Alex personalities/ cage aggression

Hi all,
I am just curious about cage aggression and territoriality. I read somewhere in the board that it only happens in females as their cage is their nest. Is there any truth in this?

I'm trying all types of strategies to combat this, but I think I'll definitely have to get another sleep cage.

What is your Alex like?
Floyd is very independent, only barely tolerating pats. But loves giving kisses. He is absolutely driven by food, but loses concentration easily in training sessions. He is very curious, which gets himself into trouble.

This is him investigating my smoothie

My female Alex isn't cage aggressive at all, if anything she's mommy aggressive

I have known other male and female alexandrines to be cage aggressive. With my first got alex he was really aggressive. But with some clicker trainer/taming him/gaining his trust hes not aggressive now.

Yuki and Alex are independent. Yuki loves scratches and pats. She loves everyone. She is very curious and also gets herself into trouble You can touch her anywhere and she doesn't mind it.

Alex will only want scratches when he wants it. He is has trust issues but he is very curious and loves to chew on everything. So we have to keep an eye on him. When we looked away for a second he had chewed/ripped off a huge chuck of wood out of my draw/dresser. He loves food and loves doing tricks

I dont really think it makes a difference whether they are male or female in regards to being Cage Aggressive. Codie is Male and he is VERY Cage Aggressive He is absolutely fine once he is out of his cage though.

Thanks guys!
I was thinking Floyd might be a Floydette. But seeming as if its both sexes, ill just have to wait to see

Camille said:

Thanks guys!
I was thinking Floyd might be a Floydette. But seeming as if its both sexes, ill just have to wait to see

Click to expand...

LOL.. Up until 3 months ago I thought Codie was a female, so I decided to have him DNA tested and it turned out he is in fact a Male :11:

I would say Floyd looks like a male just from the head shape but of course some females have large heads xD

Well you can get a DNA test or wait up to 3 years to know for sure.

Mine is not at all cage aggressive, but he throws a fit about my cell phone. I think he's jealous of it.

I love the picture of your bird, it's the first picture of an Alex I've seen where the head looks like my Alex's head. I wonder what subspecies we have.

Ozzie was a bit cage aggressive during his bluffing stage, but now he is totally fine. Cage aggression can happen on both females and males, but sometimes females does tends to get more aggressive. Bring Floyd around the house, to different places, etc. It will help with the aggression.

Ozzie's personality actually changes everyday, sometimes he is very cuddly while other days he is more independent , but one thing is that he is always super playful. Even if he is in a bad mood, and I invite him to play a game (like peek o boo under a towel) he would be happily to play the game. Most of the time Ozzie is not very cuddly, but he is always happy to be with me.

When you open his cage, do you take him out or let him come out on his own.

My guess is that you might open it and let him come out when he's ready. This unfortunately can make them rule the roost and get Territorial.
If he knows that the only way he's getting out of the cage is by jumping up on your hand, he won't ever bite it

Discipline
your bird must understand that there are clear boundaries of acceptable behaviour. the same techniques used to control the behaviour of children should be used to train your bird Love, joy, routine and consistency are essential ingredients of the learning, training and discipline process
as your bird matures and becomes a more independent thinker it will try to dominate your control over its activities. this is a natural response to parrot adolescence and adulthood and it's important for you to maintain dominance at this stage. in nature the pecking order is constantly challenged. therefore in the home you must also confirm your superiority. Discipline of unruly parrots is achieved through a positive and negative reward system.
for example if your parrot starts to scream, put the parrot to bed early.
Bad behaviour must receive a negative reward.
if the parrot goes to the cage when told, they are rewarded with a treat.
good behaviour must receive a positive reward.
the solitude of the cage may be necessary for biting birds.
routine is the best disciplinary measure for birds.

I absolutely agree that training birds (and most animals) is pretty much like training kids. The thing is, I like to distract from bad behaviour before it becomes entrenched and then negative consequences need never arise. It's so easy to lose a bird's trust if you respond to bad behaviour at the wrong moment or in the wrong intensity.

My guys are coming along beautifully. They were very stand-offish when they arrived (aged 6 and 8 months) but I've found that constant handling and communication has made a great bond with both birds and we have no major problems beyond the usual bird-proofing measures that everyone must take. Of course, the fact that my house is festooned with networking cables hasn't helped. Then again, my DH (Dear Husband) is currently working at hiding all the spaghetti in electrical conduit so that's a good thing.

For a short while, I had difficulty getting Madge to go back to the cage. Eventually, she came round and then Barney became difficult. Y'know what worked? Patience! Instead of hurrying trying to get them in the cage quickly, I would just sit patiently by with a handful of dried pawpaw. It takes no more than three minutes for both greedy birds to come to my hand and thence to the cage.

