12 Week Old GCC Suddenly Very Aggressive

[Brahma]

Hello! I'm a new owner, and I've recently gotten my first bird. She's a pineapple green cheek conure and was hatched on April 1st. I met her before buying her and she was very curious and bubbly. The first few days home with me she was very sweet. When I'd take her out she would be calm and content and would be well mannered. She's been home for a full week as of today and now she's a bit unpredictable when out of the cage.
For the past 3 days, anytime I take her out to give her out of cage time, she always ends up attacking me. Most times she does it -I'm assuming- because I won't let her do what she wants to do. Today she wanted to go meet the dog but I didn't want her to bite the dog so I wouldn't let her fly off, I just would use my hand as a barrier to stop her from climbing down. The other day it was because she was in someone's hair playing around and she was furious that I was trying to take her away from it. Yesterday she attacked my hands and arms but I don't know why - she was sitting in my lap and I wasn't doing anything.
When I say attack I mean she squawks and then lunges at me and bites REALLY hard. She's ripping my skin up, drawing blood, and leaving welts on my skin from her pinching and biting. I'm also not allowed to pet her anymore, I used to be able to give a few scratches and touch her cheeks but if I try that now she gets ill and starts nipping and fussing. However, my dad, who doesn't interact with her as much but still talks to her every day, is allowed to.
I don't know what I've done to make her so angry with me but I'm very confused and now feel like I've done something wrong?
Sorry for the long post but I don't want this to turn into a long term issue! Thanks!

 

[Flboy]

Do your best to take a step back and try to study what is going on! You are right now teaching her to do these attacks as confusing as it seems! Remember, she really is not much more different than a toddler that is certainly trying to run the show! You have to do your best to temper this aggression without hurting your relationship. Please give her time, she will come around and your next big hurdle will be at two years old! Do your best to never use negative reinforcement for when she is doing bad, you need to avoid the bad as much as possible and that will teach her other ways! Read and reread this particular thread and most everything else from Monica! Mark, Birdman666, has a different approach that does work very well for him so it is worth checking that out because remember you basically have a miniature macaw, that will die to hold her ground! My JoJo will at times start squawking at my daughter, and my daughter just starts squawking right back at him and it takes a moment or two he then looks at her sideways and then goes back on to what he's doing and stops the challenge!
http://www.parrotforums.com/training/57935-brainstorming-biting-parrots.html

Oops, bad manners! Welcome!

 

[Brahma]

Thank you! I'll read that and look up those users and their posts! I don't want to accidentally reinforce her. I've been involved with dog obedience training for a while, but parrots seem to be a little more complicated.

 

[Flboy]

Thank you! I'll read that and look up those users and their posts! I don't want to accidentally reinforce her. I've been involved with dog obedience training for a while, but parrots seem to be a little more complicated.

Absolutely different than obedience training! You must not think of a parrot as a pet, you must think of it more as dealing with a child! A very strong willed child! And the last thing you ever want to do with child like that is to break their spirit!

 

[BoomBoom]

Thank you! I'll read that and look up those users and their posts! I don't want to accidentally reinforce her. I've been involved with dog obedience training for a while, but parrots seem to be a little more complicated.

Absolutely different than obedience training! You must not think of a parrot as a pet, you must think of it more as dealing with a child! A very strong willed child! And the last thing you ever want to do with child like that is to break their spirit!

I second this. The training approach is drastically different. Birds do not respond at all to the dominance training that dogs are often subjected to. If you make this mistake, you will either create an aggressive monster or a feather-plucking nervous wreck. They respond to positive reinforcement. Shower them with praise when they do something you like. Flboy referenced awesome posters. I learned a lot from them. Also adding Kalidasa (used to be active on these forums). I can tell you that for severe biting, what worked for me was a combination of:

1) Avoidance of the bite-trigger (study your bird and see what sets him off, there's always a trigger)

2) Separation tactic. When my sun used to bite, I gently say 'No biting' and calmly take him back to a perch in the living room. I tell him to 'Stay' and I walk out of the room, close the door behind me. I'll stay in another room (usually my bedroom where I play my computer games anyway) for 15 minutes to an hour depending on how bad the bite was. He gets to chill in the living room with my other birds, play on his stations or go in his cage if he likes. Make sure when you do this, he is not punished by having nothing to do or being locked up in his cage. The idea here is to show him that if he bites his flock member, his flock member will not want to be around him. For bonded birds, this is meaningful.

