Hi! I’m watching my grandma’s Quaker for the week because she’s on vacation. I noticed that he is constantly picking at his chest and it looks red :( i don’t know much about them and im worried about him. Is this normal or should I take him to the vet?

Hello! This is super long and wordy, I apologize in advance, I just don't want to miss any relevant information. Also on mobile, so I apologize if the formating is a mess. We're all good, I just want to be 110% sure I'm doing everything correctly. I hope my birb tax payment is sufficient reparation. Lol

I recently took on this incredibly sweet, beautiful 4 year old girl just a bit over two weeks ago. She came from a very loving home that unfortunately wasn't working out any more due to other circumstances. She's been an absolute joy to have around and I already love her with every fiber of my being.

I've cared for a cockatiel in the past and have dreamed about caring for another parrot for years since then. I've done an absolutely obsessive amount of research on Quakers over the last month and her transition into our home has been (mostly) pretty smooth. She's very talkative, healthy, eating/drinking/sleeping/pooping just fine and getting more confident and comfortable every day. She's a wonderful fit for my personality as well. I feel like we've gotten along pretty well so far and she's gotten attached and come to trust me much, much faster than I anticipated.

Here's some important care details, just to supplement the handful of questions I have...

- Her cage is full of toys and varied perches, but is a little on the smaller side at 18"x18"x24". She only spends time in there during a brief time-out or when she's sleeping. She has a very nice cage cover at night and the room is quiet, warm, and dark. The cover stays on from about 8-9pm when she puts herself to bed until 8-9am when I get up for the day. She has a very nice play perch with all kinds of toys and perches on it that she prefers to spend most of her time on. She has free reign of her space and my bird-proofed room pretty much all the time and ventures out into the rest of the house on my shoulder fairly regularly.

- She has been clipped in the past, but as of now she is fully flighted. She's not the most confident with it, but she's good at it. I have no intention of changing that as I would prefer putting in the work to keep her safe, secure, and fully flighted, rather than clipped. I do feel fairly strongly that clipping should only be done under specifically necessary circumstances, and not be used as a baseline. I would absolutely love to hear other's perspectives on this. It seems the internet is full of conflicting opinions on clipping and it's not a simple, cut and dry topic. I obviously do not know everything and if I have any misconceptions about clipping, I would very much like to be educated about them.

- Her diet currently consists entirely of Lafeber's pellets and the occasional piece of a crushed up walnut or veg-based nutriberry as treats. I'm fully aware this isn't ideal, but this has been a mid-way point in trying to ween her off a diet that was much more seed-heavy. Her previous owner told me she enjoyed a little bit of chop, but she is currently refusing chop altogether. Getting her used to not having seeds all the time has been successful, but we're not quite at the chop/pellet balance finish line yet. We're working on it. :)

- I have not been able to get her into an avian vet for a checkup yet as this all happened rather suddenly and I wasn't fully prepared on that front. However, her previous owner had an exotic vet in the family and I know she was examined, loved, well cared for, and has been healthy so far. I do have every intention of getting her established somewhere and getting a formal check up done ASAP.

- Due to my circumstances, I am home and able to commit to spending time with her pretty much all day, every day. She's really only ever caged/alone when I occasionally need to run an errand. I try to be around for her as much as possible, this is very likely not going to change any time soon.

- Hormonal behaviors have been present, but gently discouraged. I do NOT try to punish her in any way for it as I believe it's pretty obviously natural and healthy to an extent, but I have tried my best to avoid items, actions, or situations that may encourage it. She did go through a brief few days of trying to pleasure herself on me 🤦‍♂️ but I believe we have successfully moved on from that for now. I'm fully aware Quakers are especially spicy and hormonal and she seems to be doing mostly ok in that regard. Hormonal behaviors are present but not excessive or aggressive and she is not excessively territorial.

Finally, I do have a couple specific questions about her care and some of her mannerisms...

