We have an adorable green cheek conure we’re pretty sure is female, about two years old now. My husband is her favorite pet human, but she’s always had some affection for me. Up until recently she’s been largely very sweet.
Now, I have a long-standing tradition of wearing a “bird shirt” in the morning and letting the family birds hang out on my shoulders while I go about my morning routine. For the past two years this has largely been the two cockatiels on one side and the conure on the other, but they do mix it up occasionally. Lately, the conure has been chasing the 'tiels away from me. She’s been pushing them off the house perches. This has resulted in much confusion and commotion in the mornings, with both me and the 'tiels getting pissed off and frustrated.
She’s also taken to being defiant towards me (and somewhat towards the husband, but not nearly so much) with some hissing and open beak gestures. When this has happened we’ve tried to figure out what’s setting her off and fix it if we can. Sometimes, she just seems grumpy first thing in the morning and giving her some food fixes her temper. She likes to come out of the cage in her own time, so usually I just open the door and let her come out when she’s ready.
This morning the flock was settling in for the morning computer routine. 'Tiels on my right shoulder, conure in my left hand. Normally, she likes cuddling with a left hand (don’t ask me why, she prefers left hands). She settled in all sweet and cute - then hauled off an bit me hard on the webbing between thumb and index finger. I didn’t drop her, like I’m sure she was hoping, and I started off towards her cage because I didn’t want Ms. Bite loose in the house. Told me husband to not rescue me, as she has to learn that biting me has consequences and I don’t want a situation where she behaves when he’s around and turns into a monster when he’s not. On the way to the cage she changed her grip and bit down even harder on the base of my thumb, drawing two points of blood this time. Some wrestling ensued as I put her in the cage despite her unwillingness to cooperate.
This all ended with one mightily pissed off bird poofed up to twice life size and hissing like a cobra, and one mightily pissed off human bandaging her hand, and another mightily pissed off human wanting to defend his wife.
Ms. Bite has been in the cage all morning. Yes, she’s still pissed off. On the other hand, me and the 'tiels had our first peaceful morning in about three weeks. If you discount the occasional scream of pissed-off conure in the background.
Well, for starters, she’s going to get flight feather trimming tonight, as soon as we locate the really good, sharp shears. Bad enough she’s biting - she will NOT be allowed an airborne escape any more. Grounding misbehaving birds in the past has often done a lot to modify this sort of belligerence. I don’t like to do it, but trimming her primaries won’t kill her. Continuing to bite humans might.
Mind you, this animal has never been mistreated. Partly we think it may be her adult hormones and behavior kicking in, we’ve had other parrots go through “troublesome twos” before and the females seem more inclined to aggression. They also have stronger bites than the males.
For sure, we didn’t want to do anything in the heat of anger. Sure, sitting in her cage all morning hasn’t helped her temper but it helped ours. We need to come up with a rational plan to deal with this.
- She has to stop the biting.
- She has to behave around ALL humans, not just her favorite
- She has to allow me time with the 'tiels. Lately, she’s been wanting all the human attention to for herself. I know sharing doesn’t really come naturally to little birds, but others have learned, she can, too.
- She has to stop begging for food all the time. The husband does tend to spoil her. Lately, I haven’t been as generous with giving her the “bird tax” when I’m eating. Sorry, she is not entitled. She has plenty of her own food. In fact, she’s even starting to get a little heavier. Fine if she’s putting on muscle, but not if it’s flab.
I’m wondering if this is all a mix of jealousy of my time with the 'tiels, possibly jealously between me and the husband, my refusal to just hand over food to her, and her attempting to dominate everyone in the house.
Yes, if you have birds you’re going to get nipped once in awhile. This is moving beyond that. We don’t want to give her up. My husband, especially, doesn’t want to give her up because they’re quite close, but on the other hand if it’s a choice between me or the bird the bird will lose. If we do have to give her up because of biting it will make it MUCH harder for her to find a new home.
I want my sweet baby bird back!
We’re going to have to come up with something, and apply it consistently. I’m looking for suggestions. I don’t want to her to end up like my lovebird hen, Mariposa - killed by another bird in self-defense. Or worse yet, killed because she maimed a human (like me, for example). I think we’re early enough to do something about this behavior, we just have to come up with a workable plan.