Galah x Corella pet Hybrid

JettIsTheDevil

New member
Jul 5, 2019
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Australia
Parrots
Jett - Galah x Corella Hybrid
I have a pet Galah x Corella named Jett. He flew into our lives 8 years ago. He was obviously someone’s pet, because my mum could hear him mimicking her cough. We tried for days to try and catch him and eventually we enticed him to get into a cage. So we don’t know much about his history, but he can mimic laughter and coughing and he can sing some old-timey tunes. We tried to find his owner but no one came forward, so he’s been with us ever since but he’s got one flaw: he has big behavioural issues.

While inside his cage, he will try and attack our fingers if they’re within reach. If he’s able to grab a hold of us, he does some damage by piercing the skin and making us bleed. He sometimes pretends to want pats but he will turn around while you’re patting him through the cage and then laugh at us.

He does have a soft spot for my mum though, and she’s able to get him out of the cage and have him in her jumper without any worries. He won’t bite her and will even give her a few nibbles on the collar bone or her chin without hurting her. Although he will try and attack he while he is inside his cage, and has bitten her once or twice, piercing her skin but not making her bleed.

He also squawks so loudly throughout the day and in the early morning, or whenever there is a loud commotion happening and it’s started to get on my mums nerves since it’s a constant thing. She doesn’t get him out too often, maybe once every couple of days for about 30 minutes to an hour, because she’s very busy and he hates everyone else in the family (especially males).

He also is very smart and has gotten out of his cage multiple times, through unscrewing screws and pushing open his food and water doors, but hasn’t flown too far away from our house. We have been able to get him back every time since the local birds attack him and he gets scared.

Basically I was just wondering if anyone had any information on Galah x a Corellas or if anyone knows how to work on his behavioural issues. Thank-you!

Here’s a photo of the Devil himself in the attachments:
 

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Betrisher

Well-known member
Jun 3, 2013
4,253
177
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Parrots
Dominic: Galah(RIP: 1981-2018); The Lovies: Four Blue Masked Lovebirds; Barney and Madge (The Beaks): Alexandrines; Miss Rosetta Stone: Little Corella
Oh my word! How lucky are you? Jett is absolutely gorgeous!

I've never kept a Galah/Corella hybrid, but my next-door neighbour did when I was growing up. It was a sweet, gentle bird and one of the most affectionate I've known. Our neighbours owned the local pet-shop and this bird sat on a perch just inside the door and said 'Welcome in' in a most heartfelt tone to customers as they came in. The bird had a very odd voice, as it sounded as though it were whispering or rasping. My Corella has a normal cockies' voice, nothing like the pet-shop bird's at all.

I can't think of any reason to suppose that a G/C hybrid would have remarkable behavioural issues because of its hybrid status (although I could well be very wrong with that). The thing is, most cockies go a bit troppo when they hit puberty (around six or seven for Corellas, earlier for Galahs). Sexual frustration can often be the cause of much very unpleasant behaviour and it often happens that well-meaning owners are making the situation worse by mistakenly doing things like stroking the bird's body or allowing it to burrow into dark places (like the inside of your jumper). :) Cage aggression can be a sign of puberty and/or sexual frustration as the bird thinks he is defending his territory against all comers.

Do you know for certain you have a boy? Male Galahs have dark brown irises while females have dark cherry red ones. Corellas don't show any difference between the genders beyond the males being just a tad larger (who can tell from that???) The thing is, your Jett could have decided your Mum is his mate and that is going to affect the way he treats the rest of the family. You might need to take action if that's the case.

My Alexandrines went through a particularly trying period when their puberty arrived, but I was ready and no blood was shed. My Corella arrived smakk in the middle of hers and she was a *handful* (still is, if I'm honest). She goes a bit crazy and just bops until she drops, basically. Formal training has been a huge help and has at least allowed me to have a relationship with her as we gradually change what have clearly been unfortunate behaviours from her earlier home.

