# Young bird has become very hostile and bites when its time to come out



## Erinhussey (Jun 11, 2014)

Hello!

Thank you in advance for viewing or responding to this thread! We have two young birds, a boy and a girl, just about a year now. The girl is a super sweetheart, very quiet, very low energy, loves being pet, not yet being kissed. Our boy is super curious, moderate to high energy, very smart, loves being pet and kissed. Both birds are super clingy to dad, and when dad isn't around, to mom. They love strangers and are very clingy to strangers. Recently, within about the past month, our boy bird has become more and more hostile when we approach the cage to take them both out for playtime. When we approach to take them out he will run straight up to the front of the cage and most of the time bite at the bars whether our hands are visible to him or not. We have been trying to wait until he calms down before letting him out, but we have been bit very hard several times when placing our hand at the door for him to step up. It is extremely difficult to not react to him biting as he breaks skin every time and it is very painful, but we have been trying our best because we do not want to promote the behavior. We want to try and wait for him to show us he is ready to come out before we approach to take him out, but his sister always wants to come out and it is not fair that he is cranky and blocking the door ready to bite us and she is screaming in the back asking to be taken out.
We have discussed some of the factors that may be influencing this new, aggressive behavior. The two of them have recently been engaging in some sexual activity, so we have been wondering if his hormones are just getting crazy and he could be getting upset with us disrupting this somehow. In addition, before this behavior started we were opening the latch on the door and letting the birds come out by themselves. I think this was a really poor decision on our part but the birds were very content and we didn't realize that this could influence their behavior negatively. 
I want to add that the birds are very, very good when we first uncover and wake them in the morning. We let them know we are there by talking nicely and then uncovering them. They stretch and usually go down the eat so we wait until they are done to take them out. We tell them it is time to come out, open the door, and then one at a time tell them to come out as they step onto our hand at the base of the door. Every morning they come out very nicely and only in the middle of the day when we put them in and out of the cage does the behavior start. Yes, we put them in and out of the cage in the middle of the day for when we are cooking, when we are eating, and sometimes when we just need a break. Like I said, they are very good at going back in the cage, its just taking them (well just him) back out that is a struggle. 
(I apologize for the lengthy letter. We are very in love with our amazing and super cool pets, which is why we are so concerned, and want the best care for our babies)

Our strategy for the past week has been to up the amount of prompting and use of commands. We barely ever used them because they were so smart. Im afraid we gave him too much trust and freedom because he never acted aggressively, and this somehow made him the dominant one in the relationship. We are trying to get our dominance back.
This is our routine:
Morning: Talking calmly before lifting cover, give time for stretching and breakfast, prompt that it is time to come out, approach cage saying its time to come out, place hand by base of door, open door saying its time to come out, say come out as each bird approaches and take out. 
Midday: Prompt that it is cage time, start making way towards cage saying its cage time, place girl in first saying cage time, place boy in saying cage time, close door.
Coming out: prompt that it is time to come out, observe behavior, prompt that it is time to come out while approaching cage, observe behavior, if all is calm place hand at bottom of cage door, say its time to come out, open cage door, say come out as each bird steps on hand and place onto cage not onto shoulder.
When bird is behaving hostilely, he usually runs and bites at the cage door at our hand, the girl is usually pacing and yelling at the back to come out. We have been distracting him and reaching in to take her out as she cannot get the door herself without him running up and biting. If he bites us we place him back in and close the door, checking up on him periodically to see if he is calm and ready to come out. Sometimes he escapes so we towel him and place him back in the cage until he is ready to come out nicely. A lot of times he will jump straight to our shoulder, desperately trying to come out, but with this new aggression weve been trying to put him on the cage before allowing it, or just putting him back into the cage if he bites. We don't want to make the cage a punishment. In our observations, however we have noticed that sometimes he will bite and once he is back in the cage he calms down and does his own thing. Don't get me wrong though, he absolutely loves being out, exploring, playing, and bonding with dad so this is very confusing.

Today he has not been able to come out nicely yet even with prompting so we are quite disheartened as we are afraid we have been doing something to make this behavior worse.

