# My cockatiel is a hissing vampire!



## ristakrat (Aug 12, 2010)

I say my cockatiel is a hissing vampire because when I try to interact with him he hisses and draws blood and often goes for my neck.
BUHHHHH!!!!!! My husband's coworker was trying to get rid of her cockatiel. Not knowing the right questions to ask, or any questions for that matter I came to work with him one morning to pick up the bird and all of his things (cage, food, water and food dish/ perch for the inside of the cage, and a separate rope thingy.) That was all they had for him! No toys or anything!!! After Pichu was already in the car and she had her money in hand (200 big ones >) She mentioned that he had been in her bathroom in a cage the entire time her family had him which was 4 years and that he doesn't do well with hands. She went on to explain that she had to distract him with her hands and use the rope thing to get the bird into the transport cage or if she ever had to get him out to clean the cage. I should have stopped right there and given him back to her but optimistically and with a que from my husband I just told her we would give him lots of love. OMG is this bird MEAN! I brought him home and spent the whole day with him (that was about 4 months ago). He willingly perched on the rope thing but moving my hands around him at all is very dangerous! Even just adjusting them to hold the rope with a different hand makes him hiss and flap his wings and fly at my face. I decided that the rope thing was a crutch and had to go and after a few days and a lot of my blood he started perching on my arm, and about a month ago he started perching on my finger, but only from the floor, and I can't take very many steps with him or he flies at my face and goes for the jugular. He is very aggressive towards everything and does not hesitate to bite anything. I clipped his wings a few days after we adopted him so that he would depend on me and my husband for transport more (he was flying all over the house to get away from us). Here is what he does: hisses, wing flaps, bites, flies at my face. He will perch on my shoulder but without thinking I'll scratch my ear or nose or eye and he'll screech and bite me. He makes 3 noises. A distressed screeching (usually followed by a bite), a LOUD one note whistle whenever I walk away from his cage, and a sort of default bird purr. its really short and he does it whenever things are going on around him. He doesn't sing any songs or anything  I have put him infront of mirrors, played youtube videos of other cockatiels singing, and even left the radio on for him a few times. NOTHING! What can I do to strengthen our bond and make him a better family bird? I'll be pushing out some kids in a couple years and want him to be a part of the family! Is there any hope for this bird?


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## gio (Aug 1, 2010)

Yikes. My heart goes out to you and your bird. I don't have enough experience to give any real advice but wanted to post encouragement not to give up. I have heard that mirrors are not a good idea. Have you tried millet as a reward? Try holding him real close to you with both hands covering him without, of course, pressing to hard; Kind of like swaddling a baby. He may calm down knowing you are in charge and yet not going to hurt him. I hope you get some advice from people who know more.


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## ristakrat (Aug 12, 2010)

I can't get my fingers or hands anywhere near him  He will just bite me repeatedly and flap away. He also doesn't take food from my hands. I have tried repeatedly to get him to take millet from be but he just bites at it and then bites my fingers and flies away. I don't know how to get him to take food from me  It makes me so sad ((


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> a LOUD one note whistle whenever I walk away from his cage


That is a flock call. In spite of all the hatred he displays, he considers you to be a member of his flock. And he wants to know where you are.

This poor bird has had a difficult life - thank you for taking him on and trying to make things better. You might need to take things more slowly though, trying to build trust and avoiding situations where he might attack you. It's OK to use a hand-held stick (or rope) to carry him around if he feels more comfortable with that than with sitting directly on you.



> I don't know how to get him to take food from me


He doesn't trust you enough yet to take food directly from your hand. But you can start moving in that direction by dropping a small treat (like a small clump of millet) in his food cup every time you approach the cage. It's very important to make sure he sees you doing it. The idea is to show him that good things happen when you come around so that he starts looking forward to your arrival. After he's gotten used to this, you can offer treats through the cage bars - with the bars between you, he'll feel relatively safe from your hands and your hands will feel relatively safe from his beak!

When the time seems right, start offering treats without cage bars between you. Start with a piece of millet long enough that he can nibble on it without getting too close to the dreaded hand, and gradually adjust your grip to bring him closer. 

And seriously, try not to get bitten. That's a habit that you DON'T want to reinforce.

It will probably take a long time to change his attitude, so be patient. This bird came with a LOT of baggage and it won't be easy to lose it.


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## ristakrat (Aug 12, 2010)

thank you so much for the advice! I'm a little happier now knowing that he sees me as part of his flock and wants to know where I am. I'll put millet in his dish when I walk by and take things slower. thank you so much!!!


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## Berdnerd (May 20, 2010)

Poor Pichu! I'm so glad you took him in. It may not seem like it to you, but to me it sounds like Pichu has made lots of progress. I think you did the right thing by clipping his wings. I would avoid letting him go on your shoulder- being on eye level with you can feed his dominance issues. Try to make his cage below your eye level and keep him below your eye level when he's out. Also, when he bites you, try not to react at all. If you react by gasping or yelling or yanking your hand away when he bites, you're giving him the reaction he wants. Have you heard of the hand wobble? What you do is if the bird is on your hand (or a stick or something) and moves to bite, you drop the level of the stick a couple of inches or wobble it a bit, just to get him off balanced and hopefully get his mind off of biting. Then you can put him back in his cage or something when he's no longer trying to bite you.

I would suggest to that you read a parrot behavior book. Tiels are little things but they're still parrots and it sounds like a behavior book may help you out.

Good luck!


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

There are lots of different opinions on how to handle birds. I'm not a fan of the hand wobble myself - I find that it doesn't actually work plus it's basically a negative technique. I'm also not crazy about the "endure the bite" advice that you see so often on the internet. Yes, if you pull away you are giving the bird what he wanted. But if you don't pull away you might be teaching him that a quick bite isn't enough to make you stop annoying him and he'd better bite long and hard. It's much better to avoid situations that make him want to bite you.

