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Post by biteybird on May 9, 2015 1:10:50 GMT -5
Recently (last week or so) Bonnie has begun biting my husband's hand, chin and face quite hard.  Before she does this she often bobs her head up and down rapidly and flaps her wings, sort of like the quaking behaviour she used to do when she was a baby. The worst occasion was when I shooed her away from food I was preparing, then she flew up to the wall ledge behind the silver photo frame and started screeching (she does that when she knows she's done something wrong). My husband went to pick her up and she bit him really hard. Since then she's pecked his hand when they've been sitting together - without him even moving it - and today she was sitting on his shoulder and bit him on the lip when he whistled at her.
I think she may be transitioning from baby to adult - she is about 1 & 1/2 - and is also becoming territorial of different places, such as the wall ledge.
Any thoughts? We may need to call the Bird Police!  |
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Post by Jan and Shah on May 9, 2015 3:41:28 GMT -5
Welcome to hormones I am so used to Shah biting, screaming and being completely irrational that the only reason I know his hormones are active is because he may attempt to mutilate. You just cant reason with them when they are hormonal (or indeed any other time). Just wait it out and maybe she shouldn't be allowed to go near hubby as he seems to be the focus of her aggressiveness. You can try her on some camomile tea or Rescue Remedy (get the non alcohol one). Maybe you can distract her - I know Shah is so focused that trying to distract him only makes him angrier. |
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Post by easttex on May 9, 2015 4:54:14 GMT -5
I would suspend her shoulder privileges, at least for a while. It should be a reward for good behavior, not part of her established territory. Same thing with other places you don't want her calling her own, if you can. It might not be pretty, but can you temporarily cover the shelf with some light material so that she can't land there? You could remove it when she's behaving, and let her come to see it as a reward.
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Post by aaron on May 9, 2015 10:03:30 GMT -5
Yep, sounds like hormones. Things are probably going to get pretty interesting for a while. She's feeling all kinds of new things that she doesn't know how do deal with, I would imagine.
Personally, when Cupcake bit us when she was going through initial phases like this, we would generally immediately put her back on her cage the first time she bit, and if it kept happening, she would get 5 minute time outs, which would eventually escalate to getting covered, and sometimes even put in a dark room for 5 minute periods of time. With this sort of technique, I would recommend never going longer than 5 minutes with the punishments, and possibly even doing 3 minutes. You want to give them lots of opportunities to keep messing up so you have lots of opportunities to show them the consequences, so they see the pattern.
Nowadays, even when she is hormonal, she really doesn't ever bite hard. On a fairly rare occasion she will bite angrily, but even then it does not pose a risk of breaking the skin. I like to think that our persistence in responding to her bites helped. ... And she certainly did not get to sit on shoulders during this period of time.
You definitely want to make sure that beyond her cage, she doesn't have any access to places she feels territorial about. Those instincts need to be nipped in the bud.
Good luck. I'm sure you guys will figure it out... this stuff definitely gets better over time.
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Post by biteybird on May 10, 2015 5:15:02 GMT -5
Thanks, everyone. For now I've removed the silver frame from the wall ledge, which seems to have alleviated some of the aggression. She was actually not too bad today and was only 'incarcerated' twice for brief periods (for lunging at my hand - 1. When I was keeping her away from food on the kitchen bench, and 2. When I moved her away from the needle of the sewing machine as I was using it  ). Jan, maybe this good behaviour WAS a side effect of chamomile tea - I made myself a cup of it and (predictably) the little hussy landed on the edge of the cup and helped herself to it.  |
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Post by aaron on May 11, 2015 9:23:10 GMT -5
Glad to hear things remain manageable!
One thing that occurred to me that I wanted to ask is, when she is being a good bird, just sitting or hanging out, do you give her praise for it? For a long time I forgot/didn't think to praise Cupcake for just sitting there and being calm, but when we started to do that, it definitely made a difference. She became calmer.
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Post by siobhan on May 11, 2015 16:24:01 GMT -5
Consider an earlier bedtime, too. Clyde was going into full-blown berserker mode a few days ago and was completely IMPOSSIBLE to cope with, so he (and unfortunately, the others in that room) all started going to bed a half-hour earlier, and he's almost back to (what passes for) normal now.
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Post by aaron on May 11, 2015 18:13:52 GMT -5
Yeah, earlier bedtime is definitely a good idea. That has helped us a lot as well.
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Post by cnyguy on May 11, 2015 20:14:54 GMT -5
Hormones are powerful enough even to make Ralph forget that he's a gentleman. Over the past two days, I've been on the receiving end of several chomps on my hands, five of which drew blood.  Early to bed for Ralph now too, and perhaps a taste of chamomile tea in the evening, when he really gets worked up. |
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Post by biteybird on May 12, 2015 2:45:34 GMT -5
Yes, Aaron, I think we've been guilty of not praising/rewarding the good behaviour enough...will have to remind ourselves often about that. So we will give that a go and also the earlier bedtimes and see what happens! Gary, even Ralph regresses during 'hormonal-ness'? That's a bit unexpected. |
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Post by Jan and Shah on May 12, 2015 4:59:58 GMT -5
I think Gary is making it up. Ralph is the perfect quaker |
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Post by aaron on May 12, 2015 9:13:28 GMT -5
Praising good behavior was a game changer for us. That was when we started to realize we actually had a chance of getting Cupcake to behave. It was a major sigh of relief, because before that, Cupcake was pretty wild and didn't really listen to us. It definitely isn't intuitive to remember to give that praise, at first... But it will become second nature. I find, as well, that if more than one person praises the bird at once, she is significantly more likely to be affected by it.  Not a big surprise but worth noting. Man, we must really be lucky with Cupcake and her hormones. So far, all it really equates to is being noticeably crazier, frequent attempted regurgitation, and a more pronounced nesting instinct... No biting. In fact, she hasn't drawn blood in nearly a year, aside from the scab she likes to pick off my arm before it can heal.  |
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Post by julianna on May 12, 2015 13:01:01 GMT -5
Don't forget to let hubby save Bonnie. Like when you put her somewhere she cannot come out of then hubby will go in and get her. She might like hubby more for the helping hand.
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Post by aaron on May 12, 2015 13:55:54 GMT -5
^^ Yep, that rescue technique worked for us as well..
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Post by easttex on May 12, 2015 14:13:11 GMT -5
I think Gary is making it up. Ralph is the perfect quaker I think Gary just likes to make us feel he's one of us now and then. Humor him. |
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Before she does this she often bobs her head up and down rapidly and flaps her wings, sort of like the quaking behaviour she used to do when she was a baby.
).
Early to bed for Ralph now too, and perhaps a taste of chamomile tea in the evening, when he really gets worked up. 
Not a big surprise but worth noting. 
