I have a quiet U2 and a Goffin, Sarah is completely correct, i have ignored and they know it does them no good. This is very difficult in the beginning because they are very strong willed. My birds are out except to sleep or when we have to run errands. I make time to play with them through music or silliness, they love it and can let loose and be as loud as they want. I never respond to their screaming unless we are playing and this is positive scream time. They truly love to get silly before bed. Because of all the fun time we have i don’t have scream issues and they both are cockatoos.

Ali Macaw, my B&G, screams when she sees something in the yard that she doesn’t think belongs there—animal, person, lawn chair—you name it. If she doesn’t think it should be in her yard, she screams. :) When she knows she’s brought our attention to the “intruder”, she quits. But, sometimes, she’ll get really obnoxious and scream constantly for no reason (that I can see). When she does that, I don’t say anything—I just go shut the French doors to her sun room. She knows immediately why and stops screaming. When Merlin, my African Grey, was alive, he’s say “Bad Bird!” when I would shut the door. I sure miss that sweet, talky boy.

Mine do scream for attention, but I’ll try the music approach. Some really helpful ideas here, thanks! My two conures are siblings, so often they “talk smack” with one another. My younger one — a pineapple – is the main bird, but her older brother, the green-cheek, thinks he’s the boss!!! We have a murder of crows and ravens, so it’s easy to get startled for them. Otherwise I put on soothing music and a night-light. It usually does the trick. This helps my green pacific parrotlet head into the cage too, when it’s time for lights out….literally.

My Nanday conure settled successfully into our very quiet household. He’s a charmer that only acts up at certain times a day (wakeup and end of day greetings when we come home from work) and always when we have snacks or meals. My husband crackles the potato chip bag and the bird goes nuts! A bit of bread crust usually takes care of that. I’ve found it is not so much the noise but the activity — we are eating so he wants to eat. We are talking loud, he’ll join in. We run around in a frenzy of cleaning and he takes a quick circuit flight — just because. My signal to get him into his cage (for whatever reason) is to put some of his favorite walnut bits into his seed bowl. Works every time.

I live with my macaw in a tiny apartment. For the longest time, I had issues with him screaming at night. Turns out the problem was him wanting to go to bed a lot earlier than I did. I eventually gave him his own room and it has fixed all problems. During the day when I’m home he lives on his playstand and loves the general interaction. He talks with “indoor voices” and uses words. Then when he is ready for bed, he starts saying “Goodnight!” and I take him to his room.

My Amazon Tupaco only screams when he wants something. In the morning he wants me to wake up and feed him, At night he wants me to turn off the lights so he can sleep and sometimes its just for a treat as a treat will always quiet him down for a while. He will occasionally scream when I’m on the phone as I think he feels neglected and wants to be part of the conversation. I think this is a good idea, especially in the spring and fall when he sometimes seems to screech for no apparent reason.

I’ve been doing this without even knowing it. I blast my music, my green cheek and my sun conure scream, even my lovebird. My 3 cockatiels are quiet though. After a while they do quiet down. I notice Buddy (sun conure) takes a nap after about 10 to 15 minutes. Eros (green cheek) quiets down, so does Baby Blue (lovebirs) and my cockatiels are almost always quiet. I thought Buddy was irritated with the loud music at first. But then he took a nap! Lol

My Senegal screams, screeches and I think he goes through every word he knows. This starts earlier in the mornings when I would still like to be sleeping. He doesn’t sqwak or make any noise when my hubby gets up to go to work earlier in the morning. It’s like he wants to wake me up and that’s fine on weekdays but when hubby wants to sleep a couple ectra hours….not so cute. Ideas? I cover his cage close blinds, shut the door so he might sleep/be quiet till I wake him up and uncover him. My husband records music in our basement and Jazz sqwaks at some of the songs he doesn’t like I guess lol! Would like to be able to turn Jazz off for a couple hours while hubby is recording maybe 2 hrs a few times a month. Ideas? I have also tried food bribery……he still sqwuks.

My U2 screams when she’s bored, but I’ve set up a foraging area next to her cage that really helps. And all 3 (AG and GC conure) love to be silly and yell when I dance and sing to them. It’s helped a lot but the Too still goes crazy when the dogs come in and rough house. Not much I can do about that with a new high energy GSD I recently rescued!

I love this idea. They need time to vent and be wild, as do I.

I have an Ecectus male Rudolph and a blue gold Macaw Claude, Claude is quite sweet very affectionate and quiet, only occasionally letting out a squawk , Rudolph on the other hand is a real pain in the backside, for some reason each time i go into the kitchen and begin to rattle a few utensils he screams the place down, no doubt identifying what i am doing with food, but once i give him something he goes quiet, i did try to ignore him to teach him not to expect things by doing what he does, but who can ignore the piercing scream of a demanding Eclectus, the trouble is he is better than any guard dog, letting me know whenever anyone comes near to the house, any ideas anyone.

I have 5 toos- Mollucan, Umbrella, Goffins, Major Mitchell, and Rose Breasted- I have been dancing and and singing with them since day one! Having raised rwo “human” children and knowing they needed time to vent, this came naturally with my 2s. It’s good for me, also! They sometimes have a scream fest on their own, but not often. I think they realize that the more the merrier and they look forward to “dance fever” time! This really does work!

