Shouting is a form of innate communication in the parrot: it always tries to communicate something, to express itself through shouting, both in nature with their congeners as with us in our house.
In the wild, a young parrot learns to make calls, which allow it to stay in contact with its group, it learns these calls by listening to and imitating its parents very early in its socialization phase. Calls are an innate behavior but the types of calls depend on the parrot and its experience as well as the responses it will get.
In the same way, in captivity, the parrot will learn the daily sounds that allow to obtain attention or that allow to express a desire or a frustration: the parrot will memorize those that work for him. It is not easy to understand what our parrot means and ignoring his vocalizations can worsen the situation and lead to almost constant screaming.
In this article on our site we are going to help you understand why your parrot screams a lot.
Yell to locate your party members
Your parrot can make calls to try to locate its favorite human or household members. Sometimes simply answering him so that he knows where you are may be enough and he will return to his activities, other times he will want to come with you to enjoy your company and he will know where to find you thanks to your reply.
Scream to warn of danger
A parrot screams when faced with a threat to warn the group of danger. What can constitute a “threat” for your parrot are things in your daily life:
- a new object
- A stranger
- a sudden noise
- the presence of a dog or large birds outside
- the arrival of a new car
- a walker your parrot sees through the window
It is normal for a parrot to make these warning cries at times, but it is not normal if these cries for help are constant and then you should reevaluate your parrot's environmentbecause you shouldn't feel in constant danger and stress.
He yells because he feels left out
The parrot is a gregarious animal: in nature it lives in a group, and it does not like to be alone, it quickly gets bored. When lonely, at first he will make short soft calls, if he doesn't get an answer he will try louder and louder shouts
Keep in mind that if you ignore him at first to finally give him attention when he yelled really loud because you couldn't take his yelling anymore, what you are doing is teaching him that he has to yell a lot and very loud to get your attention.
Screams in reaction to surroundings
Parrots have a lot of empathy: the environment at home has a direct effect on the amount and level of their cries: the Fighting children, the constantly running television, or the barking dog in the garden cause you to scream in response to stimuli in your environment. If the energy and action level in the house is high, the dog will join in with his yelling.
Also, since yelling is his way of communicating with you, keep in mind that if you yell at him to try to impress him into shutting up, he will understand that you are communicating with him and will just try toimitate the power of your screams and it will scream louder.
You are calling a taxi
A parrot with clipped wingsneeds someone to serve as means of transportation at home, then he calls you. If you don't come quickly, he's not going to let him: he'll call whatever it takes until you finally come. The best thing is to leave him his natural movement mode: his wings, he will have more autonomy and you will have more peace of mind
How to handle the situation
The first thing you should know is that a parrot never screams for no reason, although it may be difficult for us to understand what it wants or trying to tell us, there is always a cause for their cries.
It is also important to understand that it is normal for a parrot to yell from time to time, even if it is very well socialized. So that everything goes as well as possible with your parrot, we recommend that when you welcome him you make him visit the house and when he yells at you, you can answer a different response so that he locates you, for example if he yells you answer "I'm in the kitchen" and may be enough for him.
It is essential that you don't send the wrong messages to your parrot: if you yell at him when he yells or if you come when he yells very loudly, you are telling him that by yelling he gets what he wants. On the contrary, you can encourage communication based on small sporadic vocalizations using the positive reinforcement and always avoid reinforce loud screams.
Do not forget that the parrot is a gregarious animal and does not like being alone, encouraging playtimes is a good way to strengthen your relationship with him and prevent him from getting bored and yelling abusively.
