Older Conure Suddenly Aggressive

[Dogzilla]

Hello,

I've been the owner of a green-cheek conure for 15 years and she has always been very trusting towards me, although she never liked anyone else. The only times she would ever bite me were if I was away on vacation for longer than a day or two, but would return to normal after she got her aggression out biting me once.

However, in January my girlfriend moved in with me and my GCC has become a completely different parrot. She will take any chance she can to bite me, even aggressively from inside the cage trying to get at any skin that's close. In addition, she screams much louder and angrier than she ever has before, almost all the time. This is also extremely unusual for her, she used to be very quiet. I can't take her up to sleep in my bedroom anymore (I have a separate bedroom cage) because 1. she bites me when I try to pick her up and 2. she will start screaming in the middle of the night if one of us rolls over and makes a sound.

I've been attempting to slowly build up trust again with hand feeding (which she very angrily accepts) and spending a lot of time sitting around her cage but nothing seems to be working, it's been over 2 months now. I'm not really sure what else I can do to fix her behavior besides kicking out the girlfriend, which obviously isn't an option.

Most of the behavioral posts I've read on here are concerning conures that are only months old so I was wondering if anyone has had these kind of issues with an older bird and if they were able to fix it somehow.

Thanks!

 

[chris-md]

I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this, I know how frustrating this is.

To start with: where are you located? If you’re in the northern hemisphere, it’s possible hormones may be exacerbating the situation. If so, it’s temporary and will self correct soon.

You are right, a lot of conure aggression posts here center around puberty and hormones. This is definitely not puberty. Good news is many face sudden aggression in older birds, but in larger birds. And what’s good for the macaw and eclectus is good for the conure!

You have it exactly right, you’re in a place where you need to rebuild trust. You’re having to start from square one. Talking by the cage is great but you have to build on it.

To begin with: Has the bird been able to get out of cage? Or has she been cage bound for the last couple months?

Tell us about the diet, as well. Her care in general.

Aside from the girlfriend, have there been any other changes? New pets, etc?

 

[Dogzilla]

I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this, I know how frustrating this is.

To start with: where are you located? If you’re in the northern hemisphere, it’s possible hormones may be exacerbating the situation. If so, it’s temporary and will self correct soon.

You are right, a lot of conure aggression posts here center around puberty and hormones. This is definitely not puberty. Good news is many face sudden aggression in older birds, but in larger birds. And what’s good for the macaw and eclectus is good for the conure!

You have it exactly right, you’re in a place where you need to rebuild trust. You’re having to start from square one. Talking by the cage is great but you have to build on it.

To begin with: Has the bird been able to get out of cage? Or has she been cage bound for the last couple months?

Tell us about the diet, as well. Her care in general.

Aside from the girlfriend, have there been any other changes? New pets, etc?

I live in Los Angeles so yes in the northern hemisphere. It's been a while but I believe she has gone through aggressive hormonal periods before, although I don't remember them lasting quite as long or her being this aggressive.

I have been attempting to let her out as much as I can, at least once a day but I can't really pick her up and carry her around anymore. At this point I have to put my sleeve over my hand to pick her up, which she attempts to bite through as hard as possible.

For food I get her this seed/pellet blend from Wal-Mart. I've gone through dozens of different main food sources over the years and this is the one she seems to like the most. Aside from this I usually have some sort of stick treat that hangs off the side of the cage. I also hand feed fruits, vegetables, peanuts, and bread.

No other changes that I can think of. I did upgrade her to a larger cage but it was after the aggression started.

 

[LaManuka]

It seems your conure may have had her nose (beak?) put firmly out of joint by the sudden arrival of your new girlfriend! Your GCC (what’s her name btw?) was comfortable in her position as the centre of your universe until this rival for your affections showed up! I think she is showing her displeasure by “displacement” biting, meaning she bites you to tell you to stay away from this new interloper.

I had a male GCC called Baci who was very bonded to me but HATED my husband. Fortunately for hubby Baci was also the world’s laziest bird and would generally only scowl at him from afar - he would save all his nastiest bites for me! When Baci was feeling particularly hormonal I wouldn’t be able to get near him for days without him lacerating my hands, and at one point I thought he’d just started to hate me. What saved our relationship was the procedure of “laddering”. I would cover the parts of my hand most likely to get bit in flesh coloured bandaids (I’d say using your sleeve may be spooking your GCC even more) which would not only shield my skin but stop me from reflexively flinching when I saw the bite coming. I would then ask him to step up and if/when he began to bite I would pass him from one hand to the other, back and forth maybe two or three times until he stopped biting. Then I’d pop him down somewhere neutral like the back of a chair and walk away for 5 to 10 minutes or so until he cooled off, then go back and repeat. He was a pretty smart boy my Baci and it didn’t take him long to work out that biting was the one thing I was not going to tolerate from him. Usually I’d do this maybe two or three times in the morning if he was particularly bitey, and once he got the message I’d (carefully!) give him a big kiss and a cuddle and tell him how much I loved him and he’d be quite happy to go about his business for the rest of the day.

Now I know there are people who will say that laddering is not the best solution. It certainly didn’t mean that he never bit me again and I always had my bandaids on standby. But as a short term circuit-breaker in an emotionally fraught situation like this it is very useful indeed. It may also help give you some breathing space and stop the worst of the biting while your try some other methods and your bird becomes more accustomed to the idea of your girlfriend being around. Your GCC is highly bonded to you by the sounds of things so you must do whatever you can to help her adjust to the new dynamic in her world.

 

[chris-md]

Great advice above!

To be clear: when I said hormones, I’m not implying they are the cause, just an exascerbating factor. I’m pretty much in line with LaManuka above that the change in environment (girlfriend moving in) is the likely cause.

Let’s start with the diet: any diet that has anything to do with Wal-Mart is very bad for your bird. Conures aren’t build for n all seed diet. I can’t emphasize enough how much you need to get her on a pellet diet, supplemented with an assortment for fresh fruits and vegetables.

When was the last time your bird had a full exam with bloodwork from a certified avian vet? Sudden changes in behavior can sometimes indicate the onset of illness. And if your bird has been on an all seed diet, a veterinarian check up would be very advised. Ruling out physiological reason for the behavior would be very important and beneficial here.

Ruling out any health problem, the biting is likely some displacement biting: very scared of the girlfriend, biting you because she can’t bite her.

Try this and see what happens:

Bird reaction to you alone in the room
Birds reaction to you with girlfriend present.
Birds reaction to. Girlfriend alone
Birds reaction to girlfriend with you present.

And try this in different rooms. This can help isolate some dynamics that you can exploit (sudden love fest between bird and girlfriend, for example)

Is your bird target trained? Training behaviors is a great way to build a bond and communication, and can help restore broken bonds by bringing everything back to a common language. Start teaching your bird target and clicker training. You can use targeting to get the bird onto a stick or t stand to move her around, sparing you bites.

Stick with her, THIS WILL EVENTUALLY CALM DOWN.