Please, help me understand what the problem is

[Marko_21]

Hello, my name is Marko. I just made an account here after being unable to sleep [it's 2:31 AM local time]. I can't stop blaming my self for my parrots behavior. I had tons of animals in my house [my mom is bound to become a crazy cat lady one day] but I always wanted a parrot.
I finally got Ozzy for my 22nd birthday. He is now about 8 months old and he is a male kakariki [ ]. I have him since november last year and he really opened up quickly. He was taking food from my hand on day 3, standing in my hand by the end of the first week.. I was really amazed it took so little time. He would climb on everyone and basically harass them [in a friendly/curious way], he would just run from fingers. He was fine with a whole hand, but a single finger would scare him. As you would slooooowlly inch towards him with your finger, his pupils would start increasing and decreasing in size and he would freeze, and after that he would try and bite. I was ok with that, i just didn't do that any more. I thought he was too young and it could wait. Everything was fine after that, but a few month's later he started "taking interest in my hand" [he would try and mate with my hand, in other words]. I read some forums online and came to a conclusion that i should try and distract him with toys or food when he starts behaving like that and that worked for a few days and after that he just didn't mind about anything else than holding on to my hand and trying to make babies with it. Than i started to move my hands away from him when i see him strutting around with his pupils widening and making "scratchy noises with his beak" [knowing what his next move is]. And that's when problems started. As he would see me hiding my hand, he would just attack me. He would make a sound [probably threatening, as he only makes it when angry] and jump at me and try to bite me. When i tried punishing that behavior, he only got worse.
I'm not sure if related, but he also became reeeally aggressive whenever i feed him. I don't understand him at all. Why would he attack me when i just want to give him food? Now when i want to refill his feeders in his cage i have to let him out, wait for him to get on top of the dresser [as far away from the cage] and then i turn the light off [as he just goes to sleep the second i do that] and just then i can safely put more food in his cage. [if i don't turn the light off and put shutters on the window, he lands on my shoulder and makes that sound i mentioned and bites my ear, nose, or what ever he can reach.
I had tons of experience with cats, dogs, rodents, but i'm really worried that made me make a mistake with my parrot in the critical early stage. When a cat climbs on a table and you slap her [not hard] on the but a few times, she doesn't do it any more [at least not when you are looking]. Same can be applied with every other animal i had, except birds. When i tried to shoo him, he just opens his beak and makes that sound again. He makes that sound now all the time! Especially when in his cage [particularly the top of the cage that is covered]. He is really territorial. I just hate it when it's time to clean his cage.. He just constantly lands on it as I'm cleaning and tries to bite me, making that sound again...
Mostly i try and calm him down. Usually it works if he starts rising his open beak at me, making that sound as a warning, but sometimes he just throws him self at me without that warning. Sometimes when he makes that sound i lose it and yell at him. Not proud of my actions, but it happens
I'm quite ready for some help I just worry that trying to punish his behavior by shooing him made things worse. Or even un-fixable as he is still young.
I hope I didn't ramble too much and that the text is readable. Thank you to all who make it through the whole text, please, any help would be nice.

More possibly relevant information:

-His territorial behavior may be triggered by a mirror he really loves. The strutting and trying to make babies usually comes after looking at that mirror [or any other reflective object]. I think he may be trying to "protect it from me". When i touch the fabric that covers the top part of the cage [like a roof] he jumps on that part of the cage and lets out that noise again. My conclusion is that he may be taking that covered part of the cage as his nest, and the mirror as his mate, and he's not letting anyone near. Not being sure if that's the case, i didn't have the heart to remove the cover from the top of the cage and the mirror either.

-Also, he tends to attack me after i let go of objects that caught his attention. For an example, i was holding my keys in front of him, and as usual he would grab them with his foot, make his normal, curious sounds.. But as i've let go of them so he could play with them, he attacked me.
Same goes for food. if I'm holding a slice of apple, he would come and eat, be friendly, but if i let go of it so he could eat easier, he would attack.
Another notable behavior: sometimes he would just go crazy on food. He would make that angry sound and bite the apple, cabbage leaf, what ever he got, and bite repeatedly. And I'm not saying he is eating, he is just tearing bits of it until the whole thing is in tiny bits. I have no idea what is going on in that head of his.

I do realize he is young, but i'm not sure this is normal parrot behavior.
Again, thank you for any help. If i missed out on any important information, please, ask.

ATTACHED: a rare moment. He does tolerate scratching his beak or top of his head when he wants to take a nap, but only if it's very slow and lasts less than 30 seconds.

Again, sorry for the formless pile of text.

