Help with excessive screaming
This is Link, my 3yo. He had gotten out from somewhere at around 5mo, where he was rescued by me and introduced to my flock. He’s always been an anxious type, and is indifferent to anything that doesn’t have wings.
At some point, he developed this habit of screaming excessively to anything and everything. If anything’s caught his attention, he screams like this for minutes on end. White noise, unfamiliar sounds, birds outside, talking on the phone, YouTube & music… sometimes just randomly. When I let him out to play with me or his friends, he spends it with his wings shaking by his sides, scanning for something to scream at and flitting about restlessly. None of my other birds do this.
That scream irl is extremely piercing. We debated if he was from an aviary with that set of lungs. Its painful for someone with migraines and misophonia. While I know “screaming comes with having birds” this seems to be coming from some kind of unmet need or anxiety/trauma I don’t know how to resolve without help.
Like I said, he’s otherwise indifferent to anything that isn’t a bird, and is entirely codependent on his flockmates for entertainment and socialisation. He doesn’t play with toys. He rarely “chats”, and on the rare occasion he does chat to the others, he starts this type of screaming *in their face* (which they hate just as much as me). Until a month ago he wouldn’t touch millet, and he only just about steps up and maybe accepts target training if he’s in the right mood.
He has a very on/off attitude. It’s either loud and screaming, or he’s falling asleep. (He shows no signs of illness other than the lopsided energy, by the way). This makes me wonder if he’s in a constant state of stress/overexcitement?
Is there any way to stop the screaming? I have tried to reduce the reasons for him to scream but it means I have to spend most of the day with my curtains closed and in silence. It doesn’t fully resolve the problem either, it just kind of puts a blanket on it.
TLDR; Link is a 3yo rescue who screams excessively, several times a day to anything that catches his attention. He has an over-dependence on other birds for entertainment and stability, and is indifferent to playing/training/humans.