Is this normal behaviour for a two year old?

So I got two GCCs back in June. One tame - Tequila - and one untame - Kiwi, both apparently males and both about 14 months at the time. Tequila has been the sweetest little guy, never bitten or shown any signs of aggression.... until last weekend! Out of nowhere, Sunday morning he came out of his cage like the devil, and has been so aggressive ever since! He’s constantly in full attack mode. I can’t handle him without gloves now, he bites HARD and will not let go. Now, I’m thinking (hoping!) this is hormones/terrible twos and that it will pass and I just have to ride it out. Anyone else experienced this, and has it passed? And how do I handle him now? Poor Kiwi doesn’t seem to know what the hell’s going on with his mate!

Hi, and welcome.

Yep, it's about time for the hormone thing. The Rb was the sweetest baby until he became a rooster (in his case, about 3-4 years) and then... no more Mr. Nice Guy.

You'll get lots of good advice here. I pretty much surrendered to the Rb's personality, so I'm not a great reference!

Allow me to ramble for a while?
Personally, I have reduced biting to almost zero over the years I've spent with the Rickeybird... and a lot of that has involved compromise. I don't do stuff that gets me bitten. Some will say I have let him get away with too much, and that's a fair criticism, but, well... I'm okay with it. I don't do stuff that makes him mad... I don't touch others when he's out; I rarely try to get him to step up onto my hand first. Hand-held perch first, then hand. In some ways, I'm disappointed/embarassed at having such a little monster for a pet, but he is what he is. I ALWAYS wear my hair down when he's on my shoulder, so all he can bite is hair. Really, I don't involve hands much... he doesn't like them. He seems to think the real ME is my head, perched on a weird moveable tree with questionable appendages.

Since he's fully flighted, the ONLY way I get him into the cage is to toss a chile pepper in and he flaps in after it. So food reward is a necessity for me. Time-out doesn't exist in the Rb's kingdom.

I have had some success with using the "earthquake" technique for biting. When he bites, give your hand a swift shake... it should make him let go. The idea... every time he bites, a mysterious earthquske shakes him up. Some people feel this is mean and/or engenders lack of trust. The same can work for clothes biting... give your shoulder a shake, or jump! For me, it has helped.
But please... listen to and try all the good advice you'll get here.
Don't compromise until you know you've done your best. Then just accept and love whatever/whoever your bird turns out to be.
My Rickeybird is in some ways kind of a worse-case scenario, but we have it all worked out between the two of us. Parrots run the gamut (just like people) of temperament and mental stability/brain chemistry. Like the proverbial box of chocolates... ya never know what you're gonna get.
Parrot-owners usually wind up determining their own personal comfort level with various behaviors.

One thing I can share, though. Ever since the Rickeybird hit sexual maturity, I've had to manage his hormones! If kept on too steady a long day, and too much light, he stayed "in the mood" (aggressive, even louder than usual, pleasuring himself on my neck ) year round. If I keep him on a natural light schedule... up with dawn, down with dusk, year around... THEN he's only a little monster rooster from July to September). He has his own room, so I can do that easily.
If/when things get aggressive or risque, you may want to look into avoiding touching/rubbing the backside, regulating the light schedule, maybe even a quick time-out for unacceptable behavior... keeping in mind that a lot of parronts just tolerate quite a bit of this stuff as long as there is no aggression.

Good luck, and good for you, for caring so much.

I have had budgies and cockatiels before, and now I have a single green cheek conure. The budgies and cockatiels were very sweet and a lot more even tempered than the conure.
Remi can be a handful. I got him as a two year old bird, so not sure how he was as a baby. When he wants something he will not hesitate to bite in order to get it. If he is frightened he will bite, if he is irritated he will bite. If he wants to play with my keyboard and I won't let him, he will bite.
My cockatiels were such sweet souls compared to him, lol.
But, he can be cuddly and a good bird too. It just takes a lot of training and learning what triggers his bad behavior. It is worth it because he is a fun guy and a character. He can also be very loving, but definitely on a moody side.

GCC are bossy, and fearless, and bite. I've found being clear and respectful, and at times accommodating equals no bites. They seem exceptionality prone to developing a fear of hands. I recently had Ta-dah develop a fear of hands and I got a lot of bites that bled. It took treats and calmness and trust building to get her over it. And back to sweetie. There are times when she seems to get spooked and by reading her body language and slowing things down I avoid bites. I respect her space and wait till she wants cuddles. I'm of the opinion as are many that bites are the people's fault, a d taking time to figure out what has them upset you can work through it. Ta-dah is five years, and a female, I'm sure she has Been hormonal, but that has never lead to bad behavior. I have no doubt hormones can effect behavior, but I hate reading over and over this as an excuse when people have problems. I think there is always more going on, and changes the people can make to work through parrot people issues. I did have 18 years with my previous female green cheeck, same deal no bad behavior during any hormonal times.

