I try to give him lessons in bathing by holding him up to the window to watch the robins in the shallows of the pond. Now they know how to bathe. Pickles likes to watch but won’t emulate.
The spray bottle is most effective at getting him soaked, but he hates it. He runs or flies away screaming and very upset so we just can’t bring ourselves to force this torture on him. We don’t force Pickles into anything that might scare, upset him or take away his sense of control over his own life, or his respect and trust in us. Besides, we have very hard water in Logan Lake and that stuff is like cement if you get it on the walls, windows or floors. We literally need to use a scraper to remove it. Nobody uses a hose on cars or windows in this neck of the woods.
Pickles doesn’t like to be sprayed but on one occasion, it was raining outside and Pickles wouldn’t stop badgering me – “Wanna go in the aviary. Let’s go in the aviary.” I informed him he did not want to go to the aviary because it was raining. He knows what rain is, he tells me “It’s raining like a bugger” when it rains, but today he was determined to go in the aviary. I finally packed him in his little cage to carry him out but of course, the rain got through the bars and this made him angry so he flapped around the cage until I got him there. I released him inside the aviary but the roof is made of clear plexiglass so he can still see the rain and he’s positive it will get him so now he’s flapping all over the aviary trying to get away from it. He’s yelling at me, “Wanna go home!” but will he let me rescue him and take him home? Noooo. After a game of cat and mouse I finally manage to get him to step up. I place him in the cage and now I have a flapping bird for the walk home in the rain. It’s only about 20 feet but it seems like miles – to both of us.
So, what does he say to me after I get him settled on his diningroom boings? You guessed it – “Wanna go in the aviary?” I just laughed at him but he was so mad at me for not turning off the rain, he started flapping so aggressively, upside down, on the bottom of his boing that he hit me in the waist, grabbed the bottom of my shirt but forgot to let go as the momentum of the boing attempted to carry him on it’s course which left him suspended and swinging between my shirt and the boing. I started to slowly back away, which was okay until the boing was stretched to its limit – as was Pickles. I stood there waiting to see which he would let go of – me, or the boing. He hung there, refusing to let go of either.
Since he was so defenseless, I tickled him. He let go of my shirt and the spring action of the boing caused it to shoot straight back and loop into the air which made Pickles let go and carry on upwards by himself. Just as he was about to hit the ceiling, he gained control and flew straight to me, completing the circle, landing on my shoulder and announcing, with a happy tail shake, “Wanna go in the aviary.” It turned out to be a very long, rainy day being cooped up with a parrot that didn’t really know what he wanted but thought he did.
We are forever looking for ways to get him into water. I think that sometimes Pickles is aware of the fact that he needs to get his skin and feathers wet. His body must know that it feels a little itchy and dirty and that water is going to make it better so Pickles makes the attempt now and then but just plain doesn’t like it. Result: There is no result – we can’t get him wet enough to find out. We feel that this very well may be the main cause of the plucking and are currently looking for new options for getting him wet.
One thing I was trying for awhile (and just now realized that we stopped) was giving him lots more walnuts. I had read somewhere that walnuts are great for reducing stress and even though I don’t think Pickles is stressed out, you never really know - maybe he’s just good at hiding it. Since I just remembered about it, I’m going to have to give it a try for the next while.
[Pickles only likes the walnuts, almonds and pecans of the nut family and, I don’t know what was wrong with me one day but he wouldn’t take his night time almond (in the shell) from my hand after insisting on going to bed and climbing into his cage so I handed it to him through the bars instead. Now he decided he wanted it and grabbed the other end but when I went to let go, I realized it was too big to fit through the bars. Pickles looked a little confused that it wouldn’t come to him and knew that if he let go, it would fall to the ground and he wouldn’t have a nut at all. He was stuck there, beak wide open and clamped to the nut and eyes looking at me as if to say “Now what?” There was nothing I could do, other than rip if from his beak and his eyes were pleading for help. He started sliding it up and down along the bars and honking like a goose but that wasn’t working for him either. He finally had no choice so he let it go and I promptly fetched it for him but when I tried to hand it to him, he refused to take it. I finally had to go get a smaller nut and feed it to him through the bars.
Poor Pickles. That morning, I prepared his breakfast of frozen corn by pouring some warm water in the bowl to thaw it. While it was thawing, I fed and watered Neeka and filled a bowl of fresh water for Pickles then grabbed the corn and plunked it in his cage. I went back to the kitchen to make my coffee and happened to look at Pickles through the livingroom/kitchen divider window and noticed he was just sitting there looking back at me. I told him to eat his breakfast and he answered “Now?” I told him yes, go ahead and eat it but he just stood still. I went to check if there was a bug in his dish and when I got there, I realized I hadn’t drained the water. Corn doesn’t float, if it did then Pickles might have made a nice game of bobbing for corn out if it but he wasn’t about to stick his face into the water to fetch corn from the bottom. I apologized, of course, and drained the bowl so he could eat his breakfast.
