Bird Aggression

[Mare]

What do "you" do, (personally), when your bird gets aggressive towards you or someone else?
To me, it is scary when Amigo goes for the throat of my son, yes, this scares the crap out of me! I'll throw a body block! The Sassy girl gets time-out in her cage.

[Kalidasa]

We had that problem at first. My thing is to immediately say "no", not in a loud voice, but a deep voice, and then an immediate time-out. With her it worked like a charm, as she almost never bites me, and if it seems she's going to bite, I say "no" in the deep voice and she immediately stops. I don't do it for the occasional love-nip, only downright aggressive biting.
My mom stops by a lot (she adores her) and sometimes she gets very territorial with her, but she looks so funny we can't help laughing! And she knows laughing is a good thing, so she chills out.

[ShellyBorg]

You need to start having your son offer treats. Even if its dropped into a bowl through bars. Once they will take treats have him do some hand free clicker training. This has helped so much with my birds and teens. My Quaker who use to blood my son everytime, now loves to hang out on his shoulder.

[aliray]

Mare I don't think they know Amigo's whole story. Big difference. Is this when he is outside in the yard? That would be scary

[Debra]

We have two that are aggressive. My quaker bites anyone who dares to reach into his cage or even act like they are going to reach in. I just don't react and take the bites. I'm hoping one day he'll get the message. I've only been doing this for about a week so far.

My eclectus just hates me. I feed her and talk to her, but I just don't handle her. She's my husband's bird so he's the one who gets her out to play with him.

[Mare]

Mare I don't think they know Amigo's whole story. Big difference. Is this when he is outside in the yard? That would be scary

Thanks Alison, yeah, that's a very long story! When Amigo decides he wants to be aggressive, it's scary. He's a big aggressive bird that flys freely and has no boundaries while doing so. He is getting better, though. :)

[Honesty]

Isn't it strange how they can suddenly go from being so sweet one minute to scarey the next:( Codie has very random attacks for no reason:( I cant blame it on his hormones, as he is only 2.

[roxynoodle]

None of my birds will go after people on their own. So if I tell them, "Don't touch Rowdy's cage or things because she's territorial." And they insist on doing it anyway, I don't feel bad about them getting bitten. You would think the bird with all her feathers ruffled, running up to them and cussing at them would help drive home that point, but it doesn't. They stand there saying, "Hi, birdie." and stick their fingers into the cage anyway.

I also keep telling people not to reach for Pete, especially when he's on me. They do it anyway, but they are a little more wary of the giant amazon lunging at them, hee hee!

But, if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. So I haven't had that kind of aggression with my birds going after people on their own. Sorry I can't help.

[jtbirds]

Well the biggest way to prevent aggression is to socialize them like hell, always get them acquainted to being handled by others and going out and being social and accepting of new things and allowing near to anything positive to happen, although most people do not do this.

When I get an aggressive bird I first get there past or as much of it as I can, and evaluate there level of aggression. I start at one, which would be nipping, not so much biting, Alittle to rough really to the point it is excessive. Two is biting and doing it to mean it and leaving remarkable marks and wounds to you and this is the point of getting to be aggressive and just not well mannered. Three is the final stage and this can go from one extreme to the next kinda behavior, this stage also holds true aggression which many people will never experience out of 1000 plus birds I have worked with I'd say 2-5 were truly aggressive. This also includes facial biting and full on fly at you attacks or just overall going out there way to get ahold of anything to bit, wether they be expirenced and not afraid or a novice and afraid.

Once this has been figured out the next process is finding triggers and finding what similarities certain triggers or events have in common. Once finding the similarities and the main cause start socializing and desensitizing them to these things and if bites continue you do not reward you punish with time outs or a reasonable punishment I'd rather not call it punishment but it truly is similar to a negative reward so I cant put it in a better term, pretty much just don't allow the negative actions to happen and give a positive reward return negative with negative, they will make the link and reality that negative makes negative for me and positive makes positive for me. Sometimes birds hide why they are biting and this gets harder, I cannot go Into how to stop all types of biting in one post but this is an overview of the first steps to working with it.

This all varies bird to bird and case to case and less given a pinpointed species and case I can't describe all of this now(not enough room:p). And true aggression is something that is so hard to fix and I couldn't even begin or want to explain it to someone that is not willing as it is so sad and just a shame. I am working with a scarlet macaw for the last two years thats truly aggresive and it is just amazing what it has taken in two years to simmer her down even a fifth of the way. She still goes after me and I can't let my guard down and I'll tell you she is a tough character to work with, I've gotten the business end multiple times without even having a chance to react and stop it.

So I hope this covers some of it I can offer more if needed and more to help with amigos specific problem not just an overview:)

[Mare]

I believe Amigo's issue is, territory and who he will allow in it. He doesn't seem to like strong males. He doesn't like men that are cocky, which my son isn't, nor, men that come close to me. I think I'll call this territorial. He's a nut case, sometimes, and through the years I've discovered his triggers.

[jtbirds]

Birds cant tell gender so it has nothing to do with men, but something else:). I will admit that phrase is my pet peeve they are not like cats and dogs who have extra sensory receptors in there sense of smell and can tell the difference between male hormones and females. It may be territoral which is kinda like just making them believe what is theres is also yours and your families, but can be more difficult depending on the bird... Amigo is also a umbrella cockatoo which imo is the hardest bird to work with only rivaled by a m2... His issues can be due to how he was raised, most humans have little to no idea how a cockatoo should be raised and they create monsters in the end that behavioralist like myself must fix, o well i guess without people like them id never have gotten the chances i have!;)

Mare if it truly is an issue for you and you are worked i can help you out if youd like and im sure others could, this would probably involve you explaining all his triggers and so on, but amigo is difficult because he is aloud to freely roam which just makes for a little harder time working with the issues i believe.

[Mare]

Thank you, Justin. Amigo's aggression isn't really a concern until he makes it that way! He is getting much better, I don't know why, but he is. I've always attributed his behavior to be hormonal and he just couldn't help himself. There are very few females that he hasn't liked. He doesn't like loud, obnoxious ones but other than that, he falls in love quickly. I guess it must be the macho behavior, that some men put on, that grosses him out, don't know. My son has always been respectful of Amigo and has gone beyond trying to win him over. All I can think is, Amigo doesn't want him near me, no matter what.

[jtbirds]

Hey that can be the case, baby girl doesn't really approve of people near me when I hold her and nether does my dads greenwing so they can choose quickly ya know:). And it sounds more like he loves you for giving him that chance(similar to my baby girl) and doesn't want anyone interfering with you and the chance you've given him not so much he doesn't like others but he is bonded to you and now others must work much harder to become part of the bond.