 

[Brahma]

Ahhh that makes sense. Yeah the dominance theory doesn't work with dogs either, it's just a fast way to confuse your dog and cause trust issues. Thank y'all for your input, it really helps.

 

[BoomBoom]

You're welcome! Best of luck with your pineapple. Don't hesitate to post if you need any help.

 

[Brahma]

Oh, another question - when she's biting really bad and I need to get her off of me, what's the best way to do that? When she starts biting really bad she refuses to get off of my hand so that I can't get my hand free. Of course I don't want to panick or punish her but yesterday I literally had to use my free hand to gently force her off of me and on to her perch(by using my hand like a wall and slowly pushing it towards her until she had no choice but to step onto her perch) I hated that and I feel like that only made it worse so how can I get her off of me when she's biting? I've tried luring her but that's not as effective when she's got her beak locked on my skin.

 

[MosaicMadness]

We have a yellow sided GC about the same age. Ours loves water bottle tops to play with, so we'll distract him/her biting by handing him that instead. He drops it, we pick it back up and hand it to him. you could try the same with other small beak/foot toys or treats. We also have the benefit of having a large family, so if he starts to act like a brat bird, we'll pass him off to another person for a bit before he goes back to the orig. person. Good luck

 

[BoomBoom]

In that moment, with the pain, your reaction of grabbing her was completely understandable. If it's gentle and non scary, I think you did the right thing. However, know that there are risks to this method because as humans, we can easily break their fragile bones without meaning to. Grabbing with hands may also teach her to hate hands and further fuel biting episodes.

In the past, when my sun was hormonal and he would bite like this, I would instinctively flinch from the pain and my unsteadiness would cause him to disengage so he never got to chomp down long enough. Overtime, I was able to anticipate a bite and was able move away or put up my palm to gesture 'no biting'. Watch for cues like that so you can avoid or prevent the bite. Observing other birds, I've seen that the one about to be bitten always evades or blocks with it's beak. It doesn't just stand there and wait for the bite.

That said, what's ideal is to avoid the trigger in the first place so she doesn't feel like she has to bite. She is very stressed by her new surroundings and flockmates. Give her time to adjust, then later you can start building her trust. I swear by the trigger avoidance and separation tactics I mentioned in my previous post because my situation with Boomer was so dire 2 years ago when he hit hormonal stage. Now, he very rarely bites. When he does, it's a gentle nip or beak nudge to say that he disapproved of something. Mosaic's post above is also very good. I've read other people try that tactic though I personally haven't had the opportunity to.

 

[LordTriggs]

it sounds to me like your conure has just settled in and stuff that it was allowing to happen that you're doing it's taking a stand against. Take it right back to stage 1 and get them used to taking food through the bars and then work at step up training

 

[T00tsyd]

I'm a newish owner too and it sounds as if you need to go back to basics. I had to do this after a couple of weeks and now at about 18 weeks suddenly he is getting very confident and throwing his weight about again. I do everything to keep calm put him back in his cage and ignore him for a while.

Then it's back to basics again. I go up to the cage and depending how he responds I go through all the start again. Simply talking, offering a treat, then perhaps a finger. At any point when he shows aggro I take time out go back to the beginning until he accepts the next step calmly. Only if I'm pretty sure do I let him out again but only if he steps up to come out. I also restrict the petting/cuddling as I realised early on that like a child he can get over excited through handling and that makes him nippy again. Also if he is tired at the end of the day he can have a personality change - a bit like a child again. His bedtime is 8.30 and from 7.30 onwards we wind down ready for bed and limit the play etc.

You do need to change what you are doing - what's the saying? ' Keep doing what you're doing and you keep getting what you're getting.'

Perhaps I should add that I am also a lifelong dog trainer. Dogs don't hold a grudge but I have a feeling that parrots do. Dogs also accept pack leaders and I'm not convinced parrots do that either. My conure is more like a small child, tantrums, grumpy when tired, learning to push whatever buttons Mummy needs to get its own way. THe latest is screaming at me if I leave the room and now is mimicking the telephone bell, presumably because #I usually appear to answer that. Little rogue!