Laurasea said:

GCC are bossy, and fearless, and bite.

Click to expand...

I so agree!
I have witnessed Remi chasing my poor dog off of the couch. The dog surrendered.
It is quite cute how he puffs up and pretends to be a big bird, but boy you better be careful, lol.

Remember, a GCC will die to protect his rights! Never, never use negative discipline!
Your job right now is to just help him through the torment that he is going through presently! He will come out of it, you just do not want to destroy your relationship into something ugly and permanent!
Some excellent posts to read through, although, no quick fixes, it is good to know you are not alone!

http://www.parrotforums.com/training/57935-brainstorming-biting-parrots.html

http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/70329-green-cheek-conure-aggression.html

http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/67118-conure-became-evil.html

My GCC called Baci suddenly went from complete sweetie snuggly darling to white hot angry and super aggressive (seemingly) during the space of one day (although if I’d known what to look for at the time it was probably longer.) I thought about gloves too but I thought that may frighten him more. My solution was two-fold. First I covered my “step-up” finger with what I liked to call my armour-plating, ie several overlapping bandaids, to lessen my automatic pain reflex when he bit me, and like yours he bit HARD! If he continued to bite after stepping up I would “ladder” him from one hand to the other and back and back and so on until he stopped. It would usually only take a ladder or two before he stopped biting, at which time I’d pop him down somewhere neutral like the back of a chair, and walk away giving us both a little time out. Maybe five or ten minutes later I’d go back to him and repeat asking him to step up, sometimes he’d bite my armour-plating again and I’d repeat the same process until he stopped, then leave him again. Ten minutes or so later I’d go back and usually by that time he had got the message, that he wasn’t going to be getting away with the behaviour, and I’d give him a big kiss and cuddle and tell him how much I loved him. He would usually growl and grumble a bit but the biting was generally over, for that day at least! This got us through a very rough patch when, prior to joining this forum, I had no idea why he was behaving that way, and I thought he’d suddenly started to hate me and I’d need to rehome him even though I was madly in love with him. Sadly I lost him to illness last year but our relationship was a much happier one once we sorted out his biting, and i sincerely hope you’re able to find a solution!

What you're Green Cheek is going through is completely normal, as the other members have already stated above...It's a combination of hormones and just being a Green Cheek Conure, as FlBoy already mentioned, Green Cheeks are very stubborn and will not back down, but the last thing you ever want to do is to "Punish" him in any way or give any "Negative Reinforcement", because it just doesn't work. Yelling, scolding, or any type of physical punishment when he bites, such as the very common and terrible advice that people give of "Tapping/Flicking him on the beak", which is the worst thing you could do.

***Have you actually had your two Green Cheeks DNA-tested for gender? If not, I highly advise that you do, so that you'll know for certain what both of their genders are. If either or both of them are females then you need to be prepared for egg-laying (infertile eggs if they aren't mating), and the other issue that you might be dealing with is if they are of the opposite sex then not only may you end-up with fertile eggs, but that can make their hormones all that much worse, especially male Green Cheeks, which sounds to me like Tequila's gender from what you're describing, though you never know until you get them DNA-tested...

****BIG QUESTION FOR YOU: Do your birds have access to any small, dark places that they can get inside of or underneath? This can be either inside of their cages in the form of any types of birdy Beds/Triangle Beds, Tents, any of the "Happy Huts/Snuggle Huts", any Hammocks, or any type of Boxes, such as cardboard boxes or similar...And this can also include your birds having access to small, dark places when they are OUTSIDE of their cages, such as being allowed to go underneath of furniture, going behind pillows, and getting inside of drawers/cabinets and any Boxes that are laying around. This also includes them having anything in the bottom of their cages that resembles or that could be used as Nesting Materials, such as any types of pet/animal "Bedding", Wood Chips, Shredded Paper, etc.

***I have personally seen/experienced my own Male Green Cheek Conure, Bowie, suddnely transform into a little Psychopathic Monster in a matter of minutes due to his hormones being turned-on and out of control due to him going underneath my couch...I brought Bowie home as a hand-raised baby Green Cheek when he was 13 weeks-old, and he will be 3 years-old this May. He's the sweetest, most-loving little parrot in the world, and he could not be any more-closely bonded to me than he is. (I am single and live alone currently, so it's just me and the birds/dogs/Bearded Dragon)...I love all of my family very, very much, more than anything in the entire world, as they truly are my family...That being said, my relationship with Bowie is special, for whatever reason Bowie is like my own little child. And besides him doing the typical, every-day nipping/beakiness that most-all Green Cheeks do, especially males, Bowie has not EVER actually bitten me...EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE DAY. And it was sudden, unexpected, and actually scary to me because as quickly as he turned into a little monster, he also came right out of the hormonal "trance" that he went into, and went right back to being my little Bowie baby...