One time my Barney bit me a beauty when I'd stuck my fingers into his cage. As I complained and sucked on my finger, my daughter said the most sensible thing I've ever heard about caged birds: "if you stick your finger in, the only thing the bird can do is bite it - he doesn't have hands, only a great big beak!' It's good to remember that. If you want to pet birdie, then take him out of his cage. Sticking your finger in his cage is a bit like someone poking an arm in through your driver's side window and ruffling your hair. You wouldn't like that and neither does birdie. :)

The screaming is just a Corella thing, I'm afraid. Rosetta starts at around 7am or so and goes for half-an-hour. Then, she goes again in the evening, usually just on dusk as the wild Corellas are flying home to roost. I'm quite sure she's bellowing out 'I'm here! See yous all termorrer!' and they bellow back 'Yeah! Hooroo! See ya termorrer!' The sound that comes out of a Corella's throat is no slight thing! I thought the Alexes were noisy until 'Setta came and put them in the shade. All I can say is that it *is* a part of a normal Corella's daily behaviour and to try and change it is really not fair to your bird. He needs to call just as you need to get up, scratch your bum and have a coffee in the mornings.

Why don't you list some of Jett's behaviours and let's see if we can't figure out some ideas for you? There's usually a few solutions to most problems and everyone here is happy to help. I think he's absolutely *ravishing' and I'm sure 'Setta would too (I'm currently on the lookout for a mate for her). :)

PS. Where are you in Oz? I'm in Newcastle, NSW. :)
 
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JettIsTheDevil

JettIsTheDevil

New member
Jul 5, 2019
6
0
Australia
Parrots
Jett - Galah x Corella Hybrid
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Oh my word! How lucky are you? Jett is absolutely gorgeous!

I've never kept a Galah/Corella hybrid, but my next-door neighbour did when I was growing up. It was a sweet, gentle bird and one of the most affectionate I've known. Our neighbours owned the local pet-shop and this bird sat on a perch just inside the door and said 'Welcome in' in a most heartfelt tone to customers as they came in. The bird had a very odd voice, as it sounded as though it were whispering or rasping. My Corella has a normal cockies' voice, nothing like the pet-shop bird's at all.

I can't think of any reason to suppose that a G/C hybrid would have remarkable behavioural issues because of its hybrid status (although I could well be very wrong with that). The thing is, most cockies go a bit troppo when they hit puberty (around six or seven for Corellas, earlier for Galahs). Sexual frustration can often be the cause of much very unpleasant behaviour and it often happens that well-meaning owners are making the situation worse by mistakenly doing things like stroking the bird's body or allowing it to burrow into dark places (like the inside of your jumper). :) Cage aggression can be a sign of puberty and/or sexual frustration as the bird thinks he is defending his territory against all comers.

Do you know for certain you have a boy? Male Galahs have dark brown irises while females have dark cherry red ones. Corellas don't show any difference between the genders beyond the males being just a tad larger (who can tell from that???) The thing is, your Jett could have decided your Mum is his mate and that is going to affect the way he treats the rest of the family. You might need to take action if that's the case.

My Alexandrines went through a particularly trying period when their puberty arrived, but I was ready and no blood was shed. My Corella arrived smakk in the middle of hers and she was a *handful* (still is, if I'm honest). She goes a bit crazy and just bops until she drops, basically. Formal training has been a huge help and has at least allowed me to have a relationship with her as we gradually change what have clearly been unfortunate behaviours from her earlier home.