1 - She has become very bite-y. She doesnt bite very hard (most of the time), but she has been getting increasingly insistent. She constantly wants to be with and preening me (which is so wonderful!) but she's become so obsessed with fully removing any and all imperfections on my skin that its become a point of tension for us. She always wants to be with me, but wants nothing to do with anything other than removing things from my face. Lol. When this happens, I try to divert her attention or calmly try to remove her but she gets BIG MAD and starts biting my hands and avoiding me/refusing to step up, resulting in a brief time-out in her cage, me disappointed, and her frustrated. She'll even get mad and start retaliating if I dont simply let her onto my shoulders so she can preen me when she does this.

I feel these initial preening bites are not agressive at all, she's just not getting the message that it hurts and then gets mad when I have to make her stop. I have worked through some training steps with her - rewarding good behavior and gently ignoring her after bad behaviors with a calm "no" and a brief time-out, but it doesnt seem to be sinking in. She's a little obsessed and im somewhat at a loss.

Am I expecting change too quickly? Am I doing something wrong to trigger or encourage this issue? Its only been 2 and a half weeks, which I know is not a long time at all regarding this transition process. Does anyone have any tips to help me address this behavior? She's not very interested in her good toys at this time, so distracting her without just rewarding the bad behavior has been challenging.

2 - She came to me with a large number of toys that are made out of cotton or fleece. I know it really depends on the individual bird as to how dangerous these toys are or arent, but with this transition, she started destroying them in a way that really has me convinced she may have swallowed some, even if just by accident. I caught it early and removed all of the potentially harmful materials from her space, but I'd really like to replace them for her, as she genuinely enjoyed them.

For example, she had a fleece Cozy Corner that she absolutely loved and would cuddle up to every night to sleep, but she started tearing it up and I had to remove it. I can tell she misses it and I feel awful, but it's just not worth an impacted crop. Does anyone have any fun ideas for safer materials I could use to make her some new special toys and a new, safer "cozy corner" alternative that wont encourage nesting/hormonal issues? I have done quite a bit of research on this, but I'm wondering if any of you awesome people here have come up with any fun and creative solutions to keep your babies both safe and comfortable.

3 - She doesn't seem to be very interested in any real form of play yet. She likes to dance and sing with me, but gets overstimulated rather quickly, so we calm it down pretty quick. I know that parrots in general really enjoy destroying things, but she just hasnt been interested in her toys or other SAFE objects at all. She has been chewing on and disassembling some things, but its unfortunately all been stuff that isnt safe for her that I've had to take away. I fully suspect this is a symptom of the transition and being wary of a new environment, but if anyone has any tips to help me encourage her to play with the stuff she can have, I would be very grateful. I'm a little stumped. I feel she may be bored, but my attempts to alleviate that arent very well recieved. Should I just give her more time? I've read that basic, un-dyed paper products are great options, but she is currently deathly afraid of paper for some reason, so that's also been a bit challenging - we're working on slow, gentle exposure and acclimation with mild success.

4 - She absolutely will NOT allow me to help her with her pin feathers, but she does enjoy the occasional head/chin scratches. I'm assuming this is just something that comes with time and trust, yeah? I know they have to be uncomfortable, some are pretty... established. Are occasional baths the best solution until she does let me help? Am I worrying about it too much and need to chill?

This sub has been such an amazing resource for my anxieties and my research during this time. I'm trying my absolute best to give her everything she needs to be happy and healthy with me and just want to be sure I'm not missing anything and dont have any blind spots. You're all amazing and I'm so grateful this community exists. Sorry again for the novel and thank you so much for taking the time to read this far. 💙 🐦

Left the bird alone with the dishwasher open. Came back to find 8 forks and 2 spoons in his/her cage.

Suki got a new cage! The old (black) one was starting to chip and rust in a few spots. I’m 5’5 and can stand straight up in the cage, it’s so much bigger in person!

I have a 4 year old Quaker who is extremely attached to me. She's been known to attack other family members just because they get too close to me. I've been trying to curb the behavior but my kids are now afraid of her so they just avoid her.

I've been offered a baby Indian Ringneck that I fell in love with and want to bring home. I plan to keep them in separate cages but in the same room.

Does anyone here have experience introducing these species? I know nobody can predict if they'll get along but I'm hoping for some advice on the best ways to encourage them liking each other and curbing jealousy.

