Need help with DECONDITIONING an overbonded Eclectus.

[parrotntn]

Ok, I need bird help......
I have a rehome, male Eclectus, Frisco who is 10 years old.. I received him in November of last year, 2009. I got him from a reputable breeder where he was rehomed after a family could no longer take care of him and he had began to pluck, so they took him to her.
I have spoken on the phone to the family who got him as a baby bird. It's a sad, but typical story. I swear people should have a license to own a bird. They should have to PROVE they are ready to take in an undomesticated animal before they completely RUIN the animal.
He was their "baby". They showered him with love and adoration 24-7. All was good for YEARS and he was conditioned to the 24-7 love and affection until....
they had a REAL human baby....

and then another...
So, Frisco was sent to solitary confinement because they did not have time for him with two kids.
Thus, in his frustration, he began to pluck so they let him go to the breeder. (not the breeder from where he came btw)

He came to me healthy, lush feathers except 1/2 of his back and under both wings where he had plucked but had some small feathers regroing. But, mostly, it was just pink skin.
The breeder said he was sort of standoffish from the other birds in the aviary where she had him for a few months before I got him, but nothing unusual really. Didn't interact with them much. He did sit by her husband as he read the newspaper and was quiet and content. Very hand tame. Talked some.

He was flown to me, I got him home and out of his carrier about 3 pm. easily adapted to the family. By 8 oclock that nite, he was masturbating on my hand. I thought, well, he's just happy to see get some attention.
Birds are smart, he knew....
He will not "play". He ONLY wants to be with me, on me, around me. He will go to other members of the family but will not interact really with anyone but myself. He has a hard time just sitting besides me, he struggles and is restless to actually be ON me. Once, as a test, I left about 3 inches of my arm showing and he found it and quickly mounted it like mounting a bike. And, there he began masturbating again.
When he does masturbate on me, I don't fuss or reprimand him. I take him back to his cage.
Actually lately, the masturbation has quieted down some. He was regurging on me, but has not done that as much either lately. But, as I've said his arm time on me has to m
I have tried to clicker train him, but he is so totally and completely focused on me, it's very difficult for him to focus on a target.
I used to sit him on our living room table and he'd play in a box of toys I'd put there. Now, he quickly bores with those shiny things and wants down or off. I have a perch on the top of my rolltop desk and he only sits there a few minutes and is off and making his way to sit on my leg. I leave him on there a few minutes then put him back on the perch and tell him GOOD BOY.
I practice positive reinforcement only.
I have given him things to shred, he just stares.
I have bought him expensive toys, he just stares.
I have given him little things around the house to interact with, he just stares.
Once, while putting them in his cage, he LEPT from a perch onto my arm., I quietly put him back.
The one thing he will do is play with checkers. You know the cheap black and red ones. Don't ask me why, but he will drop those over and over and over into a small tin in his cage. It's like some mental thing he has.
But, he takes spells of not doing those either.
I've put him in the floor and he runs to my arm when I lay down with him and try to play roll a ball.
He just looks at foragers I've bought with almonds in them.
He will shred a paper cup with an almond in it, but will have nothing to do with anything else.
This situation has gotten progressively worse to the point that I truly belive this bird has no idea of "how" to be a bird.
Case in point:
I tried "packing"his cage with small limbs to maybe stimulate some sort of instinct to nibble and bite those limbs. I did this two days ago. I've taken him out and played with him normally in those two days, fed, water, etc.
Today I came in and found he has completely plucked his back pink all the way to his preening gland. TOTALLY pink. No lil feather nubs or anything...pink meat.
Tailfeathers and the rest of his feathers are intact.
He didn't chew any of the limbs, but merely pushed them out of the way. He did chew his feathers some as I've seen them on the cagebottom sort of chewed.
I immediatly removed all of his packing and restored his home to normal and offered him a shower.
He get's a mixture of eclectus seeds, non dyed or preservative from birdseeds.com and he gets a rice/vegetable mix I make, with some fresh fruit, he also get's non dyed pellets.
He is gotten out his cage at least once a day and taken into our great room where he sits on a stand and most of the time is crouched in begging position for me. He has an outside cage as well. I put him in there on sunny days and he spends his time there, in the shade, screaming bloody murder. He takes a shower a couple of times a week.
I take him out in the carrier to strange places to increase his sociailzation and he likes that. But, I can't live on the road with him.
He talks some. Steps up mostly to everyone. He has a preference for males, he only masturbates on them. He is more reluctant to step onto a female, but he will.
He gets 10-12 hours sleep in a dark room in a large cage.
The door is open to the room in the am and he is adjacent to all of the family activities. He talks a little us from there.


