Need help/suggestions

[k0ala]

My family got a new GCC 2 days ago, he's beautiful and we love him, and he's 9 months old. The store we got him from had already trained him to step on our fingers as well! However I'm having a problem with him, if I take him out of the cage and set him on the top of the cage, he becomes really hostile and aggressive. This is not the case when he is inside the cage, where, without hesitation, he steps up onto our fingers. Even bribing him with apples (his favorite fruit) he still is hostile. We just let him sit there until he finally stops trying to bite us, and he then will hop onto our fingers (i had to wait over 30 minutes for him to calm down today) We want him to be comfortable with the environment, which he seems pretty content with already, by allowing him to be outside the cage. I was wondering why he does this and how I could fix it?

Thank you for help
-Andrew

 

[Kentuckienne]

The simplest explanation is that he steps up from inside the cage because he wants out of it, and riding on your finger is the easiest, fastest way. He won't step up from the top of the cage because he likes being up there and doesn't want to leave it. The biting is how he communicates this to you, it's how he would tell another bird to go away. It's a good idea to practice "stepping up" from hand to perch, from perch to hand, from person to person in a place away from the cage until when you say "step up" he does it reliably. Even then, he may balk at being removed from the top of the cage unless he wants a ride somewhere. Some birds will balk initially, and if you wait a bit, don't go away, keep eye contact, they think it over and agree with your polite request. Be sure that when you ask him to step up from the cage top it's for a good reason, like to go to another room with the rest of the flock or to have dinner. If you only pick him up to put him in the cage he will figure that out and maybe get stubborn. Basically, just common courtesy. You ask him to do things for a reason, and consider what he's doing when you ask him that you are interrupting and you will have a pretty good idea of whether he will want to comply or not, and you may have to ask nicer or wait a moment.