 

[Julianna]

A note about parrot training, to start: it's WAY different from other animal training. When I came into the bird world, I also had a lot of knowledge and experience with other animals, and one of the first things I realized was that almost none of it applies to birds. I've found that negative reinforcement (e.g., slapping, hitting, or other punishments) never works with birds. In fact, it often reinforces the behavior you're trying to eliminate. For instance, if you push a bird away from something he/she was chewing on, this could be interpreted as play by the bird, which would reinforce the behavior of chewing. Basically, the pushing away would act as a reward instead of a discouragement. You said you were afraid you may have made the situation worse by punishing your bird, and unfortunately this is probably true. Do some research on positive reinforcement training, and I think it'll help you out a lot in your training endeavors. (In my experience, positive reinforcement actually works better than negative reinforcement with ALL animals, not just birds, but negative reinforcement does not work at all with birds, whereas you can get some results sometimes with other animals.) I especially recommend looking up Barbara Heidenreich and watching some of her training videos.

Also, you said you were worried that your bird could not be trained/tamed, but this is absolutely not true. No matter what, don't give up. Sometimes training a bird can take a year or more, and sometimes it's just an ongoing process, but it can always be done.

It sounds like your bird has only one major issue, which is that he is territorial. He's territorial of his cage, food, and toys, and probably anything else he perceives to be his. Also, he's probably hormonal, magnifying the territorial issue. When birds are hormonal, which can be during the springtime and also just for a period of up to 1 or 2 years depending on the bird when they are at the "teenage" stage of life. For most parrot species, this is somewhere between the ages of 2 and 4, but I don't know what it would be for your particular species. When parrots are hormonal, they can be nippy, demanding, and generally badly behaved, but this can be dealt with through training. Do some research on territorial birds and how to train them to not be territorial, and you should find a lot of information. I recommend this to a lot of people, but if I were you I would target train your parrot. Target training is basically just training your bird to touch the end of a stick, but for me it has been invaluable in training other tricks and just moving my caique around. It's especially useful if your bird can't be handled, and at this point it might be easier if you could move your bird without having to fear being bitten. Another thing to research: just search for "how to target train a parrot" and there will be some good sources, especially you tube videos.

One last thing to research: look up how to read parrot body language. It's extremely useful for preventing bites, because if you can tell your parrot doesn't like something, you can fix the situation before your parrot feels so threatened that he feels the need to bite. When parrots bite, they are usually trying to tell us something: "I'm uncomfortable with this situation," "I don't like you being in my space," or a number of other messages depending on the situation. You need to resolve the conflict so that your parrot doesn't feel threatened or aggressive because of your actions. In this case, you'll probably have to show your bird that you need to be allowed to go in "his" cage. By the way, you mentioned that your bird's pupils change size before he bites. This is called eye pinning, and it's a sure sign that your bird is in a very aggressive state. If you see your bird doing this, or making the noises you associate with a bite, take a step back and look at the situation. What did you just do to make your bird "angry"? Once you know why your bird is aggressive, it's a lot easier to fix the problem.

I hope this helped, and I'm sorry about all the research assignments I gave you I think if you read up on parrot training it will help a lot. Just don't give up on him, because you should be able to have a lot more moments like the one in that picture. He's adorable, by the way Good luck!

 

[Marko_21]

"if you push a bird away from something he/she was chewing on, this could be interpreted as play by the bird, which would reinforce the behavior of chewing"
:11: I would never have seen it that way... And that's one of the most frustrating situations with me and him. Whenever he starts ripping papers and books on my desk, i would tell him not to and he would just make a lap around the desk and do it again. Makes a lot more sense now Thank you very much for the reply, not just for this, but this is what blew my mind.
Thank you for pointing out what to look for when it comes to training literature/videos. I did search but got quite discouraged by the sheer number of sources. And some would say the complete opposite of the other theories.
I have never heard of target training. It looks so easy I'm not going to be overenthusiastic, but reading about it [and especially watching videos of it in action] really made my day.
Thanks again

 

[Julianna]

Oh yeah I forgot - instead of pulling Pippi away from things, I taught her the command "drop" so now if she gets a hold of something she's not supposed to have I can just ask her to "drop" and she lets go.

Yes, there are a ton of sources, and yes, a lot of them contradict. I really believe negative reinforcement is useless with parrots, soI'd recommend you go for positive reinforcement, though. This website has a lot of great training resources: Training Parrots | Parrot Training DVDS & Books

Glad I could help

 

[Marko_21]

I do intend to use positive reinforcement, and target training already shows results I'm amazed how it works! It's genius! It basically "exploits" their compulsion or need to touch things. Or should i just say curiosity He immediately touched the stick, got a bit confused by the click, but he was glad to receive a bit of apple for it. First day and he follows the stick anywhere :3 I'm really happy with "target training" so far
I did take a look at videos and some books from Barbara Heidenreich she does seem to have a way with birds. Kind of "letting them do the trick", or in other words, taking it slow and easy, letting the bird know it can walk away if he doesn't want to do it