Long story short, I couldn't find him one day, and he wasn't flying to me when I called him, which is really unusual. My Quaker Parrot was pacing back and forth on the top of the back of the couch constantly, and I knew something was really wrong. I actually thought that Bowie had either gotten outside somehow and had flown-off, or more-likely he was dead in the house somewhere because he wasn't coming to me, responding to me, making any noise at all...So i got a flashlight and started looking frantically for him all over the house, and then I found him underneath the couch, which has maybe an inch or two max of space underneath it. He was in a sort of "trance' where he had gathered-up some pieces of paper and other stuff he had found under the couch and was sitting in the middle of it like it was a "nest". He was making this constant little "chirping" kind of noise, and was totally ignoring me and what I was saying to him, even though he was looking right at me...He wouldn't come out on his own, so I got a yardstick and swept him out from underneath the couch towards me, and he literally "charged" at me, came running right at me and latched-onto the skin on my hand between my thumb and my index-finger, and he wouldn't let go. I was bleeding and he just wouldn't let go, and I had to finally pry his beak off of my hand, and he then landed back on the floor and ran full-steam right back under the couch!

I cleaned my hand up and then looked under the couch again and there he was...So I again took the yardstick and went to sweep him out from under the couch, but before I could he came running full-steam out from under the couch on his own and this time he attached to the skin on the top of my foot! I was trying not to scream/yell at him, and honestly I was more concerned as to why he was doing this out of nowhere than the actual pain (this happened about a year or so ago, so when he was between 1 and a half to 2 years-old)...I pried his beak off of the top of my foot and grabbed him this time so he couldn't go back under the couch, and I just took him right to his cage, put him inside, and left him in there by himself in the living room for about half an hour to cool-down...And when I came back to his cage about 30 minutes later and opened his cage up, he came flying right to me and was his normal, loving self...And it's never happened again because I've made sure that he can no longer get underneath of any furniture or into any other small, dark places.

Since your bird started doing this out of nowhere and hasn't stopped doing it since he started, my suspicion would be that he has access to some kind of small, dark place that he can get into or underneath on a regular basis. If it's not that, then there is another reason that his hormones have been constantly in overdrive like they have been, and it could be the other Green Cheek being the opposite sex...Do your Green Cheeks both live in the same cage? This is another important factor that could be contributing to his constant hormonal drive. If he doesn't have any type of small, dark place inside of his cage or that he has regular access to outside of his cage, but you do keep your Green Cheeks in the same cage, then the next thing to try would be to separate them both into their own cage or their own "territory", and give that a good couple of weeks to see if that produces any positive changes. They can have their individual cages in the same room and near each other so they can still see each other and talk to each other, since I guess they get along well (or used to until he started becoming aggressive), but they need to each have their own territory with their own toys, food/water dishes, etc. This could do wonders to calm his hormones.

All Green Cheeks and all parrots for that matter are going to go through puberty and have hormonal periods, that's completely normal...However, what you're describing that he is going through and will not snap out of is a sudden and now constant hormonal aggression, and when tht happens there is usually a "Trigger" that is causing it to be continuous, and finding this "Trigger" and removing it is a process if there isn't anything obvious like a Happy/Snuggle Hut, Tent, Bed, or Box inside of his cage, or if he isn't sharing his cage with another Green Cheek...

Thank you everyone for the responses. Very helpful and lots of things to try.

In response to EllenD, yes he spends the majority of his out of cage time under the sofa. I very quickly learnt not to go in the room barefoot as he will run out and latch on to a toe!! How did you prevent your bird going under your sofa?

Yes they live in the same cage. There seems to be no problems there, no change in behaviour from either of them and no aggression from Tequila. I’ve not had them DNA tested, I guess that’s my next step. And I was thinking clipping their wings, as much as I hate to do it! Tequila has flown at me to attack a couple of times now. Plus with Kiwi being untame, he flies away from me and Tequila (when he’s not under the sofa or attacking me!) will follow him, essentially resulting in two wild birds! What is everyone’s opinion on wing clipping in this scenario? I know it’s a controversial subject!

Wingclipping will not get his hormonelevels down.


It is like taking a [ainkiller for a toothache: great for not feeling as much pain, but it will not take away the reason you are in pain in the first place.


Just fill the space between the floor and the sofa with something.
(2x4, boards, bricks, anything that is non-shreddable and heavy enough the bird cannot shift, use legoos if you have them )
(or unscrew the legs so there is no more space between sofa and floor)


I always say: wingclipping is a last resort kind of thing to do.
Taking away the one thing birds were made to do just because its ability to fly is an 'inconvenience' to the human is like breaking your dogs legs to prevent him from running of.