Shivering; should I worry?

[misspigeon]

Hello everyone!
I have a couple questions.

I've got a 6 1/2 month old ringneck named Annie (my first bird!) and I can pretty much definitely say she is a female! She lives in my room and waddles around bravely, isn't even scared of my cat at all (my cat is actually scared of her!) and recently even conquered her fear of walking on flat smooth surfaces all by herself. However she shivers a lot which makes me think she's quite a nervous bird. She'll shiver/shake if there are other people around or she's in a new environment which is understandable. But I've noticed she shivers a lot when she's in her cage and you walk up to it. She's very territorial and quite cage-aggressive although if I fluff my hair up (it's naturally quite boofy) to make myself look bigger she'll stand down and let me touch her head (she's not big on being pet but she'll tolerate it a little) and pick her up. Also by cage aggressive I mean she'll lunge at me repeatedly and try to bite, often quite hard. I think she's a little fearful of hands looming over her, too. However I can usually take her out of her cage and touch her in it and she's fine with me taking her bowls in and out to clean/fill them.
Basically it's nothing unmanageable (heck it's nothing at all compared to the last parrot I lived with!) I'm just worried that if she's shivering and nervous a lot it might impact her health later on in life
Do you think this is something I should worry about or it's no big deal?

Also do parrots get really itchy during molting? Because she scratches a lot and sometimes acts like she's getting bitten. She did have a lice infestation earlier but we treated her and she seemed fine for a while. She's not perpetually cranky like she was during it so I'm thinking it's just from the new feathers coming through?

Wow sorry for the essay and if these are stupid questions!

[InTheAir]

Hi there,

One of our birds gets shivery sometimes, I haven't seen him do it since last winter though.
The combination of nervous shivering and cage aggression you have described strikes me as your bird is not confident with you and is agressive in her cage because she feels it is her space that you are invading, without invitation.
I don't see any benefit in trying to intimidate it out of her. If you take the approach of only putting your hand in her cage to hand her treats, she will soon want your hand to come towards her cage.
When you want her to come out just open the door and let her make her way out. By using this approach, both my birds tell me to put my hand in their cages to give them a lift out, rather than climbing out by themselves. I never get an aggressive reaction, because they think it's easier to use me than climb If they don't want to come out they just blank me.

Birds bite for a reason, if you are getting bitten it is because you haven't got enough trust from your bird to do what you are doing. .. or the bird just flat out doesn't like something. .. or it's hormonal and you've done something it doesn't like. .. You can reshape behavior by changing the associations.
Our birds both seem a little short tempered and itchy when they are moulting, they like having lots of baths during this period.

[misspigeon]

She did take a little while to warm up to me I think but she seems pretty comfortable with me as I spend the most time around her. I'm letting her go in and out of her cage freely now as she's calmed down a bit. I just open the front door and not the top (it's one of those top opening perch cages) because that tends to make her more aggressive for whatever reason. Letting her in and out of her own free will in general got her pretty moody and mean so I dictated when she came out for a little while and she's pretty alright now so I give her free reign, which I'm really happy about.

At least from what I can tell she seems quite comfortable with me and she's getting moreso. She'll even fly over to me sometimes to sit on me and hang out. We're not at the stage where I can hold her upside down and stuff like that though I hope to be eventually. She's a wonderful girl and really just seems territorial and a bit feisty, just seems to be her personality. As I said I can put my hands in the cage and even touch her most of the time. She does have her cranky moods sometimes, though, of course!

We're getting to be good friends though which I am really thrilled about! I was just worried that the shivering might translate into a health disorder.

Also just to clarify, she's a very expressive girl so I think I can usually tell how she's generally feeling and when I have my little stand offs with her she doesn't seem scared (she doesn't even shiver when this happens actually) just gets the idea I'm not gonna put up with that behaviour! I'm definitely not trying to frighten her or anything and she doesn't appear to be taking it that way.

[InTheAir]

I don't know if the shivering is health related, from your description I thought it sounded like nerves. Have you taken her for a health check with an avian vet?
If you are interested in learning more about parrot training and behaviour check out the articles on behaviorworks, naturalencounters, goodbirdinc, learningparrots. All are .com. It might clarify a few points for you.

[misspigeon]

It does appear to be nerves. She really doesn't seem sick at all. Very very good appetite, very active, vocal, chipper, just generally a very healthy seeming bird. Unless I start seeing some really worrying signs I'd rather not take her to a vet just because it would be extremely stressful for her and right now I don't see any real need for it.