I have some information on bird psychology here - maybe it will be helpful: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.org/info/gen-psychology.html

And a section on biting here: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.org/info/taming-biting.html


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## Berdnerd (May 20, 2010)

Tielfan, I definitely agree it's best to avoid situations that lead to the bird biting, but that can be much easier said than done sometimes... Avoiding the bite by shrieking and yanking your hand away for instance probably isn't the best approach. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but I could see someone interpreting it that way.

Also I'm going to go check out that website, thanks for the link


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## claire2010a (Aug 10, 2010)

ristakrat said:


> Is there any hope for this bird?


Absolutely!

The only tiel in my life came to me after being cagebound for 15+ years. 

Was he aggressive? You betcha. 

Did he draw blood? Oh yeah.

Was he terrified of hands? Of course.

Would he step up? No way.

Our relationship started with this guy as a "nasty old bird in a cage" that I was temporarily housing because his previous owner had health issues and his "next owner" couldn't take him for a few months. Then he got sick.

I don't know if it will help with your birdie, but here's what we did in those early days:

From the first time I took him out of his cage for meds, I stuck my hand in the cage, offered a finger, and said, "up". By the time I said the word, he had already hissed, lunged, tried to bite me, and flown to the other side of the cage. 

So then I'd get a cloth, wrap him up, and take him out. After that, he was semi-okay with sitting on my finger -- as long as I didn't move.

Because he had to be weighed every day (he's underweight), I used putting him on the scale as our "up/down" lessons. Early on, the "down" part mostly consisted of me putting my hand near the scale and sort of dumping him on to it. He disliked the scale so much (no traction), that the "up" part came pretty easily.

After "terrorizing" him by giving him meds and weighing him, I felt so guilty that I would just sit with him for 30-45 minutes. Sometimes he was on my finger, sometimes he was on the floor. Sometimes I talked, sometimes we were just quiet.

I didn't try to get him to do anything. If he would sit on my finger, I had him there. If he didn't want that, he was on the floor. We were just there.

We did this twice a day. On the fourth full day, we were sitting quietly -- I was on the floor, he was on my finger -- and he bowed his head. Without even thinking, I leaned over and very softly kissed him.

From that point on, he would always bow for at least one kiss each session.

The next day (Day 5), when I went to get him out of his cage, he did his panicked flight and then, while hanging on the side of the cage, he "stepped up". In the next two days, he relapsed a couple of times (and I had to wrap him up to get him out), but since then, he always steps up.

Encouraged by all of his accomplishments, our quiet "out of cage" time now upped to 45-90 minutes per session.

At this stage, there was absolutely no way for me to touch him beyond kisses and "up" -- if I tried to touch him with a hand, he completely freaked out. 

But I noticed that his head bows were getting lower and lower and he accepted longer and longer kisses and "semi-skritches" (performed with my chin). 

I also noticed that his lowered head was in range of my thumb (of the hand he was sitting on). 

So while kissing him (Day 6), I slowly raised my thumb and rubbed the side of his face. It worked -- he didn't freak out. I was petting him! 

That was when I realized that the best way to get him to do something new was to introduce it when he was getting kisses. 

Being that food was an issue and he totally freaked to changes in his cage, I knew my best chance of getting him to eat something new was getting him to eat it while outside the cage.

But first I needed to get him to eat even his seed outside the cage.

I decided that the bowed head was again my best opportunity. I put some of his beloved seed in my cupped hand and had him sit on the side of my hand rather than a finger. Which means when he bowed for kisses, seed was right in his face.

It took 30-45 minutes of kisses (Day 7), but sure enough, I eventually heard a little "crunch crunch" and he was eating. He only took a couple of bites, but I was thrilled.

I also noticed that with the cupped hand, he would push his head into my curled up fingers... completely blocking his sight line to my other hand.

Theoretically, this meant I might be able to sneak in a skritch with the opposite hand. Which I did -- and it worked.

Right up until he realized what I was doing and then it was all hissing and nips, lol.

(Side Note: prior to this, I'd been working to get him used to movement of the hand that wasn't holding him by aimlessly moving my hand (not towards him), touching my own face, scratching my head, etc. All of these movements were slow, controlled and while they happened very close to Teelee, they weren't aimed at him... he even now allows me to scratch my own nose without hissing at me. )

I kept doing the "sneaky" skritches and on Day 8, he allowed me to touch him without being sneaky. 

For us, I really believe the two most important aspects of his rehabilitation were 1) toweling him to get him out of the cage (I do realize that's a controversial statement) and; 2) Extended periods of quiet time with just the two of us and NO distractions (this was accomplished by the fact that our time together happened locked in a small bathroom -- nowhere for him to go really, no noises, and nobody walking in on us).

I hope this helps. I've come to believe that every tiel is different and while yours may not think kisses are the best thing since sliced bread, it is certainly possible for him to learn to trust you and to become a loving member of your family.

Best of luck!


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## tielmom (Aug 4, 2010)

Great advice Claire2010a...I am going to try a couple of things you did and see if I can get a tiel that we took in that someone found to trust me...He was petrified when he came into our house a couple of months ago. He was badly beat up by the wild birds and had a hole in his head and a gash. His crown was completely ripped out of his head. He is cage aggressive...who am I kidding he is aggressive ALL the time...except he has taken a liking to my husband. He hardly ever bites him and he steps up for HIM only. It is killing me, because I do so much for him. Anyway, he does not like any toys...poor thing will not even look at them. He mostly just sits on his food dish...if he is in the cage, he is on his food dish. It seems that he is afraid the food will not be there. I am sure he had a really tough time in the wild.


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