A bit bout my home environment: married, 2 teenage kids, one housedog, one 3 year old cockatiel that is very tame but is in another room. I have contemplated putting the tiel next to him. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything. We work day hours and are home at night. We have a pretty settled home and we interact with him quite a bit. He gets some arm time, but I limit that because within just a few minutes, he's humping my arm.



To summarize, this bird is conditioned to be the focus of the family. And, that conditioning was removed when they had children. This bird simply does not understand why he can't be the center of attention anymore.
And, I believe since he has no playing or chewing or any normal bird habits, he was removed early from his habitat and never learned HOW to be a bird as he must have never observed it.
Being the baby to the humans is all he knew.
HOW, do I teach this bird to be a bird? HOW do I teach him to be content and do "bird" things? He is totally miserable and I hate this for him. I can sense his uneasiness. He's restless. He doesn't know how to BE the bird.
I need to distract him, to teach him play. I have the enrichment material. I've tried a lot of them. Boxes, twine, you name it...he just stares at it and begs for me.
I do flapping exercises till he gets winded sometimes.

He's a beautiful animal and I want this to work.
I have worked with rescues before, an abused Amazon that I trick trained and rehomed to a great home. I'm not new at this, but I'll be honest...this one has me AND the renowned eclectus breeder I got him from totally perplexed. She doesn't know what to do either.

Sorry for the long post, but I knew some would be asking some questions and I tried to address them all upfront.

Thanks in advance,
--
Mark

[loyallyroyal]

I personally have no idea as far as this with ekkies, Ive heard of it with cockatoos and they put them in a cockatoo flock enviroment so they learn to be a bird.

Who did you get him from? If I remember correctly it was some bigger name breeder, Laurella Desborough I believe. What is her take on the situation?

There are several people I would look into asking if I was in that situation,
MaryNat and Carolyn Swicegood on land of vos would be a good starting point: landofvos.com • Index page

[FoxersArtist]

The first bit of advice I have is not reconditioning for your eclectus but rather, reconditioning for you. Birds, just like people, sense when we are stressed, unhappy, unapproving, anxious, or otherwise "off." Frisco is likely keyed into the fact that you are frustrated with him or in the least, concerned. It drives me bonkers when my own birds lean and point toward me the moment I put them down as I feel this anxiety like if I do not comfort them, I will be a bad parront. Still, it is important for us to give our birds some time to learn to entertain themselves - even if it means we have to turn away and not watch the squatting and the flapping, and the anxiety they appear to be putting out. The good news is that most parrots who do this squatting dance are likely not nearly as anxious as they would lead you to believe. They are just REALLY good at getting our attention with that exaggerated body language of theirs. All of that to say - just relax and accept that your guy is going to do whatever he is going to do - easier said than done, I know.

I have never known an eclectus parrot who was majorly into toys. Most eclectus parrots really enjoy STARING. Staring into no where is their happy place. It is where they can get into their own head and daydream and just be whoever they are. Also - it is important to put your head into the way your bird might see things. All he wants to do is mate and raise babies with you. but all you want to do is screw around with toys. I might be frustrated too, if I were him. You cannot (and don't want) to take his love for you away so you will just have to work around his neediness. My guess is that he will not be likely to respond best by you playing with toys with him. He will have to learn about them by himself - and this may take time. Designate a special play area in your home - counter, play perch, or buy one of those awesome nets that hang from the ceiling.) Do not let him play on the floor and offering dark areas to play in like boxes, cupboards, under beds and sofas, etc will only confuse him more. Finding a play perch that he likes just as much, if not more than he likes you, will be important. The higher up he is, the more secure he may be. We use our net (7+ ft high) to recondition needy and/or wandering parrots. They like to be up high so much that they forget that they really wanted to cuddle or wander. Eventually this usually includes curiosity and play so long as we have some interesting toys up there (Many parrots who are not prone to swallowing small parts love to preen bead toys, FYI.) If Frisco looks at you and insists that he MUST come to you RIGHT THIS MINUTE, give him the evil eye and promptly walk out of the room without saying anything. He will hopefully get the message that the more he tries to get your attention, the more it annoys you and causes you to leave. If at all possible, stick the most irresistable food items possible within his reach (while he is out of the cage.) Praise him for eating, playing, preening, or staring. A parrot that is stuffing itself is likely a distracted 2 year old who will soon feel full and sleepy and less like flapping at you in a mad attempt to get your attention. Totally ignore him when he is acting up or just put him away.

