Cece

This is Cece.

This is what we know about him:

Cece is a 6 year old female Goffin’s Cockatoo, who has only ever had one home outside of the rescue.
What we believe the issue for her was is this - the humans who had her didn’t understand the sexual maturation that would be involved in raising a baby to an adult, and when she started to make the change, the behavior changes that went with it caused them to make the first mistake, which was to move her upstairs and away from the flock.

From there, mistake number 2 happened which was to give her free roam of the house, instead of structured play time. So she would fly down to the main areas of the house, and try to seek out her humans.

There was inappropriate touching involved with her male caretaker, who didn’t really want to spend time with her, which then led her to become hormonal, and it created the perfect storm of separation anxiety, hand fear, and abandonment issues.

All of these things are able to be corrected with a person who understands the following:

A) Cockatoos cannot be inappropriately touched. When you pet them, it needs to be head only, and even then you must watch for overstimulation.

B) She’s afraid of hands, and as such, hands can’t be constantly making her do things she doesn’t want to. Every interaction with her must be in honor of building trust, and earning her love.

C) Parrots shouldn’t be separated from the family, they need to be where the action is, and treated as one of the flock. The easiest ways to do that are to feed them when you do meals, and when everyone settles in to chill out for the evening, let them be with the family doing things at that time.

D) Parrots are not safe to have the run of the house. A bird who has the run of the house is in danger of getting hurt on electrical, or in water, or a million other dangers, which is the first reason for this. And the second reason is that if a bird’s enclosure is your whole house, now they also have to protect your whole house because that’s their house/nest now. It’s much better for them to have structured play time on a play stand or on you or even on their enclosure, but allowing birds to roam the floor has behavioral, hormonal and medical implications.

Age: 6

Sex: Female

Prefers: Males or Females? Male

Other Bird Aggressive? We haven’t let her interact with other birds.

Cage Aggressive? No. She’s more nervous.

Adoption Fee: $1500

Cage Available: Affordable used cages available to purchase starting at $200.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Research Cockatoo Hormones, Appropriate touching for cockatoos, Cockatoo Diet,

She is nervous and scared, and needs someone patient to work through that with her. She’s handleable, but she’s super nervous about it.

***Information that is universal to every bird:

1) Birds are typically not family animals. They usually choose a favorite and at best you can expect them to tolerate everyone else.

2) Birds are not great with kids, dogs, other birds, and are not cuddly with everyone, nor can they really be trained to be. Birds are flock animals, who are social creatures that need to be in a communal area where they can see the rest of the family, or you may eperience serious vocalization and behavior problems. We’ve never met a bird who is great with kids, but we have met kids who are respectful of birds.

3) Birds bite. But, you shouldn’t “take the bite”. If you’re getting bit, you haven’t earned the trust of the bird, and are pushing the bird past his/her limits. You must figure out what the bird needs, and make what you’re asking of the bird more attractive than what they are already doing.

4) Birds are not “dominance” based creatures. Your only option for birds is to earn their trust. If they are, say…on top of a cage and don’t want to come down, that is where they feel safest, not a dominance thing. They are not trying to exert dominance, they just don’t want to come down. Your job as a parrot owner is to figure out what you can do to help them trust you, and whatever you are asking to be more attractive than what they are already doing.

5) NEVER send money over the internet for adoption with any individual or organization for the adoption of an animal you have not met in person. That is almost always a scam.