upatsix.com - Your Source For Pet Bird Information

New to the site but have heard some wonderful things about it from my AV and thought I'd give it a try. Just a little background first on my babies, I'm loved and owned by my adopted U2 Katie aka Katie Bug or Bugalicious, shes 15 years old and has been with us for almost a year, along with her is my adopted Yellow Crowned Amazon Jalapeno aka Popper, Peno or Peen who is six months of age. I have had smaller birds over the years and although I'm not a fan now, worked at a pet shop for several years where I was the main caretaker for many large parrots from breeding pairs, juveniles and on through. I do have some experience behind me but Katie is the first large bird I've had here at home.

Katie came from a home where she had been ignored, left for over a year in a basement without interaction and only had human contact when her food was brought to her once a day. Her previous so called family had her since she was 3 months old and grew tired of her when their lives / schedules changed, Katie came to me a seed junkie, was plucked, barbed, shy and of course malnourished. Katie has come a looooong way since her first day with us, she has grown most of her feathers back although she'll never have them all back, she now eats daily home cooked meals with lots of fresh veggies and fruits, shes talkative, playful and trusts both myself and husband enough to even lay in the palms of our hands on her back talking all the while. She doesn't seem to mind / be stressed by Jalapeno but prefers him at a distance, the two are never left alone while out and have plenty of room to play and relax apart.

Now for the problem at hand ~ Katie is an egg layer, has been since day one with us and although I'm familiar with the 'Toos and their seasons, Katie's has been non-stop from this past December on with an egg laid about every month to month and a half. Her egg laying is only part of her hormonal issues and one that I'm not as concerned with currently. The bigger problem currently is Katie's overwhelming desire to hurt me, shes been the most loving of girls, sweet as sweet can be to me and everyone else around her, even my AV has said that she really is a doll BUT as of late shes decided that I'm standing in her way....... You see, she has a boyfriend, my hubby to be more specific, and although he has never encouraged her, never allowed her to get "worked up" and sticks to only appropriate petting, she has a very strong love for him, bats her little lashes and happily waddles off her cage and across the floor to try and find him if she even hears his voice.

At first she simply would climb off the cage and try to get to him, I'd have her step up and put her back on her playtop, tree branches or where ever she had been before she went searching and she seemed fine with that. I use positive reinforcement always and reward her with praise as well as the occasional treat for things well done. A happy girl who loves to play games and has always responded well to positive reinforcement. Now, she gave us another egg last week and with that came a new sense of urgency about her and her actions, she does everything in her power to find my hubby, even the sound of his car outside brings up those feathered little horns and shes off and running to find him. IF she sees me, anywhere within her sight when the mood strikes her to get to him she makes a bee line straight for me, beak open and ready to bite. Shes serious, ticked off and has no issue with going through anything in her way to get to me. Shes flown off her playtop directly at me to attack, jumped off the cage to have a go at me....whatever it takes. When my hubby isn't home shes usually content to leave me be but will from time to time will still get that little glint in her eye and have a go at me anyway.

The only thing that stops her from biting me is either me getting enough of her beak to get her to let go and locking her back in her cage or my husband walking into the room and asking her to step up, when he does she'll instantly stop and go to him. It's like day and night, she can be trying to tear me apart one second and cooing at him and telling him she loves him the next. Due to her hormonal state we do not allow her to have anything she can shred, hide in or snuggle with. We've been discussing hormone injections with our AV but I'm not a fan of chemicals unless there is no alternative and so here I am. Anyone else have any experience with this, thoughts, suggestions or agree that it's just time to bite the bullet and try the injections?

I've used a series of 3 Lupron injections with 3 of my female parrots and one male with mixed results. It did not seem to lessen the nesting urges of a cockatiel couple. I tried it with them only because he was plucking her bloody, so I was quite desperate and knew no alternative to separating them. They're still fairly nesty, but no more blood-letting and only 2-3 eggs in the 15 months since the treatment. Lupron stopped the neck plucking and extreme nestiness of my Alexandrine 2 years ago, but had negligible if any effect on my nesty and plucking quaker shortly after.

