When I started to think of sharing my life with a Parrot, I never knew or thought they could also turn out to be a terrorist! That’s my Grayson! I love him but he can be Mr. Bossy when he wants and when he has made his mind up about something he is a very determined, persistent individual. Yes, they tell you about “parrot-proofing” but I didn’t realize I still need to keep things out of his reach like….“MY PHONE CHARGER!”
So he has decided that I spend too much time on my Phone and not enough attention on him. Any time he is out and about with me, his first order of business is to find my phone and try to pick it up and throw it. He has succeeded a few times, chewing and breaking my phone protector, throwing my phone on the floor and just trying to ruin it so it no longer works. I just can’t have it near him. The worse he has done to me this far, is my phone charger. I type this with a heavy heart as I just got my charger 4 months ago but low and behold, I turned my back for two seconds and when I looked Grayson already chewed through the top piece of my charger and was determined to not let go. My charger still worked for a little while however it has now eventually stopped. So I’ve come to the conclusion, that anything in his way that he doesn’t know what it is will come in contact with his beak. This is typical of parrots though. I use Grayson, my African grey as an example but parrots in general have a curious spirit so regardless of what type of parrot you have, your things can/will become an item of interest.
My very first recommendation to stopping your parrot from attacking your wires or phone chargers is…. (Drum roll please) DO NOT HAVE IT WITHIN THEIR REACH!
But maybe that’s not possible for you.. so there are several steps I would try here:
1) Give the parrot a toy that could provide him with the same sensation that chewing the charger would
2) Reward the parrot for being near the charger and not touching it (This will take a lot of trial and error but can be done)
3) Say NO! loudly (Or whatever word you use to tell your parrot not to touch) to let them know that is not an acceptable toy (this will only work if your parrot knows what the word you use means)
These are great house training tactics but the only foolproof one is to remove it from your parrot’s reach. I can leave my wires around some of my parrots however I’m aware that at any time they may become curious or bored and touch it. Therefore they must be supervised at all times.
