Caique

This is a good article, thank you for sharing. So far, I have not experienced any of the clownliness that they are describing but Fruitcaique hasnt been here very long. I think she is a little confused and probably a tad depressed, she was bonded to the husband of the woman that I got her from. The woman who had her previously has medical issues and neither of them wanted to give up the bird, although the woman swore the bird always attacked her.

I have experienced the "beaking" although in my case, it is just Fruitcaique ensuring that the "perch" I am offering her(my hand), is secure. If I had to guess, I would say the woman who had her before me was afraid when Fruitcaique reached out her beak to test the "perch" and she pulled her hand away. The 2nd day I had her I gave her a treat every time I walked into the quarantine room. She LOVES food, loves to eat, and she is smart. It didnt take her long to figure out that when she saw me, she got yummy treats. By yesterday, she was stepping up and I was giving her a treat after she stepped up. Today, she was stepping up quite willingly without a treat.

She will probably eventually get a little unpredictable as it seems to be the nature of the beast but so far, she has been so sweet I can't even believe this is the same bird that was described to me!!! (KNOCK ON WOOD!!)

OK...here is what I learned today from my adorable Fruitcaique. Everything is relative! If one thinks that getting bitten by a quaker hurts, the way to cure that belief is to get bitten by a caique

It was totally my fault. I didnt recognize the warning signs..I actually misinterpreted them. I saw the signs, but I interpreted them as excitement, not anger. WRONG

Caiques are like bulldogs. Once they latch onto your hand, finger, whatever, they hang on for dear life. I actually had to use my other hand to pry her beak from my finger.

Things had been going pretty well, and I think they will still be ok, I just need to be more careful. I will say that after the incident, she wound up on the carpeted floor. I bent down to pick her up and she bit me again, this time not as hard and I was able to pry her loose fairly easily. So, I walked into my bathroom (she is quarantined in my bedroom) and let her calm down. To her credit she did not go chasing after me in attack mode, which I"ve heard they do. What she eventually wound up doing (about 15 mins later) is she came around the corner where my bathroom door in my bedroom is and was sorta wondering where I got off to. I tried to get her to step up on a perch but that scared her, so I backed off. Finally, about 20 mins later, she tried to climb up my dresser, using the drawer handles. She looked like she was done being angry, so I sat down on the floor near her, offered her a walnut piece and as soon as she had her beak full, asked her to step up, which she did. Then I calmly put her back on her cage and the incident was over.

I did not do any more target training with her today, I've pretty much stayed out of the room. We will resume again tomorrow after a good night's sleep

lol yeah, it was a shock alright.It was a bigger shock that when I shook my hand and removed it from the top of her cage, she was just hanging from my hand still, with her beak latched to my finger, right above my knuckle.

I am rethinking the target training and I am going back to using a chopstick. I trained Pele the Pi with the chopstick but Daisy the Goffins was afraid of the chopstick so I used my closed fist as a target. It worked great for her. It was so convenient to do it that way because I always had my fist with me and I constantly misplaced the chopstick. Unfortunately, until I am fairly confident we will not have another rerun of this afternoon, I will be forced to use the chopstick as the target and ensure that she has to lean way forward for her treat, so she will be unable to bite.

I know I joked about it cause that's all you can do but it hurt like a son of a b*tch!!! It still hurts. She is actually lucky I had the control to gently pry her beak off me. It hurt so badly that I could've easily accidently hurt her in my effort to unlatch her from my hand!

anyway, we will take the proper care to see that does NOT happen again, at least not in that situation.

Eek! This sounds extremely painful! Wow... the plot thickens. Good luck with this one Sharyn!

Ah yes, functional behaviour assessment is used widely here too, particularly in the rollout of Positive Behaviour Support in schools (we are a number of years behind the US in this area, which seems to be 'normal' in a lot of fields). We used to use a similar thing called 'ABC' (Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence) for data recording. I think you are approaching this in a very wise manner and will see positive results, particularly as Fruitcaique and you get to know one another better.

I hope your finger starts to feel better soon. I can't really imagine you being careless, probably it was just one fraction of a second of inattention. But it sounds as though she has recovered her 'niceness' quite quickly, so whatever you did can't have been THAT bad - unfortunately your finger has paid the price.

It's got to be quite a challenge to get back in there confidently after getting such a vicious bite. I've managed to never be bitten in a manner where the bird actually latches on, thankfully. I'm sure once you've been through that it requires quite a bit more willpower to not pull back. Eek!

I know exactly what you mean. Bonnie does this to my hubby sometimes (just latches on and won't let go). She has only done it to me once, but it's definitely a case of "once bitten twice shy" for us. Recently she has been a good girl much of the time. If she moves suddenly near our hands though, I've noticed both hubby and I sometimes flinch, which we must try not to do.