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I know that there are ways to get a dog or cat used to the idea of a baby coming, but I'm at a loss what to do with my IRN.

I adopted her after her first home got rid of her for killing other Indian Ringnecks. She is fine with me, but is very agressive with my husband and many other people. She is harness trained, but will behave when on the harness and leash. I can even take her to a classroom and she behaves at that time.

She can bite hard. She has done a few "sneaky" bites and gotten me in the face a few times. Usually she will show signs of agression, but sometimes she doesn't, making it hard to avoid bites.

I'm terrified that she will bite the baby when it comes. I can keep the baby away from the cages, but when she is out of the cage, she could easily fly over and bite the baby before I could intervene. I don't want to keep her caged whenever the baby is out, since that would leave her caged a lot of the time. We have an old house, and out radiator is in the baby's room, so the doors will have to be open to heat the rest of the house. Coming out after the baby is in bed for the night will be hard as well since princess has to be out alone, not with the cockatiels, she is still bird agressive. Her bedtime is 7:00 - 7:30, past that she is overtired and bites.

I'm looking for suggestions and options. I don't want to rehome her since she does come with baggage (aggression), and I'm afraid that she would become a chronically rehomed bird, or worse, abused because of biting and screaming when she is caged all the time. Unfortunately, if she is agressive toward the baby, there will be no choice. I love her, but saftey of the baby is important to my husband and myself.

Clipping her seems such an obvious solution. What am I missing?

Clipping only grounds her, she still climbs and bites, but you are right, that will solve the immedient problem of flying to bite until she gets strong enough to fly clipped again.

As much as I hate clipping, sometimes the alternatives are worse. Her having to walk and climb gives you far greater time to protect the baby, which ultimately keeps the bird in your home and family. Are you good at clipping by yourself? If not, I could give you some tips of what works for me when one must be clipped.

I am good at clipping (been doing it on and off for 20 years) and I have done it for attitute changes before when she is too big for her britches. She just finished regrowing her wings from the last clip, unfortunately, she also is taking the growing belly I have as an affront to her and when I just tried to take her out for cuddle time, I got a nasty bite. This one was not signaled either.

I'm letting her calm down, then see if she will come out on her own in a bit without the agression towards me. I'm afraid that I'll have to towel her for this clip if she is still acting this way. I haven't had to towel her for years to clip or do toenails, and I know that will tick her off, but it must be done.

And if you're wondering, I'm not clipping today, she is already too ticked off about something.

I towel mine in such a way that s/he can stand on my lap, vs restraint, with the towel over the full body, including head. I lift a side just enough to fan out a wing, using the "heel" of my hand to hold the towel over the head and the head down and away from the wing I'm clipping. Liz Wilson taught me this technique about 15 yrs ago, and it's always worked well with "normal" birds. It's not worked so smoothly with a couple who've been restraint phobic. It's also not worked perfectly on pionus b/c they are small and such wigglers. But my Alexandrine has been clipped MANY times b/c she spooks and flies into windows at full speed

Dolphins can sense human pregnancy very early, like about 8 wks. I wouldn't be surprised if that might be what's setting your girl off. She might hear the faint heartbeat and be spooked about where it's coming from.

It might be what is setting her off. Come to think of it, the baby was kicking away when she bit me, but just a little bit ago, when the baby was calm, she was too.

Because she is bigger than the tiels, I trained her to lay on her back when I got her. This has made it much easier to clip without needing a towel. I will try your method if she is not willing to lay on her back like she normally does for me. I'll also make sure to do this when the baby is calm, no need for a bump/kick coming from my stomach to scare her when clipping.

Geeze Christie,

You must be giving off hormone scents like mad.... I had a female dog who would sit on my lap and keep people away from my big preggers belly.... Turns out it was the baby she was protecting. ignored me when we came home from hospital.

If you like I could come out and escort the 'Princess' to Gramma Louise's... time to pick up some more jelly.

Smiles,

If you really want to keep your ringneck, I'll take your baby.
Otherwise, the bird should go.

Alhee, i know that was meant to be humerous, but if you knew the heartbreak and medical visits it took to get pregnant, you would understand why I don't find it funny.

