Bare eyed baby boy- play fighting question.

MangieSun · Feb 10, 2014

New to the Too life, and wanting to do right by this little guy so thought I'd ask this question here for more seasoned Too owners. Jasper is 7 months old. I've had him for a little over two weeks and he is coming out of his shell more and more everyday. In the evenings is when he seems to really want to play and one of his favorite activities is to initiate play fighting with me. He will drop his foot toys and grab my fingers with his feet, flip onto his back and wrestle. I oblige, but try and keep it fairly mild but I wonder if this is a no-no?? I certainly don't want to encourage any sort of aggressive behavior. It's absolutely adorable when he does it.

Owners of other smaller cockatoos- what's your experience with play fighting???

jenphilly · Feb 11, 2014

Our bare eyed girl, Ivory, would do that every so often, she was an adult rehome and I found she liked playing with napkins (I would unfold them and drop them over her) and she would then kinda roll in them and grab a finger or hand while on her back. I took it as the chance to work with beak training. She had some fairly hard bites when she first came home, but now you can grab her beak and she has no issue with it.

You are his entire flock, so you need to be leader and playmate at the same time

In my opinion and experience with Ivory, its a great teaching opportunity and also fun bonding for them. I think it helped Ivory alot with trust.

Good luck and have fun with him!

getwozzy · Feb 11, 2014

My galah also loves to roll on her back and wrestle with things- or just rolling in laundry

I agree with jen- use the opportunity to play with him...involve different objects, see what he likes...use your fingers with beak play- you'll need to teach him what's acceptable bite pressure...if he gets too excited while playing and bites too hard, I usually say "OW! That hurt!" and stop playing for a couple minutes until he settles down and then resume play.

Good luck!

jenphilly · Feb 11, 2014

Everyone can feel free to laugh at this, but with the whole beak pressure training... I have found that a girlie scream when its too hard is one of the best expressions to tell the bird too hard. I don't know if its just a similar sound to what their flockmates would express or its a shock, but even with the 'problem' bare eyed boy Folger that we are adopting, he bit me twice when we interacted with him (drawing blood both times), but neither was malicious, just him not knowing any boundaries and being overly stimulated. But when I let out a scream (not really a thought process, just a surprised dang that hurt like hell kinda scream), he stopped and just looked.

Not sure you'll find it in any training books, but for what I've experienced with two different bare eyeds, it seemed to get the 'oops sorry about that' kinda of response.

getwozzy · Feb 11, 2014

LOLOLOL!!!! I think I'll have to try the girly scream just to see what Chili's reaction is haha

MangieSun · Feb 11, 2014

Thanks you guy! Very helpful

riddick07 · Feb 11, 2014

And it truly is a girly scream jenphilly lets out and just as funny as it sounds

Bare eyed baby boy- play fighting question.

MangieSun

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jenphilly

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getwozzy

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jenphilly

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getwozzy

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MangieSun

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riddick07

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1st M2 bite

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