Grumpy Parrot, Upset Human

Her night time routine is the same, she gets food, water and covered after I tell her night night.

I try to have as much one on one with her as possible but her poops are getting the best of me, it's bad to potty train them obviously but she's scared of everything so I can't get her a diaper to solve it but I also can't easily clean it because she's scared of the thing I'm cleaning with. Which makes one on one time frustrating. I love her sitting in my shoulder but the amount of times I've not realised she's pooed and then move around and proceed to rub poop on everything my back touches.

Anyway that's a tangent, I just wanted you to know I've read it but too tired to form a full and proper response yet lol

Thank you

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Not a good idea to toilet train a parrot and I'm not sure diapers would be hygienic. When we have time with Ruby, every few minutes or so, she is returned to her tree to poop and we never have accidents. On her tree she goes to one branch to poop and it's conveniently caught on some newspaper directly underneath that spot.
 
Oops that reads wrong. Just saying I was agreeing with you it's not right to toilet train. Wasn't suggesting you thought it was but worried it may read like that!
 
Yes, I do the same as Bradders. Larger parrots poop roughly every 20 minutes, give or take. With Kobe I just hold him over a piece of newspaper by the sofa as soon as I see the shuffling backwards etc. The sofa has a washable throw over it and tea towels along the back and arms... just in case. And I always change into old clothes when I come in.

Been thinking too looking back and seeing how frightened she is of new things. Does she play with toys yet? Teaching her to play might also help with the screaming in that she would be more independent rather than totally focused on you and then frantically calling when you leave the room. If she had a stand, she could learn to be beside you rather than on you all the time. It's pretty easy to make a cheap stand by setting long, multi-stemmed apple (or other safe wood) branches in a flowerpot of cement. You would then have to work on desensitising her to it.
 
That's a good point. Ruby has always been independent of us but she is a foraging queen. You say Echo likes her food, this could be just the thing. Wrap lots of foodie treats in scraps of paper (I buy mine from Scarlett's) and then hide this in empty boxes, Ruby likes egg cartons. Ruby spends ages just shredding the stuff. Our vet says they find food more satisfying when they've had to 'hunt' for it themselves. I also hide food around her cage anyway. I skewer grapes on drinking straws and thread them through the bars - she loves it! You might need to model how to do this if she's never done this before but she'll get the idea. I love watching Ruby forage and enjoy putting the treats together too. Might help to get Connor involved too.
 
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I'm loving all the advice that is being said!
Having had a look in in the other post about the ham, you mentioned she has no inclination to fly when you're eating. As @dianaT pointed out, this could be to do with her confidence in flying. If she cannot fly to see you, she will be screaming as her main form of communication. Maybe you could go back to basics with the flying, and help her build her confidence? You can do this by placing two stand perches together and target train her from one to the other with plenty of praise, am I right in thinking she is uninterested in food rewards? Slowly increase the distance. This will help her build wing muscles and be able to navigate the flat and find proper perching places. Connor can easily do this while you're out and him helping her build her confidence will help their relationship some what. It certainly cannot harm it, provided everything is done in a calm manner and the sessions are ended at the perfect time. I find I push my birds too far sometimes by making the mistake of thinking 'oh that was perfect, let's do that one more time' from personal experience when I think that, I know it is time to stop, which ends the session on a good note for the bird and the owner.
I hope you've had a good weekend :)
 
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