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Hi. My 3 year old Goffin has started exhibiting agressive sexual behavior. Primarily screeching and unexpected biting. In addition, he has begun to bite himself. I have been to an avian vet twice. He has no parasites and the vet thinks it is a behavioral problem I'm not sure. It seems as if something is biting him. I am really desperate and worried. Any advice would be appreciated.

I am glad to hear that you have taken your Goffin to the vet to rule out any illness, but your post does not give me enough information to have an idea what's going on. Based on some common problems, here's a few ideas...

Many birds go through a difficult adolescent stage when they are 2-3 years old. When my Grey went through his "terrible twos," I got bit a lot. But once we made it though that stage, things improved.

I do have a question for you. Do you often pet and cuddle your bird? Stroking the bird's back and underneath the wings can sexually stimulate birds. This can be very confusing to the bird. You should keep your petting to the head and neck areas. Also try to do other activities with your bird besides just cuddling and petting. Maybe teach your Cockatoo a new trick?

Cockatoos are very intelligent parrots and need mental stimulation. Does your bird have lots of toys in his cage to keep him occupied? Cockatoos need wood to chew up. Many also love to work on puzzle toys and are very good at it. One thing you might want to consider... I have a friend with a rehomed Goffin. Her bird seems to have an allergy to the dyes used on some of the cheaper toys and perhaps to the colored pellets. She now buys uncolored wood blocks for him, and she might have tried adding natural pellets to his diet.

It has been really slow around here lately so try to be patient on getting responses. I know it's hard when you are worried.

Your bird is very young to be exhibiting sexual behaviour, it might indeed be the way you are touching him/her. Has he been DNA'd? All behaviour has function so if there if screaming has increased it is being reinforced. One of the things I have found is that you can get away with "making" young birds do things but as they start to mature, they start saying no in many ways that we miss. Communication for parrots is very, very subtle and we humans miss many of the signs telling us the bird is saying no. Eventually, they resort to the bite and unfortunately since biting is reinforcing to the bird, the bird learns that biting gets you to back off. A bite from a bird means I don't want to do that. And they have your attention now, don't they. Never, ever force a bird to do something he/she does not want to do. You need to set them up to succeed. How do you do that? Well, you give the bird high valued food items as a reward for wanted behaviour. If you step up, I give you this. It's good to have several primary reinforcers (food) in your toolbox. I use pine nuts and the only time my birds get them is for wanted behaviour. Also keep the pieces very small as you don't want your bird to get full too fast. Chocolate is not very reinforcing if you've just eaten a pound of it or least it isn't for most of us. LOL

Also as PetDiva suggested, make sure there are lots of things for your bird to do in his cage such as wood to chew, puzzles to figure out, things to climb, etc. I have 2 female goffins 14 and 17 years old. They are extremely high energy birds and NEED lots of things to do.

The number one thing is to always use positive reinforcement with your bird. Never force them to do anything they don't want to do.

Any questions?


Bev

Im in a simillar boat and thought id reply with an additional question as the poster may draw the same conclusion as i did.The food for reinforment was helpfull for me too, but what should we do if they do bite, it souunds like saying no and putting them away makes them win from what your saying but at the same time the bite was a clear no from the bird so what should we the bitten, do when they bite?

If the bird bites, then obviously you are doing something that the bird doesn't like or want to do. The easiest way to get a bird to do something that you want to do is to "make" the bird want to do it, often via food "bribery". However, a more appropriate term is possitive reinforcement. Give the bird a reason to do something. Say a bird is up on your shoulder and is refusing to come down. Instead of forcing the bird, give the bird a reason to come down. Maybe it's a treat, perhaps it's food, or a toy. More or less, have it be more rewarding to come down off the shoulder rather than stay up there. If the bird is biting, seemingly for no reason, then perhaps the bird is bored and needs some entertainment. Or perhaps there was a change within (or out of but still viewable) the environment that set the bird off.

First of all, any bird that has a history of biting, should not be allowed on your shoulder. My birds had to earn shoulder priviledges and there are certain times when they just aren't allowed on my shoulders.

You need to avoid being bitten in the first. If the bird is saying "I don't want to do that by biting you", then you have made him do something he/she does not want to do, so the next time he/she doesn't want to do something, he has learned that biting will make you go away, so he bites again. Eventually, if you keep making him do things, he will give up trying to communicate at all and go directly to the bite. You do not want to go there. Best to work on teaching the bird behaviours that you do want by offering high value food items to get the behaviours you want. For example, my birds will do anything for a pine nut so I don't give them pine nuts except for requested behaviours. You need to set the bird up to succeed.

My grey used to bite me when I asked her to step up to go to bed. I realized that I was not spending enough time with her. She was trying to tell me that I don't want to do that, I want to be with you. I spent more time with her (not a great deal but some extra one-on-one) and then gave her a pine nut when she did step up. This has worked beautiful for several years now. All 4 of my birds bit me at one time or another but since I've learned about Applied Behaviour Analysis, that no longer happens. I've set my birds up to succeed and because of that, we have a much better relationship.

Bev