She is getting more and more confident so hopefully she'll grow out of it

Thank you for the advice though! ^_^

[MissK]

My opinion is that if the shivering is "nerves" and not health related, you have gone too far too fast in your contact with the bird in that particular setting. You should carefully evaluate what circumstances contribute to the shivering and tread more lightly there. For instance, if she shivers when you walk up to the cage then you should modify your approach to something more slow and gentle, and it would be nice to include a warning that you are going to approach, as well as a lovely treat when you do get there. As you know there are degrees of fearfulness and associated degrees of reaction to fear. Even if you would describe what she feels upon your approach to be "discomfort" or "nervousness", these are degrees of fear. Even if the bird is super comfortable with you in a different, even more intimate, setting, it must be seen as a separate experience. There is no reason for our pets to live in fear, especially in fear of us. Discover what actions are causing the shiver and address them.

[misspigeon]

Mm fair enough. I'll try be more gentle with my approach to her. I do always talk to her when I'm approaching so she knows but I'll give her some more treats to make her more comfortable with it.
Thanks for the advice! Hopefully she'll be really comfortable and confident when she's older.

[MissK]

There is one other thought, brought to you by my mom's Canary....... Is the cage big enough?

My mom has always kept her Canaries in very small cages, largely because she believes the cages to be big enough since the bird has room to hop between perches. It turns out that this thought is common among Canary keepers. Her current bird has a history of displaying aggressive (defensive aggression) behaviour when the cage is approached. The bird has been living at my house for several months in a more reasonably sized cage and no longer displays any discomfort when approached. He now allows me to approach, stick my hands in, and change papers that lie on top the grate - essentially, to fluff up newspapers veritably under his feet - without any fuss. I credit the fact that he now has options about where to go when his space is invaded.

In general, if a bird's cage is too small the bird may panic when approached since it is, essentially, trapped. A bird may be taught to tolerate a small cage, such as in the instance of a travel or sleeping cage. I'm not saying that your cage is too small, but that it *might* be, and it is another point for you to consider.

Best wishes.

[misspigeon]

Hmmm that is an interesting point. I believe the cage is big enough but it may have something to do with the placement. She used to be in the centre of the room when we first got her and we realised that made her feel very unsafe and become more aggressive so it's now more off to the side. I admit that it's not an ideal position but at the moment it's the best she can have. I have a cabinet I need to get rid of which will then open up space for her to be against the wall with furniture on either side so she only really has one side exposed and I'm very sure that will make her feel safer. However family and health issues cropped up that needed more immediate attention so unfortunately getting this room and cabinet sorted had to be postponed for a while.

You may have solved this problem, though! Sadly it will still probably be a while until this can be fixed but I hope to get this done asap. Things just happen sometimes that you can't predict and are more urgent :/

[MissK]

Maybe you can cover the cage with a towel or blanket, if she doesn't eat them? I've had success placing posterboard (same term where you are? very thick paper for kids school projects?) as a cover on back one of my cages. I used it to prevent access to an electric cord, but it would serve for privacy as well.

[misspigeon]

She might try to tear up the blanket? She likes destroying things A LOT I've actually started giving her just plain toilet paper rolls (I scrape off whatever glue they have on them of course!) so she destroys that instead of the boxes or other things. It's working and she loves them!

I did have some old artworks and large sheets of board on one of the sides. Of course she'd always sit on them and destroyed the whole top but I didn't specifically care about that too much since it was only the mounting she chewed up, not the actual artwork. I had a massive panic recently though and removed them when I found her poop to be almost black and I thought she was ingesting the ink from the black mounting! Afterwards I realised that I'd given her blueberries that day so I'm pretty sure that's all it was! (You should've seen her when I gave her blackberries! She's white so her whole face and feet got stained, and her droppings were black!).

I think she preferred having them there but it's probably best she doesn't chew it as she would inevitably ingest a little of it and the paper was black which I doubt is too healthy.

Unfortunately the cabinet is really large and heavy so we need a few strong men to lift it and get it downstairs. I'm really going to push for something to be done about that though because I reckon it might actually help with a lot of her little behavioural problems.

~Pidge

P.S. I'm from Australia and I think it's sometimes called posterboard. I've heard it called mounting board as well; has many names really.

[misspigeon]

I'm actually really surprised though that she learned very quickly not to chew cables! She used to try to chew up the cable from this lamp and I'd always have to stop her, but one day she was sitting on a perch near the desk and I was watching a video with my boyfriend and while we weren't looking for a few minutes she chewed through the cable on his laptop mouse! Just sat there with it in her hands and staring at us. I got pretty upset about that and felt bad for my boyfriend (luckily it was an old mouse he wanted to replace anyway) and I think she knew because after only scolding her a couple of times more about chewing the lamp cable she has completed stopped trying to do it!

I'm very proud of her!

[SunniDai]

Another thing that may help is when you approach her cage, do it slowly and avoid making eye contact with her for too long. That can be viewed as being aggressive or predatory without you meaning to do so.
Dana