One time my Barney bit me a beauty when I'd stuck my fingers into his cage. As I complained and sucked on my finger, my daughter said the most sensible thing I've ever heard about caged birds: "if you stick your finger in, the only thing the bird can do is bite it - he doesn't have hands, only a great big beak!' It's good to remember that. If you want to pet birdie, then take him out of his cage. Sticking your finger in his cage is a bit like someone poking an arm in through your driver's side window and ruffling your hair. You wouldn't like that and neither does birdie. :)

The screaming is just a Corella thing, I'm afraid. Rosetta starts at around 7am or so and goes for half-an-hour. Then, she goes again in the evening, usually just on dusk as the wild Corellas are flying home to roost. I'm quite sure she's bellowing out 'I'm here! See yous all termorrer!' and they bellow back 'Yeah! Hooroo! See ya termorrer!' The sound that comes out of a Corella's throat is no slight thing! I thought the Alexes were noisy until 'Setta came and put them in the shade. All I can say is that it *is* a part of a normal Corella's daily behaviour and to try and change it is really not fair to your bird. He needs to call just as you need to get up, scratch your bum and have a coffee in the mornings.

Why don't you list some of Jett's behaviours and let's see if we can't figure out some ideas for you? There's usually a few solutions to most problems and everyone here is happy to help. I think he's absolutely *ravishing' and I'm sure 'Setta would too (I'm currently on the lookout for a mate for her). :)

PS. Where are you in Oz? I'm in Newcastle, NSW. :)

Hey! Thanks for the comment.

My whole family never knew that hybrids were a thing until Jett came into our life. We aren’t bird people and I don’t know why Jett picked us, but he did. And he continues to pick us every time he gets out and flies into a neighbouring tree. He will always come back to us.

Jett is definitely a male, he has beautiful brown eyes when you can get close enough to notice them. He could most certainly be going through puberty since we don’t know how old he is, although the cage aggression and squawking has been happening for the past 5ish years out of the 8 that we’ve had him.

His squawking is around dawn and dusk but during the day, if he hears a car starting or loud laughing coming from inside, he will go off no matter what time it is. It’s constant throughout the day. He will squawk for 40 minutes, rest for maybe an hour and then he’ll go off again if something sets him off. We have a large flock of cockatoos that fly over our house in the morning and at night and he does call out to them, but it’s a different kind of squawk.

He’s definitely chosen my mum as his mate since she’s able to handle him and have him inside her jumper. To the rest of the family, my mum is insane for letting him do that because of how violent he is with anyone else. He’s made my dad bleed many times, from either biting my dad through the cage or attacking my dad when Jett gets loose.

Jett will play this game with us where he will puff up right next to the cage asking for a pat, allowing us to pat him for a variable amount of time and then he will suddenly turn around and try and bite our fingers. He will then actually laugh at us for reacting the way we did, and starting all over again. Although when my mum goes to pat him, he will sit there for hours to get pats from her.

Jett can tolerate females around him, like my mum, sister and I, but he will go crazy if a male goes anywhere near him. This includes squawking, opening and flapping his wings, launching himself across his cage to attack the nearest male and so on. He’s bitten several male family members because they were too close for his liking.

Just today actually, my mum was adding in a nesting box for him since he’s a lot calmer with one. But in doing so, Jett got out and flew straight at my face. Obviously he was scared but oh my god I have never had so much fear coursing through my veins than I did at that particular moment. He landed on my head to get away from our dogs since he was scared, and my mum was able to just pick him up and put him in his cage without being bitten.

I’m not sure if my mum would approve of the prospect of her baby having another woman in his life. In her eyes, Jett will be single until she dies. Trust me, I’ve tried to convince her in getting him a female to love a few times now haha.

P.S I’m up towards the Sunshine Coast!
 

Betrisher

Well-known member
Jun 3, 2013
4,253
177
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Parrots
Dominic: Galah(RIP: 1981-2018); The Lovies: Four Blue Masked Lovebirds; Barney and Madge (The Beaks): Alexandrines; Miss Rosetta Stone: Little Corella
Hoboy! It'd be a good idea if you removed the nesting boxes right away! That alone will be sending nesting hormones rushing through your boy every day!

What he needs is to be gainfully occupied for most of his day but *not* in ways that promote mating or nesting. So that means deleting things like stroking his body and wings. Stroke and scratch only his head - anything else is - um - turning him on with no hope of - um - a happy ending.

