***QUESTION***

“How do I stop my blue fronted Amazon parrot from screaming? Whenever we leave the room, she screams. We’ve tryed spraying her with water, clapping our hands loudly, etc. We are about to look for a new home for her if we can’t get this behavior under control.”

Barbara F.

***MY COMMENTS***

From that one paragraph you wrote, I can already see two big mistakes that you are making. I’ll get to those later…

Firstly, let me differentiate between constant ear-piercing, nerve-racking, blatant screaming (that needs to be tackled) and a parrot’s “call to the flock” (which you should not attempt to stop)

It is important to understand that most parrots “call to the flock” several times per day, usually in the morning, around noon, at dusk, which is a completely natural behavior since birds are social animals.

You cannot, and SHOULD NOT, attempt to stop this natural process. This flock calling is a parrot’s way of determining which flock members are present or not present and it’s just checking up on you because YOU are part of the parrot’s flock!

Now, onto the annoying, ear-piercing screaming that drives you crazy…

Before attempting to resolve any screaming problem, you must ensure there’s NO medical reason involved by seeking medical evaluation by a certified avian veterinarian.

Now, there are LOTS of different reasons why birds may scream – just like a human child. If you hear your kid screaming upstairs, you can’t just pinpoint exactly what’s wrong with the child, right? You have to investigate…

In this article, I’m going to tackle one of them -

Something to consider is whether YOU have taught the bird to scream. Barbara, you mentioned that you clap your hands loudly in order to hush her up. What you’re actually doing is encouraging this screaming behavior…

“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, DANNY??”

You see, when a parrot screams and the owner reacts by screaming back at the bird, the bird learns that screaming is an ACCEPTABLE form of communication.

The bird owners react by screaming back, throwing items at the bird, dousing the bird with water, etc. This human reaction is negative, but reaction none the less, which is exactly what the parrot wanted to begin with! As a result, some parrots become confused and don’t know how to behave, but since they’ve learned to scream, this is how they react!

You need to understand that some parrots scream as a way to get ATTENTION!

By the way… don’t use water as a punishment… And then you wonder why the parrot doesn’t want to take a bath.

Basically, if there is a lot of screaming or noise in the home, a parrot may feel it is acceptable for it to scream in order to be heard or that screaming is a natural part of life.

Interesting little creatures, aren’t they?

A VICIOUS CYCLE IS CREATED

The cycle must be broken in order to change the negative behavior. Reward your bird when s/he doesn’t scream and never reward your bird when it does.

A reward can be as simple as a look from you.

You must…

COMPLETELY IGNORE THE SCREAMING BEHAVIOR!

Go outside, use ear plugs, lock yourself in a room or go out of ear range if you must, but do NOT reward screaming behavior by showing your bird any reaction to it.

However, shower your bird with attention and love once the screaming stops.

Try the techniques I’ve shared and let me know how you get on with your parrot.

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