At lunch time, I forgot to give him the mashed potato I’d been promising him and didn’t realize it until supper time when I noticed it still sitting on the counter and I hadn’t clued in when he kept asking for it – I just figured he wanted more. In the afternoon, I tried to hand him the last piece of Sesame Snap that we had in the house and dropped it on the floor, much to Neeka’s delight, so he snagged it. And then, when I tried to make up for it and offered him banana, it was too green and he wouldn’t eat it.
I had tortured him all day, but I wasn’t through. As he was eating his almond, I reached above him to turn off his UV light and somehow managed to knock it over and on to the cage with a bang. Pickles was startled off his perch and landed with a hard thud on the bottom of his cage, losing his almond in the process. He climbed back up to his perch, sat there looking all put-out and refused to take his almond in any matter. I dropped it in the dish beside him and he promptly tossed it out and climbed into his tent to pout.
I’m not done. After he climbed into his tent, I covered the cage with his sheet and locked the cage door. A few minutes later, I realized his water bowl was still on the kitchen counter so I walked back into the livingroom and flipped the sheet off to open the door. He hadn’t expected that and he shot out of his tent like a missile out of cannon, landing and clinging to the bars on the far side of the cage. Just like that. He was here, now he was there. He gave me a look as if to say, are you quite finished now mom? Because I can’t take much more of this.
I wasn’t. A little later, I started to wonder if I’d picked up his little maraca off the bottom of his cage and put it back in his toy bucket. I was determined not to upset him again so I tip toed close enough to the cage to inspect the floor and there it was, his favorite talon toy in the world and the toy he would eventually get up to play with sometime during the night, laying there taunting me. Pickles has a hard time carrying it up the cage bars so he was probably going to have this reminder of what a cruel mom I am, to stare at all night from his perch above.]
The other causes could very well be behavioral. Perhaps we’re missing something but we are pretty good at giving Pickles lots of attention, toys, foraging, enrichment and new scenery. Other than the plucking, he is a very well-balanced, happy bird. But, I will save all the above for other chapters.
We believe that water will be the answer but I think, in the meantime, what has hap
pened is that something caused the plucking in the beginning and now it’s become a habit. One, or a combination of the above things may help in the end but I think we are now fighting a habit, which in my opinion, means concentrating even more on enrichment. Again, I’ll speak of that in other chapters.
Chapter 6
Toys R Us
“If you're being chased by your new musical ball and then you notice you're also being chased by a spider, it doesn't really change anything - just keep going!”
“I have a SS toy bucket that's attached next to a perch in my cage. Sometimes I go inside & play with my talon toys one at a time then toss them to the ground when they start to annoy me. Half way thru the bucket I came across this little pink thing mom had hidden. "What's THIS?!" I asked mom. She told me it was a little piggy and I thought, cool. I was waving it around and all of a sudden it caught on fire! I dropped it, screamed and ran out of my cage as fast as I could. Mom picked it up and it wasn't on fire after all. Was I hallucinating? Then she stuck it in front of my face and it blew up again! But just as fast, it was just a cute little piggy. Just when I thought I was losing it, mom showed me how you press a button and the piggy lights up. Way to blow my mind mom.”
“It's hard to display anger and maintain your dignity when you throw plastic balls against the wall and they come back and hit you in the head.”
“A toy has infiltrated my cage! Showed up out of nowhere and was just hanging there trying to look like it belonged. I beat on it, pulled on it, hung upside down on it trying to loosen it's grip from the bars, screamed at it but it wouldn't leave. So I had to make it my prisoner. I'm interrogating it now, trying to find out the coordinates of the rest of its troops. I may have to resort to water torture.”
“I woke up screaming and realized I hadn't fallen asleep yet. Mom was standing in front of me with a new toy - an evil toy. So I crawled inside my tent and pretended to be sleeping because you can't wake someone who's pretending to sleep. After awhile, I peeked outside and mom was gone so I crawled out of my tent and there I was, face to face with the evil toy! I ran from my cage but now it's holding my other toys hostage and I think I need a hostage negotiator.”
“Arguments with toys are rarely productive.”
“Sometimes, when I’m talking to my toys, mom&dad think I’m just babbling but I’m talking in a foreign language. So foreign that nobody but me knows how to speak or understand this language. This will come in handy one day if I’m ever abducted by the enemy.”
“I think it's a good idea to always carry around a toy or something in your beak so when people ask "Hey, can you help me with this?", you can say "No, sorry, my mouth's full."“
“If you are having a birthday party, don't assume that everyone will bring presents - like toys or bags of walnuts. Before the party, ask them first - and ask often. Cuz otherwise they might be embarrassed.”
I’m addicted to bird toys and my addiction has cost me thousands of dollars. I buy them and I make other people buy them for Christmas or birthday presents for me. I don’t have kids but now I understand why parents always said “Oh, don’t worry about me for Christmas, just buy gifts for the kids.” I used to hate that but now I realize how much fun it is to watch Pickles play with his presents and that is the best gift anyone could give me.
