Phoenix & Odd Behavior

Okay I am not sure what to do about this, but could really use some ideas, and help. As you know Phoenix is now home, and was doing really good. Then Sunday night he started this behavior. He is really nice, and sweet to my wife, and rarely tries to nip her (he hasn't been socialized until a couple months ago when he was rescued) which is the total opposite of how he used to be with her. He doesn't want to step up on her a whole lot though. Now things changed with me I will be rubbing him the exact same way or in his "good" spots as they all have them, and out of the blue he will growl, and nail me. Once to the point of drawing(on that note the bottom part of his beak went right in the crease of my thumb). Tried time outs, putting him off balance, and in a couple really bad cases pulled my arm out from under him so he landed on the floor. The odd thing is he always wants me to carry him around. If I walk near him he asks to step up by lifting his right leg high and leaning forward (he learned it from Lucy). He won't get off of me either he wants me to hold him, and carry him around. It gets even worse when he is scared he will almost jump on me to get me to carry him around, and bury his head in my chest or into my arm pit, and his wings will tremble. Any idea on how to get him to stop out of the blue nailing me because he apparently wants my attention, but has a thing for biting the living day lights out of me.

I honestly don't think Phoenix means you any harm. He just started settling in, and it will take him a while to feel really cozy and relaxed.

I also think he is testing you with "out of the blue" bites. He wants to see what he can get away with, how much you tolerate.

How does he react after having been in a time out?

Could he possibly be over stimulated or overly excited? OR, when you are rubbing his feathers, and he suddenly nails you, could you have accidentally rubbed a pin feather the wrong way? I know my Niko will do a 180 on me if I stroke a feather the wrong way. :54:

He is molting some, but he was before, and he doesn't do it to my wife. I will admit on a couple different occasions I have jumped back because I would be of in lala land, and all of a sudden I see him lunging. We are gentle with rubbing him because he was not in the greatest condition feather wise when he went to our breeder. His feathers were real thick, oily, and dark. Now that we put him on vitamins his feathers have started to brighten back up, and are getting a lot lighter like his green is starting to lighten, and shimmer, his reds are turning bright, and the red tipped feathers on his back are really lighting up. If I am none stop talking to him when he is close to me on my arm or when he has his head buried in my chest he doesn't do it.

What is his diet like? Housing environment? How big is his cage? Does he have any playstands? Has he seen a vet?

If he hasn't seen a vet, please don't give him vitamins without a vet recommending them after blood work results come back. Giving vitamins can have a huge negative impact on a birds health.

U2gal said:

What is his diet like? Housing environment? How big is his cage? Does he have any playstands? Has he seen a vet?

If he hasn't seen a vet, please don't give him vitamins without a vet recommending them after blood work results come back. Giving vitamins can have a huge negative impact on a birds health.

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Yes he has been to the vet, and has a very large cage. We actually have two large play stands one for him, and one for Lucy. We feed him the same thing as Lucy which is a mix of 3 types of pellets, he gets 5 almonds a day, has lots of toys, I try to split an apple with him & Lucy when we eat dinner or any other time I eat one but no real table food besides some pizza crust because we don't give our birds a lot of table food, cage is 40x30x60 (not as big as Lucy's but when we bought her we got a double Macaw cage for her), he isn't in his cage that much unless he wants to we are gone he is in time out or it is time for our tiels out of cage time because we don't know how he'd react to them. We keep our birds in an area where they are able to socialize with us regularly.

Well it got more amusing yesterday. I had to go to my breeders to do stuff for his website, and was talking to him about Phoenix. He said the guy wouldn't really have anything to do with the birds, but once in awhile the lady would. SO it explains why he was leaning towards my wife. I got back from the breeders and taking pics of all the new babies (saw a 48 hour old Cockatoo last week and little naked baby Ruby Macaws again). My wife, and I come back home and he is nipping at her but being sweet to me. I think Phoenix needs to go to therapy lol. Besides the odd behavior he is doing really good, and is becoming a real good bird.

AAAWWWW!!!! What a sweet update!!! There really is NO doubt in my mind that Phoenix will be AWESOME in no time at all. Hey, they all get into mischief every once in a while. Life would be so boring if they were 100% predictable, lol.

What? You saw super cute babies and didn't post any pics? (Kidding!!!)

Phoenix & Odd Behavior
You stated that he is molting, when new feathers come in, they can get sore for the Macaw and this is the reason all of the sudden they are biting, they are just telling you that it hurts. be careful arount new feathers and shafts. Best of luck Joe