Aggressive female galah

[lilibet]

I'm having some trouble with one of my galahs and I'd really appreciate some help from someone with galah experience.

She's 15 months old and has been paired with a male of the same age since the age of 6 months. I moved them to an aviary about 3 months ago as we have moved and cannot bring them inside where we are; their old cage was too small to be in all the time without a break.

I handraised her but tried to make sure she didn't bond exclusively with me. The male is parent raised but quite tame. She used to be very quiet and happy just to keep me company. She was less gentle with her beak than the male is but that's fairly typical for females so I didn't worry about it.

Now I feel like I take my life in my hands entering the aviary. She flies at my face, bites the back of my neck, my hands, basically any flesh she can reach. If I cover up she bites through my clothes. She's fluffed up and eyeballing me from the moment I approach the aviary, even when I have something yummy for them. The male would like to come closer to play with my clothes or be hand fed but I can't stay still and calm enough to do that with him when I'm being savaged.

I've asked on other forums (forgot about this one!) but haven't been able to get a response from anyone who actually knows anything about galahs or even cockatoos in general. The suggestions I've had:
- she is hormonal
- she is bonded to the other galah and protecting him from me
- she is territorial over the aviary.

I thought she was a bit young to be hormonal, given that galahs don't mature until around their third year.

The perches are all below my shoulder height and there's nothing in there that could be considered a nest. They get a seed mix (very few sunflowers), fresh grass and seed heads that I grow just for them, lots of gumnuts and eucalypt branches, sprouts, and an occasional bit of corn or apple. I used to offer them a wider variety of fruit and veg but they don't eat them.

I'd like to know: a) What's going on? and b) Is there anything I can do about it? I'm not enjoying having them at the moment and can't imagine going on like this indefinitely.

 

[Delfin]

She peeved at being kicked outside. She doesn't understand why But she is blaming you.

 

[lilibet]

That seems unlikely. She's always lived outside, in a patio cage before the aviary. The only difference is that I haven't been able to bring her inside to play since early August when we moved.

She hasn't been in the aviary as long as I thought. I just had a look at the receipt for the aviary and I didn't get it until mid September and then it took me a couple of weeks to get my act together and assemble it, so she had about two months in the patio cage without coming inside before she went into the aviary. One would think that if she was going to react to not coming inside she would have done it much earlier.

She was also getting plenty of time with me before she started biting because I would take a bucket of toys and sit in the aviary with them. Needless to say that has completely stopped.