I make most of Pickles toys now and I have a huge chest full of toy parts, along with boxes of parts throughout the house and garage. Talon toys are the easiest and most appreciated by Pickles. One of his favorite talon toys is a plain strip of leather tied into knots for him to untie. I think his very favorites are his toy maracas – he actually has a couple dozen in two different sizes.
Sometimes he plays with it right away but most often, he’ll nap for a while after going to bed then get up later and take it out of his talon bucket. He likes to shake it up with one talon and bob his head to its music. He rubs it on his face and ears and he’ll turn it around and scratch himself with the handle. He talks to it, coos to it and gives it sweet little kisses.
Eventually, he goes back to just shaking it but at some point the maraca starts pissing him off. He acts like it’s too heavy to hold and it drags his talon way down below the perch. With an effort, he brings it back up but it’s a fight to hold on and his leg starts to go spastic which results in some head bonking, which gets him more pissed. The more pissed he gets, the more spastic his leg gets and the more he gets bonked in the head. The screaming starts, the battle heats up until he hurls it in frustration to the bottom of his cage. If he’s just a little pissed, it gets tossed in the water bowl below, until he’s rested and decides he likes it again. If he throws it on the cage floor he has a hard time getting it back up to a perch, so the lower water bowl perch is convenient. I don’t often get to see him playing with the maracas these days because that is his nighttime toy, after he’s covered.
Musical toys are his favorite and if I hang them all, which I don’t always do because it’s annoying to listen to different songs going all at once, he likes to run around turning them all on at the same time. He picks up the music easily and copies it right along when he plays them. Usually, the last thing he does at night is hit the button on his way to the cage for good dining ambiance while he eats his nighttime almond.
The cheapest stuff is usually the biggest hit with Pickles and the dollar stores are full of great stuff. Sometimes I’ll find a package with a set of plastic tools or plastic musical instruments or other cool things and sometimes I know before I buy it that there’s only one thing in that package that Pickles will enjoy but it’s worth it for a buck. The packages of party favors are often a big hit. It’s also where I get my cheap tablemats to put on the floor beneath Pickles’ boings and ropes. It’s much easier to clean those than the floor.
Now bells – Oh My God – bells! I don’t think he could live without those. They’re very versatile as far as Pickles’ is concerned and have many purposes. They can be ever so slightly beak tapped on the outside, they can be hit hard for music or just if you’re mad and want to make a point, the clapper can be chewed on, ripped out (on the smaller ones) or just gently tongued. They can also be hung on, swung on and sometimes even pooped on. They like to be talked to, sung to and kissed. You can turn them upside down and cup them in your talon and ding with the beak on the rim and they make the bestest helmets. Pickles has never met a bell he doesn’t like and no bell can be passed without pausing for a quick greeting.
Sometimes, if he’s being stubborn and won’t come over to me, I’ll start playing with a nearby bell and he will immediately run up to me. Not because he’s jealous and not because he wants to join in - he comes because I’m having fun the wrong way. The bell must be confiscated for the purpose of proper bell-play instruction. He’s perfectly willing to share but only if you do it his way. He’s very good at sharing both food and toys and the only time he wants something all to himself and won’t relinquish, is when he snags something he’s not supposed to have.
He has a set of stainless steel measuring cups – all with holes drilled into the handles and strung together on a chain for hanging – which gives him great pleasure and makes good punching bags. Whenever he’s angry about something, he beats the hell out of them. Loud noise perfectly demonstrates his frustration and nothing makes a louder noise than these.
Pickles doesn’t like puzzle toys. He used to work at them and did well at it but now he can’t be bothered. It’s just not worth the effort for him even though it may be one of the easiest puzzle toys and his favorite treat inside. I guess we could withhold his favorite treats just to get him foraging but we haven’t tried it, as it just doesn’t seem necessary - although, foraging is vital for a parrot.
The foraging opportunities we offer Pickles are things like hanging veggie/fruit skewers, a hollowed out green pepper with a hole cut in the side for him to stick his head in and find pieces of grated carrot or other fruits and vegetables. We’ll weave lettuce and other weavable food items through his cage bars. The one t
hing that keeps him busiest, and also the messiest, is ripping newspaper into small pieces and throwing it on the bottom of his playstand over top of hidden snacks. His playstand is 2’ x 4’ so that’s a lot of paper to toss to the floor in search of treasures. It’s fun to watch him chicken scratching among the paper too. Sometimes we give him a large, empty potato chip bag with a nut in it and it will take him awhile to rip it or crawl into it for the snack.
I pick up cheap cotton gloves whenever I come across them, put a little snack in each finger and a walnut in the palm and tie up the top of each finger and wrist part of the glove with raffia or leather strips. Or I’ll wrap a nut in a piece of leather, lettuce or cornhusks. Almost anything will do. Pickles likes small whiffle balls with snacks or beads squeezed into the holes and it takes awhile to chew a hole large enough to get them.
He never knows where we might have hidden a snack so he often goes hunting and investigating, believing they’re capable of sprouting anywhere.
Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain Page 6