Melissa2010B
New member
- Feb 17, 2010
- 46
- 0
- Parrots
- Cockatiel, Yellow Naped Amazon, Umbrella Cockatoo, Peach Faced Lovebird
We got Oz, a 1.6 lb male umbrella cockatoo, in May of 2009. He was hatched in November of 98, we hear, and we have no idea how many homes he's had before us. His previous owners said we were his 4th. They said he likes women better than men. We're two women here.
We were crazy about him from the start. He went through a couple of months of major insecurity from being separated from his previous family ( he bit the woman so hard on the face that she says there's nerve damage from it, but "he's a sweet little guy", they just couldn't handle him anymore. She told me a few days after we took him, that her husband left her. May have been that. ), and we held him and petted him and loved him and got him over it.
We made him part of our flock. ( we have a shoulder tame lovebird, two tiels and now a canary ) We even sprung for a 5' x 5' x 7' aviary for him ( still paying the credit card ), so he could be in there without feeling so cooped up, when he's not out with us. He loved it.
We dont get the impression he's ever had it this good before. We even sold his old dome style smaller cage.
Around this time last year, we got an Aviator Flight Harness for him and it was easy to get him into it ( I'm the one who learned how, and always gets it on him. ) , and I started taking him out for my 2 mile up and downhill walks in the neighborhood here, just west of Denver. He loved it and would be all peaced out afterwards and get lots of scritchies, and go to sleep more easily that night.
When I first took him out, I realized that he may have never been outside for walks before. Maybe the only things other people took him out of the house for, were visits to vets and to send him away with someone else when they got rid of him eventually.
It was very happy for me, that I could take him out for these walks, I enjoyed it much more than just taking walks by myself, and he brought smiles to all the people around the neighborhood. It was like brightening up everyone's day, including mine!
He enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. In the summer I always take walks around 6 PM so it's not as hot, and have never taken him out when it was much below 60 in cooler weather. There was a gap there in the winter months when it became less frequent because of the lack of warmer days.
We also started taking him, last fall, to the monthly bird club meetings, first on the harness and when the weather got too cold, in the Wingabago. He enjoyed those too. We called them "bird parties" and he would see all the other birds.
Then this spring we started taking him to the lake park with us too, and walking around the 1 mile trail there. He loved that too, and got to see all the people, dogs and geese there.
In other words, we've poured a lot of love into this little guy.
But suddenly around May, he started not wanting to put the harness on so much.
He's never really liked the harness itself that much, but has gotten into it, after a little playing, so he could "go outside for a walk". It would usually only take me a few minutes to get him into it.
But about 2 1/2 months ago, he started getting a little snappy when I'd try to put the smaller loop part over his head, then start evading it by turning his head sideways, and finally bite me ( often hard enough to draw blood ) , which always gets me really frustrated and hurt and upset, then I put him back in his aviary.
But this has been getting worse and worse in recent weeks until we can barely get him outside anymore, and we were enjoying it as much as he was, so we've lost a lot of enjoyment from him now and we dont know why. We're both hurting from this though.
And after being bitten ( biting the hand that loves and feeds you, as it were ) I don't feel like spending so much time with him after that either, I feel hurt.
I tried it again today and sat him on the back of the chair, and as soon as I lifted the harness up, he leaned out, ready to bite, with his beak open. I tried for about 5 minutes and finally gave up after he drew blood from my index finger.
He's also been in a weird matey kind of mode for the last 2 months too, more with Jennifer than with me. She says he's gotten frisky with her hands while being petted. With me, he goes on my lap and ducks his head way under and fluffs his neck feathers and lets me scratch him there on the back of the neck, for quite awhile, but none of the apparent mating with my hands.
So does anyone have any ideas on how we can "get our bird back" and stop this behavior, so we can all be happy here again?
It has me wondering if this kind of thing has caused him to be moved from home to home a lot more than we were even told about, like maybe every year or something?
Because how much can people handle when they put this much into a bird and things are going great then all of a sudden this happens?
We were crazy about him from the start. He went through a couple of months of major insecurity from being separated from his previous family ( he bit the woman so hard on the face that she says there's nerve damage from it, but "he's a sweet little guy", they just couldn't handle him anymore. She told me a few days after we took him, that her husband left her. May have been that. ), and we held him and petted him and loved him and got him over it.
We made him part of our flock. ( we have a shoulder tame lovebird, two tiels and now a canary ) We even sprung for a 5' x 5' x 7' aviary for him ( still paying the credit card ), so he could be in there without feeling so cooped up, when he's not out with us. He loved it.
We dont get the impression he's ever had it this good before. We even sold his old dome style smaller cage.
Around this time last year, we got an Aviator Flight Harness for him and it was easy to get him into it ( I'm the one who learned how, and always gets it on him. ) , and I started taking him out for my 2 mile up and downhill walks in the neighborhood here, just west of Denver. He loved it and would be all peaced out afterwards and get lots of scritchies, and go to sleep more easily that night.
When I first took him out, I realized that he may have never been outside for walks before. Maybe the only things other people took him out of the house for, were visits to vets and to send him away with someone else when they got rid of him eventually.
It was very happy for me, that I could take him out for these walks, I enjoyed it much more than just taking walks by myself, and he brought smiles to all the people around the neighborhood. It was like brightening up everyone's day, including mine!
He enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. In the summer I always take walks around 6 PM so it's not as hot, and have never taken him out when it was much below 60 in cooler weather. There was a gap there in the winter months when it became less frequent because of the lack of warmer days.
We also started taking him, last fall, to the monthly bird club meetings, first on the harness and when the weather got too cold, in the Wingabago. He enjoyed those too. We called them "bird parties" and he would see all the other birds.
Then this spring we started taking him to the lake park with us too, and walking around the 1 mile trail there. He loved that too, and got to see all the people, dogs and geese there.
In other words, we've poured a lot of love into this little guy.
But suddenly around May, he started not wanting to put the harness on so much.
He's never really liked the harness itself that much, but has gotten into it, after a little playing, so he could "go outside for a walk". It would usually only take me a few minutes to get him into it.
But about 2 1/2 months ago, he started getting a little snappy when I'd try to put the smaller loop part over his head, then start evading it by turning his head sideways, and finally bite me ( often hard enough to draw blood ) , which always gets me really frustrated and hurt and upset, then I put him back in his aviary.
But this has been getting worse and worse in recent weeks until we can barely get him outside anymore, and we were enjoying it as much as he was, so we've lost a lot of enjoyment from him now and we dont know why. We're both hurting from this though.
And after being bitten ( biting the hand that loves and feeds you, as it were ) I don't feel like spending so much time with him after that either, I feel hurt.
I tried it again today and sat him on the back of the chair, and as soon as I lifted the harness up, he leaned out, ready to bite, with his beak open. I tried for about 5 minutes and finally gave up after he drew blood from my index finger.
He's also been in a weird matey kind of mode for the last 2 months too, more with Jennifer than with me. She says he's gotten frisky with her hands while being petted. With me, he goes on my lap and ducks his head way under and fluffs his neck feathers and lets me scratch him there on the back of the neck, for quite awhile, but none of the apparent mating with my hands.
So does anyone have any ideas on how we can "get our bird back" and stop this behavior, so we can all be happy here again?
It has me wondering if this kind of thing has caused him to be moved from home to home a lot more than we were even told about, like maybe every year or something?
Because how much can people handle when they put this much into a bird and things are going great then all of a sudden this happens?