As far as cuddles go - I think that cudding is a need but it should be carefully given. Sit and cuddle with him AFTER he has been out playing for a while. Make cuddles happen right before you put him away and then promptly put him back in his cage. This way he has no opportunity to get wound up wanting more attention from a play perch, because you will be out of sight. Our triton is less likely to pluck when I allow him to play for about an hour by himself and then give him some cuddles before returning him to his cage, where he quickly shifts back into "cage" mode. Avoiding the idea that cuddles are coming when he is first let out of the cage may cut back on some of the anxiety he feels when he is not on you. He will learn that cuddles come AFTER he has self entertained for a while.

Above all else - forget what Friscos old family did with him. He is in a new family now and is most likely to adapt if you are not trying to fulfill his special needs/demands. Be patient and give him time. Even if he does not stop plucking (it sounds like he is REALLY hormonal and that's enough reason for any bird to pluck, especially ekkies) I think he can eventually intigrate into your household without feeling the need to demand, demand, demand. It can be very hard for us to realize that if we have enough confidence in ourselves our parrots will follow our lead because that ultimately means that they will find themselves in a safe place.
-Anna

[parrotntn]

entertain themselves

Herein lies the problem.
Frisco doesn't know HOW to do that.

give him the evil eye and promptly walk out of the room without saying anything

Done that, still doing it.

Praise him for eating, playing, preening, or staring

I have and still do that, being a believer in positive reinforcement. I do that just for a few seconds of contentment on a perch or wherever.

Totally ignore him when he is acting up or just put him away.

Again, done that. But that puts him out of his flock for most of the time because he is so simply unhappy without being ON me. He just doesn't know how to "entertain" himself. He has no idea.
That said there have been a few rare times that he does sit quietly on his perch, maybe take a nap on one leg.

He'll give one of those gut retching screams out of the blue if all else fails after leaning/flapping at me. Those get him quietly removed from the flock, no eye contact, no verbal contact, and put back in his cage and the door closed.
after about 10 minutes he'll say HI and then be brought back into the flock, where the process repeats itself.

Our cockatiel doesn't "play" a lot. But, he is content to sit quietly or mumble bird talk. And, he's certainly never plucked himself.

I too believe he can integrate. I'm not sure about his hormones as this has been going on from November thru May now.

Good ideas and thanks for the feedback.

[chapala]

Needy parrots are difficult, for sure! And they usually are created through how they are treated by the first owner. So many people want to cuddle parrots -young, socialized birds are pretty irresistible! - but as they mature, it does them no good at all to be stroked, petted, given lots of lap time, especially under a towel or blanket, allowed to masturbate and/or regurgitate on a person, etc.

I think you need to continue being consistent with him, continuing to reward any good behavior, and ignoring the problem behaviors. Have you tried changing his cage around, moving the cage to another location, taking him for a drive in the car maybe to a friend's house? Is he getting 12 hours of darkness?

Best of luck in dealing with him!!

[Dana64]

Oh Mark! I wish I could help you with Frisco, the way you helped me with Mackie back in December. I appreciated your advice more than I can put into words. Anna gave some really good tips. Especially when she said,

Originally Posted by FoxersArtist

Above all else - forget what Friscos old family did with him. He is in a new family now and is most likely to adapt if you are not trying to fulfill his special needs/demands. Be patient and give him time. Even if he does not stop plucking (it sounds like he is REALLY hormonal and that's enough reason for any bird to pluck, especially ekkies) I think he can eventually intigrate into your household without feeling the need to demand, demand, demand. It can be very hard for us to realize that if we have enough confidence in ourselves our parrots will follow our lead because that ultimately means that they will find themselves in a safe place.
-Anna

I learned that with Mackie. Mackie was witness to alot of really bad stuff when he was in his previous home. He learned that when he had his "meltdowns" (NASTY language and shreaking calls and PACING rapidly back and forth) that he would get picked up to make him quiet. Once I figured that part out, my journey with Mackie got easier. I really did, as Anna said it, have to forget about his life before... even though Mackie reminded me EVERYDAY in his behavior/language. Each day gets better. I just have to be consistent. I don't change my schedule for Mackie. I don't let him control me. He has SLOWLY figured out that when he says "jump!", I won't say "how high?"

