I have a one-year-old green cheek conure that I love dearly.  I used to work at a pet store, and that's where I first met him: a young baby for sale.  He and I became fast friends and he stuck to me like glue.  I did my research on green-cheek conures and found out that they are supposed to be relatively quiet birds.  I decided to bring him home with me, but the day I went to buy him I found that he had been purchased earlier by people with children.  I was heartbroken.  However, two weeks later his owners brought him back, complaining of his nippiness.  I bought him that same day and we've been very happy together the last eight months except for one thing - he screams, all of the time, night and day, when he is alone and sometimes even when he is sitting right on my shoulder.  If I am not in the room when he starts screaming I don't go in - I don't do anything to reinforce his behavior.  I don't know exactly what to do when he screams while on my shoulder.  I usually just try to ignore him.  He has been to the vet and there is nothing physically wrong with him.  He has a set bedtime and wake-up time, and gets meals at a set time too.  He has plenty of toys he plays with regularly.  I spend as much time with him now as I always have.  I love him in spite of his screaming, but it is so loud and other people I've talked to with green-cheek conures don't seem to have this problem. 

-- Lacey Hoyer

YOU'RE FACED with an uncommon amount of a common issue.  Somehow, your bird has determined that screaming is "successful" behavior. After all, he's surviving, and in his universe, that means that whatever he is doing must be right. He doesn't know that his bad habit has already cost him one home.

If your bird were older, why he started screaming would not be terribly important. The screaming also would be more difficult to stop. But because your bird is so young, I think I may know what is causing him to screech and how we can stop it - despite the fact we're missing a couple of crucial pieces of information, including his age when he went home with the first family.

While unusual in conures belonging to the pyrrhurra genus (it's more common in juvenile cockatoos, Quakers, and poicephalus parrots), it sounds to me like your bird had a reaction to weaning when it went to that first home. Completely separated from other birds for the first time, and perhaps cuddled a great deal by his new owners instead of being encouraged to eat and play independently, he reverted to babylike behavior.

Part of being a baby is begging for food. For a parrot, warm food equals love and reassurance – "satisfaction" would be the non-anthropomorphic term.  Especially in a new environment, it's not unusual for a juvenile bird to request just a little warm food; after all, begging for food used to work.  In the process of soliciting food, the bird becomes increasingly frustrated, increasingly vocal, and increasingly grabs for approaching objects including human fingers with its beak.  When the young bird tries to lock "beaks" – grab fingers - to be fed and that does not produce nice warm food, the bird might hold on to the fingers harder and scream louder. 

Your bird’s first owners were probably confused and tried to stop the nipping rather than address the real issue: a frustrated young bird who simply wanted to be reassured. Imagine how awful that poor bird must have felt when this new family not only refused to feed him what he wanted, but may have treated him as if he were a bad bird! It's a good thing they brought him back to the store so he could find a more understanding home with you. 

You do not mention nippiness, so this suggests he went back to the store, saw the other birds acting like grownups and eating independently, and he was comfortable copying their behavior. Unfortunately, he did not lose the screaming habit. So now you have a bird that continues to engage in this "successful" behavior.

All behavior modification is based on one principle: replace one behavior with another.  In this case, you want to replace the screaming with silence by rewarding your bird when he's quiet. There's just one problem, isn't there? If you can't figure out how to get him quiet in the first place, it's a little difficult to reward that behavior.  In this case, that's where warm food comes in.

Now, the following approach works best if you feed your bird on a schedule rather than "free feed," because he'll be hungry enough to participate when you want him to. (Free feeding refers to leaving food in the bowl all day. You can find more details on schedule feeding in several of my books, including The Second-hand Parrot, Guide to the Senegal Parrot and Its Family, and The African Grey Parrot Handbook.) But here is what you do: first thing in the morning try offering your bird a little warm oatmeal or grits on a small warm toast point.  Sharing a warm meal with his social group (that’s you) provides the bird with a sense of satisfaction. 

If he is quiet during - and hopefully for a little while after - a nice warm breakfast, then you can use the same strategy any other time before he starts screaming.  Give him repeated treats of warm food or any other food that keeps him quiet for as long as he will accept them.  You may use unsalted cooked macaroni, spaghetti, or broccoli. Another option is to simply give him his regular pelleted diet one piece at a time after briefly soaking it in hot water or grape juice.  When he is quiet during times he would ordinarily be screaming, you can, if you like, switch from food to other types of reinforcements that keep him satisfied, such as your affection.

Be careful not to reward unwanted behavior. If he screams put him away and walk out of the room. If he screams after dark you can put him to bed. Make sure, by the way, that he is getting enough sleep. Birds that don't can engage in a variety of frustration-related behaviors, including screaming, demanding attention and damaging their feathers. A roost or sleeping cage in an isolated room away from a cage in a high-traffic part of the house can be very helpful in ensuring he gets the full 10 to 12 hours of sleep birds need.

ParrotChronicles.com

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