• Welcome to Avian Avenue! To view our forum with less advertisments please register with us.
    Memberships are free and it will just take a moment. Click here

My GCC barely sleeps or gets tired and I'm worried its affecting her day.

SkytheGcc

Strolling the yard
Joined
6/16/21
Messages
122
I always put my GCC to bed around 9-10 pm, although sometimes once every couple weeks i will go out to a long party/ get together etc. and she will be in her cage until 11-1 (rarely 1 but it has happened 2 or 3 times). She has a smaller travel cage that she sleeps in as well, and she normally does in a corner of our mudroom that is conveniently the right size for it. (its insulated and her main cage is near all of our rooms in the upstairs living room.)

However, as time has gone on since we got her she has become craftier on ways to stay out when i try to put her to sleep or back in her cage. But its mainly a problem when going to sleep. She wont go in even when I give her some of her favorite treats, and when i do bring her in she runs up to the door and climbs up so i cant close it. It takes me around half an hour to put her to sleep every day.

When I do I cover her with a black out cover and leave some of it uncovered so it doesn't get stuffy. She will always go to that part of the travel cage and stare. But even when I leave she starts to cry. More of a loud whistle then her normal sounds. She seems pretty sad and doesn't stop for about 10 minutes. She also doesn't seem to get to sleep that quick, as i sometimes come down for water about an hour later to find her whistling again when she hears me. (the mudroom is near our kitchen and main living room.)

I also don't think she sleeps until around 1 ish, as if i come home at like 12 and the lights were off in the rooms shes in, she'll still be awake and when i say awake, I mean VERY awake. And its rare for me to wake her up when she is still slightly tired, instead of wide awake. (its happened like maybe 15-20 times)

Along with that my family tend to hang in the main living room for a while, and my parents watch tv at night, which is pretty hearable from where she sleeps if they have their door open. Not to mention that if they watch tv on the main floor its even easier to hear.


I put in her favorite place to relax in her main cage, a swing, and put it in there. She goes there which seems good but as i said doesn't seem to actually doze off for a while. On top of this I read that GCCs tend to nap in the day, but I don't think I have ever, and i mean EVER seen her nap. She might when I'm at school but I don't think so as my parents are around and can hear her doing whatever. So she doesn't seem to sleep much at night, at all during the day, and it doesn't seem to be affecting her in direct ways. However ever since we transitioned to the travel cage sleep (around 7 or 8 months ago?), she has slowly slowly become less energetic or willing to hang w/ me. Nowadays she sometimes will just sit on my shoulder doing nothing or looking out the window in my room while i sit there talking to her to no avail. (sometimes, it isn't always). I'm worried it might become more frequent which would be really bad as she wouldn't have enough stimulus. (maybe? I'm pretty sure that when she comes out she should be doing more then watching me or outside)

She's our only bird and I've had to convince my parents to get her more then the like 9 toys we got originally for her cage. she mainly has bells and small plastic toys, with a couple chew toys she has stopped touching a while ago. maybe its because of that? I don't know...

I have had Sky (my GCC) for just under a year. I wanna say she's probably around a year and a month or two.

im also attaching a link to both her cage and travel cages in case cage size is an issue.

Travel/bedtime Cage:


Day cage: (like this but the two bowls are on the left and one is on the right)

 

SkytheGcc

Strolling the yard
Joined
6/16/21
Messages
122
I always put my GCC to bed around 9-10 pm, although sometimes once every couple weeks i will go out to a long party/ get together etc. and she will be in her cage until 11-1 (rarely 1 but it has happened 2 or 3 times). She has a smaller travel cage that she sleeps in as well, and she normally does in a corner of our mudroom that is conveniently the right size for it. (its insulated and her main cage is near all of our rooms in the upstairs living room.)

However, as time has gone on since we got her she has become craftier on ways to stay out when i try to put her to sleep or back in her cage. But its mainly a problem when going to sleep. She wont go in even when I give her some of her favorite treats, and when i do bring her in she runs up to the door and climbs up so i cant close it. It takes me around half an hour to put her to sleep every day.

When I do I cover her with a black out cover and leave some of it uncovered so it doesn't get stuffy. She will always go to that part of the travel cage and stare. But even when I leave she starts to cry. More of a loud whistle then her normal sounds. She seems pretty sad and doesn't stop for about 10 minutes. She also doesn't seem to get to sleep that quick, as i sometimes come down for water about an hour later to find her whistling again when she hears me. (the mudroom is near our kitchen and main living room.)

I also don't think she sleeps until around 1 ish, as if i come home at like 12 and the lights were off in the rooms shes in, she'll still be awake and when i say awake, I mean VERY awake. And its rare for me to wake her up when she is still slightly tired, instead of wide awake. (its happened like maybe 15-20 times)

Along with that my family tend to hang in the main living room for a while, and my parents watch tv at night, which is pretty hearable from where she sleeps if they have their door open. Not to mention that if they watch tv on the main floor its even easier to hear.