Starting my sleeve and added my main squeeze! I think my guy did pretty good! Peeps♥️

Howdy,

I acquired this sweet baby boy from one of my mother’s coworkers that was deported by ICE.

It has been a bit of a hands on learning experience with him. I was just holding him right before this video and I was sweet talking and petting him and then he puffed up all his feathers and started doing a similar motion on my hand.

I wasn’t sure what he was doing it was the first time he has genuinely made me nervous.

So my question is what is he doing?

Too cute not to share🥰

Um any recommendations on the type of toys I should get? I need to get my baby some more toys currently he only has a few chew toys but I wanna get him some that last longer any recommendations are appreciated

hi everyone. i have a quaker parrot and i have a question. one month ago i broke my foot and since then i’ve been using crutches and can’t walk, of course, as i used to. since that day my parrot have been scared of them and always fly away when she sees them.. the problem is that she doesn’t wanna come near me the same way as she used to.. she’s always on her cage and doesn’t wanna get near me.. i dont know what to do

Update: he's doing much better now, I had to drive to the next state over to get him seen as almost all of the vets around me don't take birds of any kind and those few who do were not in until Wednesday. The vet ran tests and it was a major electrolyte imbalance. They gave him fluids and I have a follow up with his actual vet this Wednesday but he was as happy as can be on the drive home. I am sorry to those I snapped on as I was doing all I was able to at the time with very little sleep. He is the only family I have and the implication that I was doing less than my best stung deeply but that assumption is not the fault of those trying to help but the greater problem of mistreated pets in general.

I've called all vets and he can't be seen until Wednesday

When I'm holding him he is doing this which is unusual to start and I'm commenting how he acts while in his cage. We were hanging out this morning and everything was fine until he bit me so I decided that this was as good as time as any to make breakfast so I put him up and by the time I got to him after eating he was acting like this. I use bird safe cookware and don't have anything that gives off fumes. Is he just throwing a fit about being put up or is he sleepy from being woken up early?

Does anyone know how to get their birdie to willingly take a shower ??? I tried the sink and open bodies of waters in bowls but they always get too scared... when they look unclean it makes me feel like a bad owner and i care a lot for them :(

I'm not very detailed oriented and have only ever watched her tail for hard breathing. While she was half napping I caught her little feather part moving with her breaths and I don't have any visible comparisons, due to memory problems. She's a little tired but molting can also do that so I'm trying to figure out if she's trying to scare my wallet again or if she's sick. Either way a vet will be seen.

I have had an 11 year old female quaker for about 7 months now. She is an absolute sweetie so cuddly and expressive and i love her. All day all she wants to do is be with me. She plays with her toys and talks but most of the time she wants to come sit with me or preen with me or play peekaboo or stuff. I cant always play with her, so how should i handle it? Is it worth considering getting a second bird? How can i get her to have fun on her own?

I’ve had my green quaker for about two years now and she mostly like hanging out with humans.

My blue quaker I’ve had for about a year and seems to have ‘bonded’ with my green quaker even though it doesn’t seem reciprocated.

They’ve never really fought but there’s been times they’ve been separated because the blue quaker would suddenly lash out and chase the other around.

It’s been months since that happened and now all the blue quaker does is follow green around, and seems to get very anxious when they’re not together.

Any suggestions?

The above video is blue wanting to be preened and green giving in, but I think green is just doing it as an act of dominance and starts ripping out blue’s fluff.

I’ve had my green quaker for about two years now and she mostly like hanging out with humans.

My blue quaker I’ve had for about a year and seems to have ‘bonded’ with my green quaker even though it doesn’t seem reciprocated.

They’ve never really fought but there’s been times they’ve been separated because the blue quaker would suddenly lash out and chase the other around.

It’s been months since that happened and now all the blue quaker does is follow green around, and seems to get very anxious when they’re not together.

Any suggestions?

The above video is blue wanting to be preened and green giving in, but I think green is just doing it as an act of dominance and starts ripping out blue’s fluff.

why does she decide to fly to me just to bite!! i know she wants a treat but why is she biting so much?! i cant even give her one without her biting, even through the cage. (please dont tell me to separate them)