 

[BoomBoom]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday. Right after I made my last post, Boomer bit me for the first time in a very long time! Figures he would right after I praise him on the forums, hahaha!

I ignored my first rule: avoid the bite triggers! I forgot that he HATES sliced white bread. So I was walking around with my peanut butter jelly sandwich and it offended him so much that he flew over and bit my finger, scraping a good part of the skin off. Brown wheat bread is fine, but lord help us if it's white bread. He even hates the packaging that the white bread comes in. Maybe I'm buying the wrong brand? Maybe he thinks it has too much calories and is trying to safeguard my health? You gotta love the randomness of these conures sometimes.

 

[LordTriggs]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday. Right after I made my last post, Boomer bit me for the first time in a very long time! Figures he would right after I praise him on the forums, hahaha!

I ignored my first rule: avoid the bite triggers! I forgot that he HATES sliced white bread. So I was walking around with my peanut butter jelly sandwich and it offended him so much that he flew over and bit my finger, scraping a good part of the skin off. Brown wheat bread is fine, but lord help us if it's white bread. He even hates the packaging that the white bread comes in. Maybe I'm buying the wrong brand? Maybe he thinks it has too much calories and is trying to safeguard my health? You gotta love the randomness of these conures sometimes.

"I'll save you from the carbohydrate menace!"

 

[Brahma]

I know it's not funny since you got hurt but that's hilarious that he hates white bread! I stepped it all back and went back to feeding through bars and now she's much better. The other night she actually cuddled up with me! She's still nibbling but there's no more of the really bad pinching frenzies like before. She's also becoming much easier to handle than before since she'll come on and off my hand when I ask her to. Thank you all so much!

 

[DoubleTake]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday. Right after I made my last post, Boomer bit me for the first time in a very long time! Figures he would right after I praise him on the forums, hahaha!

I ignored my first rule: avoid the bite triggers! I forgot that he HATES sliced white bread. So I was walking around with my peanut butter jelly sandwich and it offended him so much that he flew over and bit my finger, scraping a good part of the skin off. Brown wheat bread is fine, but lord help us if it's white bread. He even hates the packaging that the white bread comes in. Maybe I'm buying the wrong brand? Maybe he thinks it has too much calories and is trying to safeguard my health? You gotta love the randomness of these conures sometimes.

It is silly to hate white bread! How did he learn to hate sliced white bread? I don't know if I could give up white bread lol.

My guys do not have a trigger that causes them to want to bite. They will posture and fluff their feathers when something foreign invade's something they claim as their territory but they are all talk and no bite.

 

[LordTriggs]

haha birds find things threatening and it can seem really stupid to us.

My conure hated red things and would freak out at the sign of them. But as you can see in my pictures I have a red sofa directly next to his cage which he loves sitting on

 

[BoomBoom]

Brahma: That's great to hear! Really awesome progress. A few other tips: approach her slowly, bob your head as greeting and look sideways often - birds think this is respectful apparently, always have something nice with you to sweeten your interaction (treat, used sparingly), a toy, etc. I hope things get better and better.

Doubletake: I have no idea why he started hating on white bread haha! He hates other random things for no reason: roll of masking tape, cds and cd cases, watering can, those dishes that go underneath clay pots, he hates hates kids in general but especially blonde ones with asymmetrical haircuts, etc. Beautiful suns btw!

LordTriggs: Hated red things, loved big red sofa. Sounds like a parrot!

 

[Flboy]

As said, avoid the bite cycle! For some reason that I can't see yet, for the past week, JoJo will nail me if I reach into his cage for him, randomly! Now understand, he is not at all cage aggressive, I can build or move anything in there with him sitting on his perch! So for now? I have several step up sticks that I use to help him out of the cage, or I just laugh and talk to him until he steps up on the door. This is new, and I still don't see the trigger!

 

[BoomBoom]

Sorry to hear that, Flboy. It could also be the season (summer, longer days, maybe triggering the hormones?). Hope you figure out what's making him snappy.