My cockatoo bit my girlfriend in the eye! Help!

[Alex_3112]

My goffin cockatoo bit my girlfriend in the eye!

He is a 10 years old male, always behaved well, occasionally biting people's fingers, but never ever in the face. I though I could always read his emotions and see his intentions. It turned out, not so much.

My girlfriend has been visiting me for a while without any issues. She was good with my parrot, and the parrot used to be good with her. But two nights ago it suddenly changed. Without any warning, he launched a swift and deadly attacks on her eyes. At first, we dismissed it as some odd, but innocent curiosity. But then he repeated his try. He quickly jumped up her shoulder and scored a solid bite on her eyelid. All within a half-second.

Now she is in tears, I am in shock, and the parrot is firmly locked in his cage, screaming all day long. When not in the cage, he acts like nothing happened and expects that she would pet him like she used to.

For the last 10 years, I learned to see his intentions and divert any unwanted behavior. But now my cockatoo is becoming dangerously aggressive - without showing any outer signs of aggression. How can this be?

Is my parrot jealous? What can be done?

 

[JerseyWendy]

Welcome to the forum, Alex.

I am terribly sorry about what happened. I can imagine your girlfriend must be quite scared of him now.

Since I don't have personal experience with toos, I'll let some experienced members chime in, and truly hope you can sort this out.

Best of luck!

 

[Birdman666]

1. Your parrot is a cockatoo. They occasionally act up. It just happens from time to time. There doesn't necessarily have to even be a cause and effect, nor does the bird necessarily understand why he is suddenly locked up... My impression of them are that G2's are a tad neurotic. (My foster G2 took high strung to a whole new level!)

Did something startle the bird and trigger the bite? Was it aggression? Is the bird actually targeting, i.e. going after your GF? Or was it just a bad hair (feather) day?!

2. Cockatoos are jealous birds... (name a large parrot that isn't!)

3. I hope your girlfriend is Okay.

4. And this is actually going to be indelicate, and there is no politically correct way to say this... There is one behavior study that I am aware of regarding large toos and biting (U2's) and it was particular to increased aggression around women during "that time of the month." The theory is that the menstrual cycle somehow triggers aggressiveness in certain parrots.
I don't know if that theory holds water or not, but it was documented in a behavioral case study I read a few years ago. If it was "that time of the month" biting, the bad behavior stops when the menstrual cycle ends. And starts up again, on the next cycle, so ladies, I'd be interested in hearing feedback on this one. I'm not sure I buy into it, or not.

 

[faeryphoebe1]

Did your girlfriend go to the ER? There's always the risk of corneal abrasion, eye infection and vision loss. Please make sure she sees a doctor.

I don't have a Too but parrots, as others have mentioned, can be very jealous.

 

[Birdman666]

Is this bird clipped? If not, unfortunately, it's probably time. This is a safety issue, and you can't keep him locked up all the time...

 

[TessieB]

Dang! I hope the GF is okay! I'd make sure to keep my face away from him, period or no period.

 

[getwozzy]

Welcome Alex; I'm sorry your GF got bit!! I hope she's ok!!

I have a galah who occasionally shows interest in eyeballs...she hasn't bitten any of our eyes (yet), but if she's next to your face and you're not careful, then you might get tagged- not because she wants to bite that person, she's just over-zealous about eyeballs

But, with your Goffin running up her arm and biting, it sounds like he was frightened by something IMO. Has your gf recently changed her appearance in some way?? A new hair cut? Hair color? Makeup?

At this point, I would still let him out of the cage and do normal interactions (just be cautious!) with him because he doesn't understand he's done something "bad", and confining him to his cage could only spur unwanted behaviors (i.e., screaming).

 

[crimson]

oh wow, I sure hope your girl friend will be alright, that sounds very nasty and painful!!

I have no experience with Toos', but I just wanted to wish you & your girlfriend the very best.

 

[Allee]

I'm sorry that happened. Ouch! I hope your girlfriend's eye is all right. It may take longer for her feelings to heal. I hope your relationship with your too heals nicely too. He can't understand being locked up. It's probably very confusing for him. He just knows your behavior has changed toward him. I would really try to get things back to normal with him pretty quickly.

To answer your question Birdman, I haven't seen proof of that theory with my Umbrella. I did have a discussion with a woman who said her male cockatoo behaves very badly once a month. I tend to think it's a myth, but maybe not.

