# What to do with him



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

tsuka has a bad attitude problem and always had. but now that he's flighted, he's really bad. he hates the camera, even if im taking pictures of dally he will come over and attack dally and try to bite me. but now that he is flighted, he is dive bombing me and attacking me if he sees the camera. he got me really bad today, he flew onto my camera and tried to rip my fingers off. he's still molting in feathers on his wings so i cant clip him just yet, but the question is, should i? i cant have the camera out without him attacking me. he even sees it and he attacks. its taken 9 months for him to grow out his wings... i really dont want to clip but i dont think i have a choice. i cant walk in my own bedroom with my camera without being attacked!

THIS is his attitude, and the first picture is the result of a dive bomb attack


----------



## Luna (Jun 22, 2011)

Oh my! That's horrible, but a really cool picture lol I don't have experience with aggressive birds, so I hope someone comes along and leaves some good advice.. but I sure would clip him, just for your own safety lol I cant imagine what its like to get attacked while walking in your own room... 

It's funny because whenever I have my camera, Luna thinks it's head rubbing time.. so she runs over and puts her head right in front of the lens, making it really difficult to take pretty pictures of her from farther away.


Good luck!


----------



## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

Being back to naughty tsuka again  what a naughty boy he is


I don't know what to do with cookie with his constant screaming, iv been ignoring him but he just goes on and louder


----------



## DairyMay (Jun 18, 2011)

i have the same problem with my Bailey. Although she has never drawn blood. Just last night she flew all over my apartment screaming and freaking out. When she gets like this i know its time to trim the wings. My suggestion to you is to do it. Its stressful when a once cuddly bird is so aggressive all of a sudden.


----------



## Lulu The Tiel (Apr 11, 2011)

um.. yikes! Jeez!

Wow. Tsuka is really bad!

What if you tell him "no"? Doesn't help?


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i hate it as he has molting problems... but his first clip was harsh... so this clip will be proper. and i gotta wait a few more weeks for his one wing to grow in completely. hes a rediculously slow molter... but i dont think i have a choice. he even follows dally around and attacks her. and she can fly with no attitude problems. i really hate having to clip... i hate it. theyre so much happier flighted.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

lulu, tell him no, and he attacks more. he's like munch in that way. they dont know the word no


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

See if you can desensitize him to the camera. When he's in the cage, have the camera lying out where he can see it, at a distance at first and then closer. After he figures out that it doesn't bite and there's nothing to get upset about, do the same thing with the camera in your hand. If he's calm with that, take some pictures without the flash so he can hear the sound, then work up to using the flash.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

tielfan, we've done this before too. it doesnt matter. flash, no flash, in his cage, beside his cage... weve tried those for weeks to no avail. he hates the camera with a passion!


----------



## geenz (Apr 4, 2011)

What a naughty boy! Sounds like my brother's little fella. Mum calls him feral Fred since you can't get near him to touch him, but when you can eventually grab him to clip him you have to be super fast or you'll lose some skin


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

tsuka's usually very sweet. but when he sees the camera its like a switch!


----------



## This'll Do (Jun 24, 2011)

Mercy! That is a scary bird face. 

Clipping can certainly be interpreted as limiting a bird's freedom-- thus the controversy. But an avian vet once told me that sometimes you can look at it from another angle: because of an aggressive personality, some birds need to be clipped in order to have _more_ freedom. She said some birds have less socializing time with people and the flock if they are a behavioral problem, so clipping makes them more manageable and they get to spend more time interacting instead of caged for everyone's safety. That made a lot of sense to me and I still remember it.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i know, and its not that im against clipping, its just he has a weird disability that made his feathers on one wing to grow in all wonky. it took 9 months for them to molt in properly. and now i gotta clip them. makes me very sad that all that effort was wasted. and he was so happy to make that first leap of flight in 9 months... i feel very mean right now to do this


----------



## This'll Do (Jun 24, 2011)

Oh! I remember reading about Tsuka's history now you remind me. That's a very tough call, isn't it?

These kinds of decisions are so difficult. I'm sending sympathy and supportive thoughts your way!


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

thanks... he wasnt dive bombing us or attacking us when he couldnt fly (though if you got close enough he would bite)
a clip might tone down his attitude...


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

An alternative is to avoid taking pictures when he has the freedom to attack you.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

we've tried that too  he takes his frustration out on dally at that point. in the cage he walks over to her and starts biting her feet and pecking her in the head. he's horrible with that. clipping wont stop that either but that also means i cant get pictures of them out of cage because hes a jerk. ive even thought of trying to disguise the camera, but he's then scared out of his wits of it.


----------



## Ezzie (Jan 19, 2010)

I think that it would be best to clip him, at least fromy point of view. Birdie is the same in that he gets super cocky and has this bad attitude about him when he is flighted, infact when I clip him he wants to be with us more and goes back to his nice self again.

I know it might be hard because of his feather problems but I would rather that then to be attacked in my own room.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

he really bugs me some days. i wont rehome him ever again and i feel bad, but ive clipped the full wing, took 4 feathers off. waiting for his other wing to grow in fully and i will clip 4 off of that wing too


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Four feathers isn't a lot for a cockatiel so he'll probably be able to fly some. That's probably a good thing - with all the issues he's had related to his previous smoke-filled environment, the exercise of flying could be very beneficial. If some of his flight feathers are clipped he'll have to work harder to fly, which might actually be better for him than being fully flighted.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i just want to see if a slight clip will work for him, that and it evens out his wings for now since the other is still blood feathers and i wont clip them yet. once theyre in, it will be 4 off them too. but im hoping thats enough to tone down his attitude a bit.


