LOL, I like what you did there, but to keep it (slightly more) serious ...
but seriously, can you work on trying to desensitise the issue of touching tail or what ever?
Oh yesss - every single day, but it is slow going.
Apart from the (wo)manhandling of her wings (parrot-physiotherapy) she gets tail touching,- pulling and sometimes even light twisting and tapping in between almost everything we do but...
she has lost almost all of the long tailfeathers (again) she has one left at 1/3 or 1/4 of the regular length (she bit it off, not my doing, almost all her large feathers are at nailbiting length: ragged dry stumps, almost down to the skin
) -> so her balance is crappy -> which makes her more insecure/ feeling unsafe -> leads to acting out more.
Esp. when she is on my arm and I am moving from one place to another (she freaks out at perches/sticks, so that is a no-no - I am going to try a piece of rope this weekend)
( No...the biting down is not her trying to keep her balance- it really is a correction/reaction (me justling her, moving to slow, moving too fast, moving in an unwanted direction or the famous 'something touched my tail' ) )
even more challenging: there are one large and one smallish tailfeather growing in...and we all know how cranky birds get during that (pinfeather) phase: it very sensitive at the moment and will be for a few weeks more ...
and the longer it grows...the more it will bump into things around her -> more reacting/ biting.
I am somewhat stuck in what to do.
To offer her a safe place to sit / lean against (to help her keep her balance and calm her down a bit) ... I am putting my 'airbags' in danger.
(Backseat driving macaw: NO, turn left here! chomp!)
If I don't give her a feeling of 'safe perch' she wil continue to stress out and chomp me...
(if you are under 18 stop reading here!)
(I am serious!!)
On top of that is she is still quite hormonal ...so sometimes when I work with the wings she will reach behind her, grab her tailbase with a foot and start sounding like cheap pr0n
(she does that sitting in the cage/ on her perch as well, so it's not personal)
As relieved as I am that I'm obviously not hurting her...this is not something I am trained to work with!
:39:
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Am I henpecked? It is really hard to look objectively at this from within the situation.
I know she is hurting -esp the wings are still bothering her; lots of things annoy the cr@p out of her and her first reaction is to lash out and bite ... me, herself... does not matter.
A stressed out parrot is not a parrot that learns things easy ...
So I really need your feedback -... and armored underwear suggestions
of course, because sometimes all you need is a good laugh.
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