2010 July

Lady is very frightened of new toys, and has been reluctant to interact with the few toys she has. She can be quite demanding for human interaction, mainly from me.
Both my Amazon and my Grey have learn’t to interact with their toys. With my Grey, this was natural, as he is a baby, it was a different story with my Amazon, who is quite the little perch potato, but she got there in the end.

This week I have been trying to get Lady to play with one of her toys. I placed the toy on top of my Amazon’s sleep cage (which Lady likes to go on), and Lady has been happily chewing the wooden shapes and undoing the shapes from their knots.
I then introduced a cardboard box, which I placed on top of her play top cage. Seeing that Lady liked chewing the wooden shapes from her toy, I decided to place some different wooden shapes all across her play top grill.

There was one key factor in doing this! Which was to leave Lady to her own devices, with very little interaction from me throughout the day!
This probably sounds like a crazy thing to have done, but there was method behind my madness!
By the end of this year, my birds will have their very own live in, playroom! Therefore, it is essential that Lady learns to interact and play.

I am so very proud of Lady this week, she has chewed, thrown, and played with everything that was placed on top of her cage!
There is still a long way to go, but I am so pleased with the progress she is making.

Lady has been with us for a while now, and has settled in well. She is a very cheeky girl, but can be nervous around new toys and surroundings. She is still plucking unfortunately, but this is being worked on, and will take time. Lady may never stop plucking, but if I gain a more confident, happy bird, I will be over the moon.
Day by day, Lady is growing in confidence, and is becoming louder, and is even starting to play with some of her toys.
We have placed Lady in the same room as my Amazon, as they have very similar personalities, and she is starting to settle down in the company of another bird.
There are many things that need to be worked on with Lady, but I’m am taking it one day at a time, it’s going to be a long process, but it will be worth it.