Faked Wing Injury during a fit?!

I had a friend over the other day and Elvis seemed "ok" with her presence for a little while..then he started getting some major attitude so I put him back in his cage. He did NOT want to go in and tried very hard to run up his perch. Luckily I was able to get him in without too much fuss but after the door was shut he was all butt hurt about it! He didn't get his way god forbid He climbed down to the bottom of his cage and started holding one wing up and flapping it all around like it was hurt while stumbling around and rubbing his cheek across the floor of his cage. My friend and I were shocked and worried that he somehow got seriously injured, but HOW?! Nothing happened...after about 30 seconds of this and the attention he got from our worries, he climbed up to his perch and sat there just fine. Fittfull, but fine. He was almost pouting!! His wing is absolutely a-ok...could he have faked a wing injury for attention as a sort of fit?! It was SO wierd.

Yup - consider it a temper tantrum (eg, a three year old holding breath). You did the right thing!

Elvis is very smart - but he has a far wiser Mom!

I had something similar happen, it scared the hell out of me. Auggie's behavior has really changed, it seems he's reached maturity. I'm just learning how to anticipate his violent (and painful) tantrums.

Now I can live with the scars on my hands but I really worry, several times when he has attacked he surprises me and my hand jerks away - with Auggie still latched on. He ends up getting tossed to the floor, or on occasion into a wall - this is what scares me, not that he'll injure me but rather that I'll injure him by accident, so until this is sorted out there are new house rules to avoid that.

But anyways, the first time he got tossed to the floor. Afterwards I scolded him and put him in his cage. After a moment on his perch he stumbled around and fell to the bottom of his cage where he stumbled around in circles with one leg not moving. I pulled him out quickly, his leg was tucked and it didnt seem he could use it. I was gathering my things to bring him to the emergency vet when he just popped out of it and was fine.

I dont know for sure if it was all an act, but I kept an eye on him afterwards and there didnt seem to be any lasting effects - at least not for Auggie, the heart attack I nearly had took a while to recover from.

I'm sorry to hear that you had to face this, but also I'm glad that Im not the only one to have been fooled by a parrot playing possum.

Not uncommon to hear stories like these ... many times they are acts, and our little fids know how to get our attention ("oh, I've been bad and you are yelling at me. Yeah right, "OW Mommie I'm hurt!" and they get scooped up and loved and you aren't mad anymore). Who says it's not the birds training the humans!

Wow- I would have freaked out! But it's good to know. My Macaw bit me when I was bringing him home from my stepmoms, and he ended up on teh ground, but no tantrum, But I did feel bad he ended up on the floor

The joys of super intelligent beings, and this whole time we thought we had them trained!