I have put out a lot of feelers with the local mom and pop pet stores to see if they know of anyone who could handle having her. Nobody has been found yet. My next step is to talk to my a-vet and see if she knows of anyone who might be interested.

As I said, I don't want her to be a constant rehome because of her agression toward birds and most people. I also don't want someone to get tired of her and decide she would do better with the wild flock down here, because that would be a death sentence for her.

Of course if I have to rehome her, I always could use craigslist, but it is so hard to tell if the person responding is the right person for the bird. It isn't easy to find someone willing to take a bird (even with the locking cage) and commit to keeping her from other birds for their saftey.

Christie, this can be changed. All behaviour has function. All 4 of my birds used to bite me at one time. Since I learned about Applied Behaviour Analysis it is no longer an issue.

What does she do to your husband and when she does "attack" him, what do you do?

Bev

Out of the cage she avoids him. She will scream if she sees us touching, which we ignore. He can give her a treat through the bars of the cage, but if he tries to go close without food, she starts the IRN "I'm pissed" posturing. Sometimes with some gentile talking, he can get her to calm down and allow him to touch her head or beak breifly, but never out of the cage.

She has never bitten him, but when she pushes anyone away with her beak, we listen.

Since I've posted, I've payed attention to what is going on when she bites. Without fail, the baby will start a kicking spree right after her first bite. I do my best not to react, she barely is breaking the skin, but she is leaving some decent small bruises. After she is done, I'll talk to her, try to get her to calm down, and put her back on her cage or on the couch so she can calm down. If the baby is really active, she will come back to me and bite again. I do my best to redirect her, but that isn't working.

Hubby has said that she can stay for now, but if she ever hurts a baby or child, she is gone. The same would go for any pet that harmed a child, not just a bird.

What is it that she values, Christie? Does she have favourite treats? Is attention her bird currency? I have 2 greys and 2 goffins. All female.

Sally - #1 bird currency is pine nuts

Gypsy - same thing

Nikki - same thing

Zazu - attention

The birds only get pine nuts for good behaviour. It is my bird currency and what three of them value. Three of my birds were adopted and certainly came to me with issues. I set them up to succeed by utilizing 2 things, what they value and setting up the environment in a way that was a win-win for me and them.

All behaviour can be changed Christie, you just need the right tools. Lucky for us, we all have them but need to learn how to do that. As long as you are willing to put in the work, it can be done. There are no quick fixes though. It takes dedication and work to do this but it will completely change the way you interact with your animals/birds but in a most positive, least intrusive manner.

Want to give it a go?

Bev

Of course I want to give it a go. Above all, she craves attention. After that I would say treats such as nutriberries or papaya chunks, but that isn't a constant. Today has been a great day, she hasn't bluffed, pinned her eyes, or acted upset in any way. She was out for about 5 hours, got a shower, and got to climb all over the towels.

I did have to tell her to leave the phone alone, but when she did, I gave her beak rubs which she loves. After that, she left it alone.

OK, the attention and treats are good to know. Now Christie can you keep a log for a few days. Really, really pay to what is going on with her. Please avoid those bites though because biting is reinforcing to the bird. For what it's worth, aggression is called a construct. It's a label. It's what we think the bird is and not what the bird does. We need to really pay attention to what is going on immediately before a behaviour happens. This is the formula for behaviour change. It's called a Functional Analysis. You won't need to learn all this though. It's not necessary.

Antecedent: What happens immediately before the behaviour
Behaviour: self explanatory
Consequence: What does the bird get out of doing this behaviour

And Possible Future Behaviour: What is likely to happen with the behaviour. Will it increase or decrease if nothing changes.

An example:

Antecedent: Bev presents hand to Sally
Behaviour: Sally bites
Consequence: Bev pulls hand away

Possible Future Behaviour is Sally will bite more often.

This actually happened with my grey. That was over 6 years ago.

I adopted a feral kitten today. Went to a bird store to pick up a few things ($660 later LOL) I ended up with a kitten that someone found in the back yard. I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow because she has an upper respiratory infection and needs medical attention.

Bev