 

[Betrisher]

Gee, that must've been a horrible experience for your GF! Cockatoo bites hurt! My Galah went for my face the other day, but he is a confirmed biter so I wasn't too surprised. I have no experience to birds responding to human pheromones, but I've known plenty of stallions who get all 'thingy' when a woman nearby has her period. I s'pose it makes sense, really. The chemicals are the same or similar, so...

You can't lock your cocky up forever, though, so the best you can do is train the living daylights out of him to keep his mind occupied. Your GF needs to be extremely wary and perhaps leave him alone for a while after this nasty incident. When she's ready, maybe she could take over some of his training and, in that way, assert herself with him?

Good luck! It's unpleasant, isn't it, when they do these things out of the blue - I hope you reach a good solution for everyone.

 

[Kissed82]

I don't know much about cockatoos but I do know they are monogamous by nature. If your bird is bonded to you... it could have been some sort of interaction between you and your girlfriend = jealous bird = bird attacking.

just a thought.

Maybe you should be careful showing your girlfriend affection in front of the bird until you figure out the cause, if there was one that is.

or I could totally be way wrong ! )

I hope your GF is ok!

 

[antoinette]

Hi Alex
Welcome to our forum
Eina that must have been sore, sorry for what your girlfriend went through
Perhaps you bird was in a bad mood, could be, just like us humans have bad days.
Your girlfriend must continue interacting with your bird, staying at a distance for a few days.

Hope things improve

 

[Mekaisto]

Hopefully all goes well
I'm not a big fan of letting large parrots sit on shoulders, because then they assume they can sit on anyone's shoulder, and that's when accidents happen.

 

[Maria_Metropolis]

Cockatoos can be jealous birds, especially if they look at you as a mate. I would always make sure the cockatoo is low on the arm, not on the shoulder or near the face with other people. Keep the bird's head at chest level and away from the face.

I hope your girlfriend is okay. It sounds like an eyelid bite and not a direct bite on the eye, which would be worse. We have to remember that these parrots are still wild animals at heart, and no matter how sweet they can be, there is always the potential for biting and unpredictable behavior.

 

[MikeyTN]

I hope your gf's eye is ok!

Cockatoo's mood changes very quickly like mood swing. Part of the reason why I always say never have them on your shoulders or any of the big birds period. But you said he jumped onto her shoulders?

I'm with Birdman here, if he's not clipped, I would also advice in having him clipped. It can be quite dangerous when they learn to fly attack.

 

[strudel]

She wasn't wearing glittery eyeshadow or anything that he might have been trying to "get"?

 

[Maria_Metropolis]

I'm with Birdman here, if he's not clipped, I would also advice in having him clipped. It can be quite dangerous when they learn to fly attack.

Very good point, they can be quick too.

 

[MikeyTN]

I'm with Birdman here, if he's not clipped, I would also advice in having him clipped. It can be quite dangerous when they learn to fly attack.

Very good point, they can be quick too.

Oh very much so! When I had Java the U2, he fly attacks. He never fly attack me but I have once intervened him from attacking my partner while he's flying, I received a nasty bite out of him.

 

[Alex_3112]

Thank you everybody for your responses, I have more ideas and more things to think about now.

We decided to take a timeout and took my Too for boarding for a couple of days. He knows this boarding well and I guess it's better than keep him locked at home. My GF is healing. We didn't go to ER, and the bird, fortunately, bit only the eyelid, not the eye itself.

My parrot is slightly clipped, so he can fly for a short distance and use his wings for power jumps (that's what's he using for his advantage), but can't really fly away.

About his behavior, what puzzles me that it doesn't look like aggression (but my GF thinks otherwise). It more resembles a game of "snatch", when he takes an interest in some object, like pen, and suddenly lunges to grab it with his beak, sometimes biting human flesh that was unfortunately on the way. Earrings and earlobes are suffering in particular.

But the eyes and the face were never in trouble and we didn't even think about their safety. Maybe my GF's eye makeup (not much of it, really), combined with her hairstyle (you can see her eyes when sitting on her shoulder, but just barely), prompted my bird to attack.

Anyways, we are reluctant to take any chances and will try to turn my GF's shoulders to "no fly zone".

 

[Birdman666]

I don't know much about cockatoos but I do know they are monogamous by nature.

NOPE! Toos (and eckies) are flock birds, not pair bond birds. They trade partners.

Pair bond birds are monogamous, that would be conures, amazons and macaws.

That doesn't, however, mean they don't get jealous and petty when some other person gets the attention that "rightfully" (IN THEIR LITTLE BIRD BRAINS) belongs to them, and don't lash out like spoiled little toddlers sometimes...

Which if I had to guess, having not seen it happen, is the probable dynamic here...