Don't let him have boxes or bits of fabric, bedsheets or clothing to crawl into. What looks like cute play is actually the male bird checking out potential nesting places. Warm, dark, snug places make him feel randy and like mating. So don't let him go there! Mum really needs *not* to let him inside her jumper any more. It's not fair to Jett.

You can check out the pinned files in the 'Cockatoos' forum for lots of good advice. Cockies are very high-maintenance birds, which is why so many end up in aviaries where they can amuse themselves or, worse, end up being neglected by people who come to realise they just can't keep up the work needed to keep the bird happy. It's hard! I'm finding it hard! And I've got a female, so she's subject to all the worries associated with egg-laying and egg-binding. Every time I come near her cage, she goes into a flat spin, opening her wings and virtually begging me to scratch beneath them. Which I won't, since that's RUDE! (Oh my!)

See if you can get hold of an old, untreated, unpainted pallet and pull off a slat. Remove all the nails and either poke it into Jett's cage or cut it into manageable bits and hang them from his roof. He'll chomp on that very happily for hours. Another good chomping toy is a branch of native timber like bottlebrush or melaleuca. If you can get sprigs that still have the old fruits on, so much the better! Gumnuts are a real favourite with my birds and it's nice that the wild ones break the topmost branches of my trees, sending down the sprays of gumnuts for my guys to enjoy.

Does Jett have a boing? It's like a rope perch, only it's made with 8-gauge fencing wire and twisted into a spiral. Most cockies just *love* to bounce on one! They're easy enough to make with two metres of sisal rope and a metre of 8-gauge or you can get them at petshops or on ebay. Just be sure to get one at least a metre long.

I've hung 1" and 2" sisal rope in Rosetta's cage for her to climb and swing on. I have one plaited rope that hangs from the roof of the cage and has a wooden ring eye-spliced onto the end. She grabs that and swings back and forth for ages. She has a simple loop of rope hanging from the roof and she also swings on that, both upright and upside-down (Corellas just adore hanging upside-down!).

She has an olympic swimming pool (cat-box full of water) because she likes to swim every single day and she has buckets of plastic baby rattles and balls and toys because she loves things that make noise. Her favourite is a 20cm plastic ball with shapes cut out of it. She drags this everywhere she goes, often hauling it by one toenail up to the top of her cage and then dropping it again so she can repeat the exercise.

I have a feeling if you give Jett plenty of toys to play with, he'll be a lot happier and less sexually frustrated. If you want to work with him yourself, then there are Things you can do to go about that (I think we have a sticky about it in one of the forums). Once a cocky has chosen a human for a mate, it's very hard to get them to be receptive to anyone else *unless* they have an opposite gender friend to break that bond. Of course, not everyone can consider keeping two large Corellas, I'm just sayin'. Dr Rob Marshall (top avian vet in Australia) reckons it's healthiest to keep an opposite-gender pair and I have to agree with him from my observations of the Beaks (my Alexes). They keep each other company, mate occasionally, have never attempted to nest and are happy and well-adjusted. Rosetta would clearly benefit from a companion and she'll have one as soon as I find one. :)
 

Betrisher

Well-known member
Jun 3, 2013
4,253
177
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Parrots
Dominic: Galah(RIP: 1981-2018); The Lovies: Four Blue Masked Lovebirds; Barney and Madge (The Beaks): Alexandrines; Miss Rosetta Stone: Little Corella
Forgot to add: when he flies at your face, put out your hand, fingers spread wide and palm facing him. He might fall or grab your hand, but you MUST NOT allow him to do that. It's very dangerous and could lose an eye for you!

Or, put your arm across your forehead/head and allow him to land on that rather than your head. Be ready at all times, as they can be erratic and flighty, especially when they're nervous.

I learned very quickly to keep one arm over my head when Rosetta arrived. It didn't take long to teach her to stay on my wrist, but she was very scary until she learned.
 

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