Please please help with training are great bird! If you have any questions I will answer anything! Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Erin, Andrew, Hogan :wf cinnamon:, and Git :yellow pied:


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## mohum (Sep 5, 2014)

Can you not just let him come out by himself? My kakariki was very territorial about his cage but would come out as soon as it was opened and we trained him to go to bed when told ( with a little flash of the towel). He was not hand tame but was only aggressive in the cage.


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## Kiwi (May 12, 2013)

You don't really have to worry about dominance and parrots. There has been some debate over whether the dominance idea is a myth or not since in the wild parrots don't really have as much of a hierarchy as we think in their wild flocks. It simply is parrots don't want to do what they don't want to do and will put up a lot of resistance when they don't. It is not dominance based, sometimes they have just learned that biting gets them what they want. https://zoologica.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/eight-myths-and-half-truths-about-parrot-behavior/

Since the behavior change is so recent I'm thinking hormones is the cause. Also the boy parrot has found out that when he bites your hand you keep your hand out of the cage. So it may have reinforced that idea that if you don't leave him alone when he is cranky he should bite. Since this is hormonal biting he will do it when you try to enter his 'nest' which is the cage right now and he will attempt to bite you many times. He sees the cage as his territory and that you are trying to invade it so he is trying to protect the nest and his mate (girl parrot) from you coming into the cage.

You're very loving parronts to your 'tiels. Don't worry this is the time that all parrots go through, a hormonal stage. It goes away, they don't act like this forever it's normal. It will happen every once in a while every year and can be managed with a few steps to correct it. As they get older usually they will not show as much of the hormonal behavior signs though it can come up again every once in a while.

You can reduce their hormonal behavior by making sure they get 12 hours of darkness in a quiet room, rearranging things in their cage to make it feel less safe and discourage nesting their, if they having any nest boxes or happy huts they should be taken out, any wet/warm foods or foods that are high in fat and protein should be avoided right now. If all else fails you might want to separate the two 'tiels into different cages right next to each other.

http://beautyofbirds.com/sexualbehaviorinbirds.html
http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=32330


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## Erinhussey (Jun 11, 2014)

Thank you so much for replying! Today we tried opening the door and letting him come out on his own. Unfortunately he ran at the door trying to bite us and then when the door was open flew at us to get on our shoulders but with his mouth open ready to bite. I have already been bit on the face with him so I dodged him several times. He was able to land on my back and when I went to pick him up off of me he bit me. He eventually calmed down and we will keep going with this strategy and hopefully he will learn that we are just opening the door and nothing more. We did discuss with our local pet store about temporarily clipping his wings while we worked through this territoriality and they agreed that that was a safe option, so he is currently clipped. I will update on his progress! I see things only going up from here and we will have our trusting loving baby boy again. Thank you!

Erin, Andrew, Hogan, and Git


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## Kiwi (May 12, 2013)

For the biting the clipping might help a little bit to make him not as aggressive. Usually exercise will help take a lot of the aggression out, but he is very hard to get out of the cage right now. If you can handle the bites, I would take him out of the cage and keep him out of it for a while. That cage area is a 'nest' right now for some reason. It could be from the girl parrot being around or from a mirror, perch, or other toy he likes causing the hormones. Also if there is too much food available to him it could signal it is time to breed. That could be contributing too the hormones if there is one food dish and it is filled with a lot of seed because more seed is needed to feed two parrots than one.

The more time he spends outside of that 'nest' zone the better because it is not helping his hormones. So if his bites aren't too bad then I would quickly take him out and place him somewhere else for him to roam around. When my 'tiel is hormonal I grab her very quickly and attempt to ignore the bites to get her out as quickly as possible. Be very careful now that he is clipped though because he can not fly to get out of the way of things. He can be more easily stepped on if he is not seen. He could be following you.. you might not notice he is behind you and close a door on him, a sliding glass door, or he could follow you outside. One of my family members has closed a door on my 'tiels leg before and it was not pretty, please be very careful.


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## Banana (Dec 7, 2014)

I wouldn't have anything nest like in the cage right now. Also keep a special treat, like millet, for outside cage time only. And try not to bother him too much. There are days when I try to take banana out once or twice and she continues to hiss and lunge at me so I just leave her be. The next day, she will be back to normal and be out most of the time. Don't be too pushy. I think sometimes they just don't wanna deal with humans


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