Screaming in the Shower...?

[iveriniel]

Hello Everyone,
My Green Cheek Conure, Zephyra, has started a new and annoying habit. Ever since I have had her (since May 2007), she has been taking showers with me on an almost daily basis and has thoroughly enjoyed herself. Recently, however, she has started to SCREAM when I turn the shower and bathroom fan on, to the point that my landlord thought she was injured and came down to our apartment to see if she was okay. I have no idea why this started, since I have changed nothing in my routine, but it is starting to get worse.
Now, she is starting to scream even when we turn the sink on to do dishes! It's insane. I try to ignore it completely so she doesn't think I endorse it, but she doesn't seem to care. The other problem is that because of my schedule, I have to take showers at night, and now I am afraid of waking my landlord up. Also, I am afraid of making my landlord angry about the increased sound levels from this, since they live directly above us!
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to help with this? Her screams do not sound happy, but instead, frustrated, scared, or angry. That would make sense if she hated baths and showers, but she LOVES them and would happily taken ten baths a day if I would allow her to. Anyway, thanks for your help!

Erin (and Zephyra)

[kotoeloncat]

uuh, I think its more an overjoyed scream.

My conure started screaming on top of his lungs, when he hears the shower or the vacumm cleaner. But stops immediately when he gets his shower (on my head) or in a bowl

Not sure if this helps

[DarwinTheSun]

I agree that it is happy behavior! Darwin showers with me almost everyday too, and I always know when he wants to be under the stream, because he screams! Happy screams!!! I actually think they do this in the wild, they get each other all riled up and ready for a bath. So, usually I scream along with him :) It is fun.

[ccg]

My Nanday screams when its shower time, or when he thinks it should be his shower time. Not sure what, if anything can be done to stop it.

[PowerBBS]

I couldn''t imagine my Sun screaming in the shower, I'd go deaf! Showers are just perfect echo chambers.

An idea on how to address the noise when she's/he's not in the shower or doing the dishes with you: Try putting your fid into it's cage and covering the cage with a towel (something that will damp'n the sounds of running water thru your pipes, and also blot out light quite a bit) and see if this calms her/him during these times. It seems that birds seem to stay relaxed and calm more when they're covered and the lights are low in some cases.

If it works, you can continue the "covered" behavior until she/he gets used to the fact that running water does not mean it's "play" time and she'll get less excited everytime.

That's what I would try. It's harmless and it's only a few moments of being covered - stay calm and talk to your fids thru the covered cage so that they stay calm and don't see it as punishment.

That's about the only thing I can think of. I imagine the landlord will eventually have an issue if the screaming continues... :( Just a few months after getting our conure we decided that even tho we didn't have any complaints yet... it was time to become home owners instead of renters, as we knew that Conures are just famous for screaming and are not an "apartment environment" friendly bird. Being home owners for about 18 months now... we obviously have no noise problems to worry about now.

[birdsnreps]

a bird that screams in the shower is either a very happy bird, or a very scared bird. just read its body language and you will know if you bird is happy or scared. with us, if our birds scream in the shower, it means they love the shower!! some of ours will scream if we DONT take them to the shower with us!! for those birds that dont like to take showers, they just sit on the perch very quietly and try to be invisible and stay out of the water, lol.

[Ashling]

Maybe try desencitising (spell?) her by getting a soundtrack with running water and leave it on while she's in the cage with no contact from you. PowerBBS' idea of covering her was good too! I have this problem when I yell to someone on the other side of the house, Ash will join in and no one can ever hear me! Goodluck!