I do this all the time — my birds actually start whistling certain parts of the songs they love; prompting me to start the music!! We have a blast. It took my Grey, Zammies some time to get into the groove as me and my Senegal Oscar have been doing this he was three. She used to look at us like we were nuts but now she’s head bopping and doing the finger snap the loudest! They all agree that “Groove is in the Heart” by Deee-light is the best vent song ever, fun and filled with crazy sounds that birdies just love. Oscar already has the melody down pact and Zammies fills in with the POP and grrrrrrrr sounds. We dance, sing and just go KAAARAZY!

I consider myself lucky for a change that I’m deaf! It inhibits alot of enjoyment from our U2 & our greater Suffer Crested too. My husband is not so fortunate in the not hearing Chiefs (U2) screams. He says he uses every variety of screams he knows when he wants attention, to see which one we’ll come to. When I’m playing around Casper (Sulfer 2) Chief gets very jealous. My husband tells me what there saying, or when there screaming. I started saying to Chief, between screams lol…. “whatcha doin” which is what he says at anything new that I do around them. This actually makes him stop to ponder the question. ;) His screams are mixed with a variety of funny, to the most evil sounding laughter! Gotta love our perpetual Terrible two yr old acting boys. There actually both 25+ yrs old.

My double yellow headed amazon screams everytime he knows I am home and he can see me… Could be quiet sitting there in the same room but when we walk into the kitchen or bathroom he starts right away!

Malina Wilson Here: I have a golphin Cockatoo that screeches when his dish is empty. It is empty because he dumps it. He has been abused and is on Naltrexone which has helped with his feather plucking. But now my 5year old Congo African Grey has begin to whistle/scream and it is driving me nuts. Almost like a smoke alarm. I think he picked it up from Peaches the Cockatoo. Ignoring either of them does not work, nor does covering them. The Grey will only shut up if I hold him. I have not found anything that will work.

I have a bird room with several different breeds of parrots including, Macaw, Amazon, Cockatoo, Quaker, Cockatiel, & Lovebird - some of them in multiples. All birds are vocal from time to time & can be very loud. We as humans also do the same. Ever listen to the different volumn levels with which you speak?? My Macaw is actually the loudest with Quakers being next in line of all of them. Macaaw likes to squawk when she wants my attention in particular. I stop it within a minute to minute & half by mimicking her sqauwk followed immediately by “STOP”. Everytime she squawks, I repeat it. She will do it for another time or two & repeat to herself “stop” -- she knows what it means & does not like to hear the squawk back to her. She stops every time & when she does, I tell her “thank you.”. She also knows what that word means. To help prevent boredom & resulting sceaming & squawking, this is my trick -- Barney the Purple Dinosaur videos. Parrots have their own TV & VCR in their bird room that is set to “auto-repeat” & play all day. Tapes are rotated from day to day & IF you pay attention to your parrots, they are just like children & you will likely find they have “favorites”. They “love” all the songs, the music, the dancing, not to mention the neat words they have all learned & picked up from the videos. Their all-time fav is “Down on Barney’s Farm” (Old MacDonald Had A Farm}. With the videos going, they talk, sing, chirp, dance & respond verbally & birdy voice to the videos and consquently, I have very well behaved very rarely really loud birds. Our best friends also have several parrots, including African Grey, Electus, & Quaker - they didn’t believe how our parrots respond to these tapes & rarely scream or squawk, which theirs did all the time unless they had immediate human attention. Well, they decided to try the Barney videos with their birds - quess what ?? It worked & they now have much quieter & better behaved parrots. Even one of the African Greys immediately hung herself upside down on a perch in her cage & started swinging in rhythm to the music as happy & content as could be. Try it - I’d be interested to hear of success others might have with this. Maybe you don’t like Barney, but it if means quieter & better feathered “kids”, who cares? Or, try another similar kind of videos with multiples to choose from & rotate. Try until you find one they like.

You are wrong, I have a Sun Conure and the squirt bottle works great, all I have to do is show it to him and he quiets right down. I also notice if I let him sit on my shoulder for about 5 minutes he is quiet for the next couple hours. I also have a quiet White Capped Pionus, Jenday Conure and a Green Cheek Conure. Every one is quiet except right before bedtime and all the Conures start yelling until I give their nite nite nut (Peanut) and start moving them to their night time cages, then everyone is quiet except for the green cheek, he screams periodically screams at night when everyone is covered and trying to sleep. I think he does it to get even with the Sun Conure who scream during the day and attacks him if I happen to accidentally leave them both out of their cages at the same time. Or, he’s having a nightmare, all I have to do is open the door and tell him to go nite nite and he’s a good boy and he quiets right down and goes back to bed. (Their night time cages are in the laundry room)

My m2 screams when I leave the room, or when Im just coming in the door, Its like he is giving me shit for leaving him alone, he also screams when he knows its his bed time, and that scream is for me to leave the room and turn off the lights

My 8yr Sun Conure is an absolute pain with his constant screaming. He is not a well bird and the vet can do no more (virus) so I appreciate he is going to be grouchy at time but his noise level is at the top of his range now – just one shrieking pitch. He never used to be this way. I have tried lots of things to get him to quieten down but have had to resort to covering him up for an hour or so (not what I want to do). He has a radio to listen to all day (my husband works from home so he is not alone) so maybe the radio being on all day is the problem. I envy anyone lucky enough to be able to train their bird to be quiet.