The Two Different Reasons A Parrot Will Scream

If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend this exercise: go into the woods or someplace where you can’t be heard (this is to keep you from being arrested) and scream at the top of your lung for 30 seconds. Just 30 seconds. You will find yourself needing a nap afterwards. It is a lot of work.

There are a million different reasons why a bird would choose to scream. But the one thing all screams have in common is that, somehow, it is beneficial to the bird. If they are going to expend that kind of energy, it had better be worth it because most birds do not limit their scream-fest to a measly 30 seconds – some go on for hours.

Parrots don’t do things without reason. Generally speaking, if you think hard and use logic, you can find a purpose for any and all of their actions.

You could ask what reason and purpose a bird might have for putting pieces of kiwi in your shoes. You could also ask why humans sit and toss endless wads of paper into a trash can and the answer might be the same – just to make sure it can be done. But for a parrot, it is more likely the squeal of disgust we issue when we next put on our shoes that justifies the action. Entertainment has high value to a parrot and you should always bear this in mind (more on this later).

Back to screaming – there are different reasons why a parrot will scream. Screaming is a “choice” with an intended outcome. Stopping the problem will depend on your ability to determine the type of scream it is.

There are two types:

1)      Screaming that is a form of communication meant to call your attention to a problem. Your bird could be telling you it is sick, afraid, bored to tears or that its diet is inadequate. It might be telling you that, as a companion, you aren’t holding up your end of the bargain, for which we always recommend training as the cure.

2)      Screaming that is meant to manipulate your behavior. No doubt you already realize how very intelligent your parrot is. They are smart enough to use psychology to affect our interactions with them. If your bird screams when you leave the room and stops when you come back, it won’t take long for you to recognize this pattern. Won’t it cause you to hesitate before leaving the room again? Your bird is training you.

Someone posted a question on the Facebook page recently complaining about his bird screaming whenever he is on the phone. This is fairly common problem, in fact, I have had trouble with it myself in the past.

Of course, while it is hard to say for certain why a bird might object to your phone conversations, my brain says that it is related to the bird’s unwillingness to share you with anyone, or any”thing” else. Why would you focus all your attention on some gizmo you hold to the side of your head when there is a perfectly good parrot in the room to share conversation with? From a bird’s standpoint that is completely unreasonable.

The screaming that ensues is a perfect example of your bird’s attempt to manipulate your behavior – I say “attempt” but I suspect it is almost always successful. You can’t have a conversation if you can’t hear it.

Unlike the solutions to the screaming that is related to health, environmental or relationship problems which require action on your part, the solution to handling manipulative screaming is the opposite. You should do nothing at all. But that’s not as easy as it sounds – you have to do “nothing” the right way.

Let’s go back to the beginning of this post where I mentioned that everything a parrot does has a purpose and that screaming is a choice with an intended outcome. What do you suppose would happen if an activity produced “NO results” for your parrot…if there was no gain? After assessing the situation, and perhaps after trying a few method variations, your parrot would eventually abandon the idea altogether. Why waste the energy?

In order for this approach of problem solving to work you have to look at what “NO results” means to a parrot.

Remember the “kiwi in the shoe” mentioned earlier? A curious thing about parrots is that they will often do things for the sole purpose of entertainment.

The shoe with the kiwi in it was mine. I had kicked my shoes off near my goffins cockatoo’s cage when I came into the house. When I needed to go out again, I noticed several pieces of kiwi gathered around my shoes. I said goodbye to Theo who was clinging to the side of the cage watching intently. I slid my foot into the shoe…and ”squish”. Thinking it was a big, juicy spider, I screamed. Theo bobbed her head with excitement. Her action, while it offered no tangible benefit, was the highlight of her day.

She had been aiming specifically for my shoe. I know this from similar incidents with her pellets in the past. Needless to say, from then on, any time I left my shoes too close to her cage I would find bits of wet food in them.

The point to this story is that your reaction to your bird’s behaviors can be very rewarding. When your bird is screaming, it is probable that your reaction will be tense and angry. While you would think your bird would find this reaction unappealing and a reason to stop screaming – that is seldom the case. Your reaction gives purpose to the screaming, for better or for worse, and your tension further excites the bird. Yelling at your bird, shaking the cage, squirting it with water will actually promote the screaming.

If you want your bird to stop doing something, you have to take away any value to doing it. This means that your birds can get NOTHING from you in the way of a response to its actions. No conversation. No eye contact. No exasperated gestures. If you leave the room it must not seem in any way that your bird has run you off with their screaming. Give your bird nothing at all to work with. Your intelligent bird will eventually realize his efforts to manipulate you are unsuccessful.

For those of you wondering how to stop your bird from screaming while you are on the phone, the answer is rather simple…

Obviously, it is impossible to just ignore your bird’s unwanted behavior while you are having a phone conversation. It is unfair to the caller to try to proceed with that level of noise in the background. Which of your friends will you torture while you are ignoring your bird in order to drive home a point?

My advice is to fabricate a learning opportunity for your bird and participate in what I will call a “phone-y call”.

Pretty simple – just pretend to be talking to someone on your phone. Your bird will scream as he always does, but now you don’t have to worry about offending a third party and you are free to ignore your bird and show him his manipulations will not work without running off your friends. It might take a few phone-y calls, but it will work.