Barney gave me the worst bite I've ever had from a parrot - but then he's never bitten me again. Madge gets a bit beaky sometimes, especially if I'm trying to stop her from chewing or exploring, but she doesn't chomp on me the way Dominic the Galah does. It only cost me three pairs of earrings to teach the Beaks to leave my jewellery absolutely alone. All I did was remove them from my shoulders every single time they reached for an ear/ring.

The only niggly thing we have is that the Beaks will sometimes bite my (adult) kids if they try to ask them to step up and the bird doesn't want to. I've tried to explain that 'calm assertive' is the way to go, but those big red beaks are pretty scary and the kids saw the Big Bite Barney gave me. They're understandably a bit hesitant sometimes.

The two birds have vastly different personalities and skills. Madge is a busybody and into everything. She's the explorer and the flier, preferring to exercise by flying about while Barney likes to clamber up and over things and hang upside-down like a bat. Barney is *far* more attentive and interested to learn tricks (also *far* more greedy!). Barney is also a lot more snuggly - but then, he's allowed me to touch him in return for food rewards and Madge has not. Barn will do almost anything for food!

I would have said the Beaks were not at all cage aggressive, but lately Dominic has been branching out and flying to the top of their cage. If the Beaks are within, they'll try to bite his toes until he leaves. Since our playgym hangs above both cages, there's not really much point in any of the birds carrying on about who owns what. I doubt it'll be a problem. I just wish the Beaks would learn to let Dom alone and stop teasing him.

I've kept lots of birds in my lifetime, but I'd have to say the Alexandrines have been the most fun of all. They're easy to train, feed and clean and they're especially easy to love as they're so very friendly. I'm glad I have two - they're great company for one another and don't seem to have bonded to the extent of leaving me out. That may change once they reach sexual maturity, however. We'll see.

I'm surprised that Alexandrines aren't a lot more popular to keep, considering their size, intelligence, speaking ability and all. Maybe people worry about the big red beaks? Dunno why... like any bird, an Alex will only bite if it's pushed to.

people say. distract from the bad behaviour with a toy or a treat but the way I see it. you are rewarding the bird.
example: if the bird is biting you and you decide too "distract with a toy or treat". then are you rewarding the bird for it's bad behaviour " so the bird learns that by biting I get a toy or a treat.
this is Bad behaviour receiving a positive reward when it should be bad behaviour receives a negative reward
it's not about punishing the bird.
it's about showing the bird that bad behaviours are unacceptable. and if you display these bad behaviours then I don't want to play until you change your behaviour.
this can take a couple of attempts

I had an female eclectus named tika for a short time. door was left open and she flew out and was never seen by me or the family again and there are people out there whom find birds and keep them. anyway back to the eclectus she was hand reared but had been confined to a cage when I got and she was a biter, torn skin and drew blood on me more than once lucky I have a high threshold to pain. I try all types of training methods including the distraction method nothing worked but a mate told me that his nephew was training birds and the method he used was
"good behaviour receives a positive reward"
"bad behaviour receives a negative reward"
I used this method and within a week tika was sitting on my chest and I was rubbing her cheeks until she fell asleep. after that week, the only time she bit was when she didn't want to do something but she didn't give much of warning like most birds. she was very good at hiding her chi.

every interaction with your bird is a training session

I didn't say 'distract with a toy or treat', I said 'distract'.

I observe my birds and know when they're getting hyped up. I distract them by moving to a different location or, if they're already what I call 'beaky' (opening the bill, preparing to lunge, making noise that says 'I'm not happy'), then I have a chopstick ready to occupy the bill while I move the bird or do whatever it was I wanted to do. I also notice when my birds don't want to step up (being engaged in play or whatever) and leave them alone. I'm still trying to teach my kids that you can't be going 'step up, step up, step up' to a bird that isn't in the mood.

There are occasions when a bird will be doing something wrong (eg. munching on the gasket around the fridge door, or snacking on the architraves round a window). On those occasions, I'll ask once for 'step up' and then wait a few moments. Usually the bird obliges, but if not, then out comes the chopstick and the bird is physically removed from the place of wrongdoing and given a chew toy to munch on. That's about the most extreme 'punishment' I use, but I prefer to call it 'distraction'.