I have great faith in my avian vet and discussed use of Lupron with him in each bird's case. Of course we never know for sure 'til it's too late what effect chemicals might have, but in this shortterm, I've seen no ill effects and KNOW I would try it ASAP in your situation. Having such a powerful beak attacking me would be very difficult, to put it mildly.

Wishing you and her the best!

Thank you so much for the response. Although I've never been frightened of her the thought of that beak taking out large chunks doesn't exactly thrill me either.

We're working on some behavior modification and she has eased up a bit ( only trying to come after twice is the past two days ) but has now turned her "frustrations" towards one of her toys that she is pushing and kicking in a corner of her playtop for hours on end. Although I've had people tell me that they believe shes just playing, this seems to be an activity that she does about three weeks or so before she gives us another egg. Any other time shes uninterested in kicking or banging her toy into the corner. The more she shows us by way of actions the more I believe this is truly more hormonal than behavioral. Thank you again for responding to my post.

MFids wrote:You can try completely rearranging her cage, moving it to a new location, making sure she gets a minimum of 12 hours of sleep each night, although some have gone as far as 14-16 hours of sleep for stubborn birds, and do not feed warm food. Mates will often feed warm food to eachother, so you may want to try feeding food at cooler temps.

Also, keep her busy. Make sure she gets daily bathes. Make sure she has plenty of toys to destroy. Change them around. Try foraging toys. You (or your husband) may even want to look into clicker training and daily flight exercises. Keeping her busy and exercised may help lessen some of her other unwanted behaviors.

Thank you so much for your help and concern. I do all the things you've listed already other than clicker training and flight excercises. Kate requires 13 hours sleep, any more or less and shes pure hell on wheels. I rotate her hanging and foraging toys daily and her cage is rearranged weekly. I've even gone so far as to move her feeding location from time to time just to keep her guessing a bit but it matters very little to her. We even spend time outside exploring daily.

We've started more excercise and have considered signing up for the yahoo group on clicker training as well. I think right now my only saving grace is that my husband and I work different shifts, that meaning that she doesn't have me around to get in her way during the evening hours except for on Sundays and Mondays however, starting January first I'll be working first shift and we'll be home every evening together and all weekend long.

Have you given any consideration to clipping her while she is in this state. Best to keep all safe. A friend of mine recently had to use the Lupron injections. Her cockatoo got eggbound. This was a DNA'd male - go figure. All my birds were exhibiting nesting behaviour but it seems to be calming down now.

You are doing the right things by rearranging her environment to protect yourself. You must avoid the bites because they are reinforcing to the bird.

I know a few people who are having this same problem. I would suggest joining the PBAS list but the wait list is very long and by the time you actually get a threadleader, this behaviour will probably decrease on its own.

Bev

ZazuSally wrote:... I know a few people who are having this same problem. I would suggest joining the PBAS list but the wait list is very long and by the time you actually get a threadleader, this behaviour will probably decrease on its own.

Bev

I've always considered behavioral byproducts of raging sex hormones to be the most resistant to anything we might do except wait it out and keep our flesh off limits. Bev, could you tell us what the focus of that part of the training is -- redirection, training the parront ... ???

TIA

Hormonal is a label or construct. It is what we think the bird is. Susan gave the best description of this. She is not saying that the bird does not have hormones but that "hormonal" is not a behaviour. Now if your bird has started to bite or chew your furniture or scream incessantly for hours at a time, those are behaviours that can be changed. My Zazu is like a buzz saw right now so I give fill her foraging drawers with wood pieces with a nut at the bottom. I swear she could clear out a forest in under 5 minutes right now. My job is to make sure she has all the wood pieces she needs so she doesn't go looking to chew my stuff. Not that I can ever stop that completely. I mean a good leather purse is a good leather purse and if it gets chewed, it's my own fault for leaving it where she can get at it.

If your bird is chewing your furniture, move the cage or bird away from the furniture. That is a simple antecedent change. Avoid bites as they are reinforcing to the bird and maybe work on a bit of training, ie target train some simple tricks, give the bird lots and lots of things to do, redirection is good and it's always about training us because birds are birds. They just do what works for them.

Did I help? LOL

Bev

You did! Thank you. I'm eager to learn more about stopping biting, but today's another busy day