I put in her favorite place to relax in her main cage, a swing, and put it in there. She goes there which seems good but as i said doesn't seem to actually doze off for a while. On top of this I read that GCCs tend to nap in the day, but I don't think I have ever, and i mean EVER seen her nap. She might when I'm at school but I don't think so as my parents are around and can hear her doing whatever. So she doesn't seem to sleep much at night, at all during the day, and it doesn't seem to be affecting her in direct ways. However ever since we transitioned to the travel cage sleep (around 7 or 8 months ago?), she has slowly slowly become less energetic or willing to hang w/ me. Nowadays she sometimes will just sit on my shoulder doing nothing or looking out the window in my room while i sit there talking to her to no avail. (sometimes, it isn't always). I'm worried it might become more frequent which would be really bad as she wouldn't have enough stimulus. (maybe? I'm pretty sure that when she comes out she should be doing more then watching me or outside)

She's our only bird and I've had to convince my parents to get her more then the like 9 toys we got originally for her cage. she mainly has bells and small plastic toys, with a couple chew toys she has stopped touching a while ago. maybe its because of that? I don't know...

I have had Sky (my GCC) for just under a year. I wanna say she's probably around a year and a month or two.

im also attaching a link to both her cage and travel cages in case cage size is an issue.

Travel/bedtime Cage:


Day cage: (like this but the two bowls are on the left and one is on the right)


I forgot to mention a couple things. One: I feel like every day after finally bringing her in she seems kind of betrayed, altho that might just be me thinking to hard. 2: she used to have the joyous excited screams she used to make when we came near and brought her out. You could tell she was super happy and excited. They weren't really like any other I've heard on the internet. In fact i never have heard her do a generic GCC shriek. However, these screams stopped about a month or so ago which was also when the "less energetic" self of her came out. I can't think of any changes made at the time, and she seems a lot less happy to see us. Still happy, but...

3: During this time she has also been much more wary about hands and stuff, in fact for the past couple weeks she won't even let me scritch her :sad11:.I just have a feeling its all connected and I can't think of anything else that might be causing it except for this. We used to put a flight suit on her so she could be out for like 5+hrs at once, but she hated it so much and we had to grab her. She got scared of our hands bc of it but we stopped and she became ok with our hands again. (she will let us hold her for small amounts of time too, altho i doubt she will ever let us for long, or at least not for a while).

does anyone maybe know why she doesn't seem to be sleeping or why she might be less inclined to spend time w/ us? The sleeping part has been ever since she transferred into a different bedtime cage, and the other has slowly been developing for 3 or so weeks.
 

Mizzely

Lil Monsters Bird Toys
Super Moderator
Vendor
Avenue Veteran
Celebirdy of the Month
Mayor of the Avenue
Avenue Spotlight Award
Avenue Concierge
Joined
8/9/11
Messages
39,968
Location
Northern Mitten Michigan
Real Name
Shawna [she/her]
Birds are prey animals and it's not uncommon for them to look awake every time you look at them as they are light sleepers because survival requires them to be alert with little notice.

It sounds like you've lost some trust with her by grabbing her so much.

You say the sleeping issues started when you introduced the sleep cage? Why not go back to the way you were doing things then?
 

SkytheGcc

Strolling the yard
Joined
6/16/21
Messages
122
Birds are prey animals and it's not uncommon for them to look awake every time you look at them as they are light sleepers because survival requires them to be alert with little notice.

It sounds like you've lost some trust with her by grabbing her so much.

You say the sleeping issues started when you introduced the sleep cage? Why not go back to the way you were doing things then?
The sleeping issues aren’t so much of an issue and more of a worry since she doesn’t want to sleep at night and I haven’t ever seen her nap. The worry is it’s not normal and might be bad for her since she never wants to sleep either and never seems to settle down at night. If you think it’s normal then that’s fine I guess although I’m still confused why she doesnt settle down at all and is always high energy. We transitioned her as well because she wouldnt poop in her normal cage And her normal cage is near high activity areas at her bedtime. We read that some birds won’t poo where they sleep so that’s another reason we did it.

We stopped putting on her flight suit in December and she had almost fully gained her trust to our hands back. It’s only in the past few weeks when It seemed like she didn’t want to anymore. She will Fly to me if I walk to go get something quick and I’m successfully teaching her recall. the onoh problem I can think of with my hands is she steps up less and sometimes bites (not hard but not softly either) so I can put her down. I cant think of any changes we made. Could she just be Being moody? she shouldn’t be in her hormonal phase this young.
 
Last edited:

SkytheGcc

Strolling the yard
Joined
6/16/21
Messages
122
EDIT i think it may be hormones after all. I looked it up and saw that they go through their first small horomonal shift around 10-12 months or so. Sucks that she's not the joyous baby I remember but she's still very sweet and I think we'll both become accustomed to it soon.
 

Glamourfaust

Meeting neighbors
Avenue Veteran
Joined
12/3/18
Messages
37
Location
Ontario
EDIT i think it may be hormones after all. I looked it up and saw that they go through their first small horomonal shift around 10-12 months or so. Sucks that she's not the joyous baby I remember but she's still very sweet and I think we'll both become accustomed to it soon.
I'm new to conures myself, but have read that long days can cause hormonal behaviour.
 

SkytheGcc

Strolling the yard
Joined
6/16/21
Messages
122
UPDATE 3

whatever it was is slowly going away again. I think whatever she was thinking or what I was doing is no more
 
Top