 Patty Jourgensen specializes in avian health, behavior and nutrition and has been working with and caring for rescue birds since 1987.

11 comments

Trina

My eclectics has started screaming at me and darting at me randomly. I don’t know why?? He’s normally a sweet sweet bird. He’s on BirdTricks diet if that helps.

Trina
Tortured ears

is it stress causing 5 green cheek conyures left alone in one cage 3 are 6 month old babies and the breeding pair of parents . The owner NEVER let’s them out of their cage and refuses to SEPERATE them or work with them she just parks then in her doorway and let’s them SCREAM UNTIL MY EARS FEEL LIKE BLEEDING my nerves are shot I can’t ever remember hearing anything so tortured like this all day week in week out before and she acts like no one cares .. when clearly it’s her that is the one not caring how loud and stressed these poor things sound IS IT ME OR IS SHE NEGLECTING THESE BIRDS ? please help before I lose my hearing and sanity They are literally 5 apts down and they sound like they are having bamboo shoots shoved up their toes ITS AWFUL and ive been around many bird owners and never have I heard anything so awful in my life . I thought I was over reacting until today when I had enough I have severe NERVE damage in my hands and fibromayalgia who h makes me sensitive to high pitched sounds and even hawks are t this loud while hunting is it that they are all 5 in same cage bored to death or are they always just that loud ?

Tortured ears
Fiona

I have taken in a cockatoo that is between 25-30 years old. He screams for my attention if I leave the room he is happy to hear my voice or see me but this doesn’t work for anyone else or when I go out he will go crazy and just screech unfortunately i cant stay home 24/7 he doesn’t like to be comforted and i am slowly trying to support him with this but need some advice how to support him when i leave the house..any ideas would be much appreciated

Fiona
Robin

My orange wing is adopted, he is almost 38, I have had him for two years, he screams anytime I leave the room and won’t stop even when I return. I have tried ignoring him, covering his cage in the front so he can’t see me leave, but he somehow KNOWS and screams anyway. He hates my husband and tried to attack him-but the husband also hates the bird and he knows it. HELP.. I haven’t tried clicking, and am unsure of how to do it with the screaming.. he is so sweet, has had a horrible life and has a home now.. he had broken feet somewhere in his life that were not taken care of, so he has arthritis as well. He cannot step up at all.

Robin
Bunba

Your bird doesn’t know you’re on the phone when you’re talking on the phone, it just knows you’re making noise and wants to make noise too

Bunba
tamra stewart

I have a cockatoo,and 2 times in 4 months sence I have had her she has grab my face.What do I do .Im a frad she will hurt me.

tamra stewart
Renata T.

Hi, I really do get it with giving my african grey no reaction at all…etc…however my mum is harder to teach,harder than my bird as her reaction to his biting etc must be the most favorite one for my gray….well….anyway so how would you suggest person should react immediately after bird bit their ear when sitting on their shoulder ??? U prob would say best idea is to prevent such situation by not letting bird sit on the arm etc…to avoid those predictable conflicts…..but what to do when u just couldnt prevent it and biting takes place….surely cant just ignore and let parrot chew ur ear off…please any suggestions / advise anyone? Im desperate…

Renata T.
Niki

We’ve also learned that they love attention. So we love interacting with them, but when its time to put them back in their cage, one or both will scream for us to come back but we just ignore them. And after a minute or so they will stop screaming, and find something else to do. It took us a while to stop going to their cage everytime they screamed, because we’ve learned from birdtricks .com that they think it’s a good thing to scream if you keep going back to them.

Niki
Niki

We’ve had our two sun conures for almost a year now and it has taken us a while to figure out someti es why they scream and what kind of screams they are. When I would get home from work before my boyfriend around 5:00 pm or so, for the longest time I would think omg I have to get home to play with them. So I would go downstairs to hear them screaming non stop thinking they want to come out of their cage. Only to find when I took them out of their cage they were still screaming !!!!! So one day I thought, maybe all they want is to go to sleep, so I covered them up and sure enough that’s all it took ! So now when I come home , I hear them screaming and I greet them and cover them up and they are quiet ! Sometimes its just the simplest things that they’re trying to tell you. Its all a learning experience.

Niki
Wendy

What I have learned from my Alexandrine, is that he is very jealous. He will scream when I take my ringneck from her cage and start to cuddle with her. He is jealous of the attention she receives, but won’ t allow me to touch him, so it’s a bit of a catch-22. He wants attention when he wants it, but doesn’t always know what to do with it. With regards to screaming, I have learnt a trick that works. When he starts to scream, I say a very clipped “no” and turn my back on him. Once he has calmed down, I will turn back to him. If he screams again, I will turn my back to him again. You may have to repeat this process several times as he will try to manipulate you, but they soon get the message and then stop screaming as there is no benefit for them – after all, who wants to look at someone else’s back? No fun in that. There are times when no amount of ‘psychology’ or coercion will work and then I close his cage with his blanket until he has calmed down. If that doesn’t work (as an absolute last resort), I put him in the garage, where it’s dark and he settles down quickly. Sometimes, I think birds are just “naughty” and that’s that. So, he gets a “time-out” and generally he learns from that.

Wendy
Donna

Azul curses me out sometimes when I give him his birdie bread on top of the cage or when I take it away.

Donna

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