----------



## elinore (Jul 22, 2010)

We had a similar issue when Trix (our adopted male) first came to live with my uncle (and us on weekends). There were some random objects he just did not like and was very aggressive towards. With him, the aggression was and is purely fear-based. He's a little 'fraidy cat, but when it comes to fight or flight, he uses flight to fight lol! He definitely used flying as a means to fuel the aggression, so we began clipping 4 feathers on each wing, so he could still fly some but not enough to use flight as such a weapon. As my uncle so eloquently puts it, once we clipped him he became a "humble bumble birdie." It really helped, and once he couldn't fly and make the fear-based aggression worse, he started getting a little more comfortable around the "scary" objects. He's still weird about some things (he refuses to be ok with jewelry or nail polish or spiders, which I'm guessing is caused by some past bad experiences, and maybe those particular emotional scars will never completely heal), but he's fine now around remote controls and plastic bags and flowers, which used to send him into flying, screaming, biting fits. Clipping his wings also just calmed him down in general, to the point where he started actually liking people, which was new for him, poor little guy. I don't know if it was a dominance thing or what, but he lost a lot of his aggressive habits after living with us for just a week. It's really amazing what clipping a few feathers (and spending a lot of time learning to trust) did for our relationship with him.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

we got tsuka at 5 months old, and not from a good background. but he's always been a little brat with his aggression. we tamed him in less than a day. never handled before, never given out of cage time, and he was stepping up in an hour and everything. he's just very people oriented. but he's got this weird hatred of the camera. i dont think its fear with him. hes TERRIFIED of the gingerbread man stuffed animal we have and he runs for dear life screaming from it. the camera, he flaps his wings, makes angry faces, opens his beak, and then launches himself at it, lands and starts biting fingers.

him and munch are going to give me grey hair


----------



## elinore (Jul 22, 2010)

If not fear, what do you think is the motivation behind the aggression? Is he threatened by it? Life with tiels would be so much easier if they just stooped to our level and started speaking human! I think that caring for my bird is like caring for a lifelong child, but at least with a child, they can tell you what they need or what they think in a way you can easily understand. Tiel talk is often a lot harder to interpret! Maybe at this point "trial and error" is your best option. See if the wing clipping helps. You certainly have everyone's sympathy and well-wishes!


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i would like to know what the motivation is too LOL

i AM also getting a new one in a few weeks... maybe he will like that one better? this one is cracked and old


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Maybe he's trying to tell you that you have a crappy camera and he wants his pictures taken with something better? 

It might help if the new one is a different color than the old one. I'm assuming that he freaks out only over the camera and not over things that vaguely resemble a camera, like cell phones and TV remotes.


----------



## minischn (Jun 5, 2011)

If you're really that against clipping and willing to try one more thing, have you tried positive reinforcement with his agression to the camera? If you get a new one and there's no problems with it then it all works out, but if he hates all cameras, instead of leaving it beside his cage, have you tried using the camera goign away as a reward for a good behaviour? I watched a video in my masses of research where a trainer worked with a very aggressive macaw. He would just almost desensitize the bird to a person he hated by rewarding any sense of calm with the person going away. 

here's the video I'm talking about: http://www.birdtricks.com/training-course/powerpause.html

There's a lot of talking in the beginning but if you can alter that exercise with Tsuka it might work wonders. Though, you might want to leave him in his cage for this, or really watch his body language.


----------



## Virtue (May 18, 2011)

He's tame right? he looks really angry hehe. Never saw a dive bombing cockatiel before but sounds cute...except the bites


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

tielfan, doesnt freak out on other similar things. my current camera is silver but my new one will be green.

minischn, he's already been clipped. and we've tried that months ago. he doesnt care about that. we've tried everything with positive reinforcement. nope. no work.

virtue, he's tame. we tamed him when he was 5 months old. hes very people oriented. and yes, the dive bombing would be cute without the dive bombing.


just waiting on his one wing to grow in completely to clip that too. it should be in a few weeks. he takes forever to molt.

this is the clip so far. just waiting on that slow wing to grow in fully as its all blood feathers (nightfright a month ago)


----------



## elinore (Jul 22, 2010)

In spite of his being obviously unhappy having his picture taken...he really does take beautiful pictures!!!


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i know, and he's like a switch. today he was nice about the camera! i think the clip helped. no dive bombing and all he wanted was scritches, even from the camera. going to have a photo thread up in a bit when the photos upload


----------



## This'll Do (Jun 24, 2011)

Amazing! I'm so glad to hear that.
Sounds like the conservative clip worked well-- Tsuka just needed a _teeny_ bit of attitude adjustment.

Now that things are working out and you are less worried, I'm going to tell you that I think the first pic-- Scary-Tsuka and the Bloody Finger-- is just classic! If there's ever a naughty bird photo contest anywhere, you'll win for sure.


----------



## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

haha i think i might ask on talk parrots if i can switch my entry LOL but i think it may be too gross for that


----------



## pink.snootchies (Jan 23, 2011)

Oh my goodness!!! 
a little scrapper!


----------