I WISH WISH WISH I could give you the formula to help you!!! My only advice is no matter what course of action you take, you must commit yourself to that course of action and be consistent with it... in order for it to work... and NOTHING happens overnight... We are in May, and Mackie has made MEGA HUGE progress... but he still has a long way to go before I will completely trust him not to attack me.

I'm sending you a BIG cyber-hug right now!

[FoxersArtist]

I cannot stress enough the possibility of getting Frisco a perch or play area that is up high. You will be trading one security for another, a more reasonable one, and this could create a huge breakthrough in Frisco learning to self entertain. Also - it may sound harsh or hard but with some of our rescues we have made the decision to leave them in their cages, almost constantly if needed, for a month or two when they first arrive. They may melt down a little at first but with some birds it kind of wipes the slate and gives them an opportunity to start over. They become less attached to what was and become more focused on what is to come. They let me know when they are ready to work as a huge shift in their attitude occurs - all by itself - and they are grateful to start over.
-Anna

[Dana64]

Originally Posted by FoxersArtist

I cannot stress enough the possibility of getting Frisco a perch or play area that is up high. You will be trading one security for another, better one and this could create a huge breakthrough.
-Anna

Anna, I could not agree more! At Mark's suggestion back in December, I rotated Mackie's toys and bought more toys and even installed planter hooks in my ceiling above his playstand, and added PVC chain and attached toys to the chain. Mackie ADORES it up there!! He spends SO MUCH time up there, playing, and chattering and LAUGHING! He has become quite the little acrobat! Once I installed this chain above his playstand (about 7 feet up) his attitude DID improve immensely! His recovery took a HUGE leap forward!!

[parrotntn]

Thanks everyone. Dana, I'm glad things are working out better with Mackie. Glad I could help.
I have just about exhausted my resources with Frisco, but I don't give up easily.

I moved Dood the tiel in the room with him a couple of days ago. They seem to be getting along well. My wife says Frisco is talking a lot more. Frisco rarely talks if I'm at home. He spends his time seeking me out, honestly...
I've taken him out of the cage where he has full run/flight of the house and have been in another room in the other end of the house.
Soon, I hear those toes tapping on the linoleum and he pokes his green head around the door frame and finds me, scales up my leg and he's happy.
I've left him loose awhile on his manzanita tree and went outside to get the paper and when I open the door, he is on the floor beside the door as if "and where were you MISTER?"
He climbs on me, he's happy then.
I walk thru the house and his waddle walk turns into a waddle run to get to me.
We go in circles around the table. This does condition him to some play and exercise, because in the end, he gets what he wants....
ME!
(wish my wife would chase me around the table like that.)

As for foraging I did a little experiment last nite.
Almond in cup..he loves.
Almond in cup in a paper towel, he loves.
Almond in cup in a paper towel in a small box, he's ok with..
Almond in cup in a paper towel in a small box in a paper bag, he's done with it.
Too much work for one green bird.
I'm gonna continue down this road with him in the other room with Dood and maybe increase some foraging opportunities.

I'm ok with him not playing although I do miss the Amazon play and interaction. It's just odd this bird wants to do NOTHING but ME!
After dealing with stubbon Amazons, I'd always wanted a bird that would step up and want to be with me...as in many other lessons in life:
Be CAREFUL what you ask for..you might just get it.

[loyallyroyal]

Whats so weird is that most people complain their ekkies dont want to spend enough time with them and are to independent, that they are off playing and doing what they want to do. Way opposite of your situation.

Is Frisco flighted? If he is you could get him hanging playstand like a boing, circle swing ect. and when he climbs up on you send him to the hanging stand, he should get tired after several times flying back and forth.