how they talk, LOL!
 
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