I have limited respect for the idea of a 'negative consequence' because who's to say what the *bird* perceives as negative? So, I turn my back on it or leave for a few moments: bird probably throws a party, thinking 'Great! The old hag's left me in peace!' So, I put the bird back in its cage: same response. I cover the cage: bird thinks 'Hm. Lights went out. Time for a snooze.' I remove toys: bird thinks 'Oh well, I'll do something else'. I truly don't believe birds (being bird-brained) can perceive much by way of 'punishment' in human terms. But that's only my opinion and I see yours is different, which is fine.

As I see it, any response of mine that could represent an attack or assault on the bird is pointless as it can only destroy trust. As you cured your Eclectus of biting using your methods, so I cured my Alexes of biting using mine. Whatever works!

Just as an aside, I'm working with a 'damaged' Galah who was neglected for much of its life. This bird will be happy as pie in one moment, bobbing and fluffing and snuggling up to me. Without the slightest warning, he'll suddenly turn and latch onto my flesh and *twist* his bill so that max. damage is done with min. effort. Because this bird was effectively an abuse case, I refuse to punish him. So, all I can do is put him down from my arm, cry a bit, dab on peroxide and try again later. We've gone three days now and no biting! He's even learning to play ball (aged 25+).

LOL! It just occurred to me, we all get defensive when talking about our training methods, same as we do when discussing child-raising. I'm a great believer in the gentle smack for a child who isn't listening, however it happened that neither of my kids needed it much as they were taught to listen early on. I think the gentlest method is the ideal and sometimes the 'big guns' might be brought out as a last resort, y'know? Like kids, some birds are young, some are easy, some are hard-bitten and some appear to be hopeless cases. We do what we have to do, right?

I haven't ever worked with one of these little guys. Most of my "little guy" experience was with conures, sennies, and caiiqes.

However, the thing about most cage territorialism is this:

Parrots are hard wired to "protect and defend the nest." If they don't protect the nest, they don't have a safe place to return to, and they don't get to mate...

In captivity, "the nest" frequently becomes "the cage." Especially if they aren't getting enough "out time."

This is particularly problematic in Male Amazons, something I have had quite a bit of experience with, and the solution with those guys was to get them out on a playstand, away from the cage, so they could not see it, where there is nothing to protect or defend.

Cage bound birds are particularly problematic, in that "the nest" becomes all they have left in the world, and I have been safe in here for a long, long time. NO ONE is taking this away from me! A closed door means you can't get me. An open door means I am no longer safe... and must be hypervigilent and attack any intruders.

Increase the out time, get him in another room away from the cage, and reinforce the no biting.

(I essentially put their little butts on the floor if they don't step up nice. It doesn't hurt the bird, but he will suddenly feel very vulnerable, and be looking up at a mammoth human towering over him. "Hmmm... look at the size of that guy! What was I thinking?!" Let them sit there and think about it for a minute. They will want off the floor, so they will WANT to step up nice at that point. Nothing subtle about that message. He bites you again, down he goes again, until he stops. This lesson is usually learned in one easy session. No drama. No fuss. Just I am not going to put up with that, and you will find yourself on the floor...)

More importantly that reinforcing the no biting, is to reinforce the good behavior. When he steps up nice, he gets praise, a small treat, and head scratchies... plus he is off the floor.

The idea with distraction is to keep the bird busy *BEFORE* the bad behavior occurs. A bird can't easily bite if it's already got a toy in it's mouth.


Punishing a parrot for doing what you deem as undesired behavior doesn't really answer why it's happening in the first place.


When an infant cries, you don't ignore the infant until it stops crying. You find out why the infant is crying. Are they hungry? Do they need comfort? Did they make a mess in their diaper and need to be cleaned up? Are they scared?



The idea is to set the birds up for success by trying to prevent undesired behaviors from occurring. If an undesired behavior never starts up, there's no reason to punish the bird!


Jayde, my new girl, came to me biting to draw blood! She was terrified. Afraid of hands and arms. Rather than punishing her for biting, I tried to avoid getting bitten in the first place! Now? She no longer bites to draw blood, if she does bite it's more of a warning nip, and she's ok with hands and arms. She steps up from her cage top/sides/door to my hand or arm with no biting what-so-ever! I didn't have to force her or scare her into submission to change her behavior. To allow her to *TRUST* in me.

Diesel is a sweetheart 99% of the time outside of his cage, but try and get his food bowls or toys out whilst he is in there, and you will get a rampaging pin-eyed flying beak. I think this is 'his space' and we just respect that. Having said that if we distract him with something nice to chew on, we can get in there and do what we need to. Outside the cage he is SLOWLY letting us have the odd pat, and happy to nuzzle up to us. I have heard Alexandrines aren't the 'cuddliest' birds in the village, so we will slowly take what we can get.