The honeymoon is over.....................

[mtdoramike]

I knew it was going to come, but I was hoping to ride it a little longer. Mac has finally come to the realization that I'm not his previous owner who passed away a 4 months ago. Although I look similar to him, I think the voice is what finally did the trick. I knew he thought I was the previous owner whe we first met him and for the first day we had picked him up because he would sit on my shoulder or my arm and stare at me.

Yep, I made the mistake of allowing Mac a strange bird to perch on my shoulder and for the first few days, he was fine. But yesterday, when he got on my shoulder, he immediately pinched my cheap with his beak and then said "OUCH". Then when I tried to put him to bed, he growled and pinched my hand.

Then today, has been the worst as far as aggression. I was changing his water dish and he was across on the other side of the cage. He came speeding over to me as I was finishing installing his water dish and bit my hand as I was withdrawing it. Then he seemed not to want to step up for me ans would bite my hand. Not breaking the skin, but a good pressure bite.

Then I noticed him sitting on my wife's arm this afternoon watching TV and he was regurgitating on her hand three times.

 

[suebee]

awww i'm sorry mike, but i think his chosen your wife (or making you jealous) but never worry after how nut treated me, we have the best time now as her antics with fawning all over my man did not work!!!

besides its good to have a bird with its own opinions!!! lmao..... and most birds do touch of british humour.

bet your missus is quietly thinking HA my bird

 

[Molcan2]

Give it time, when I first brought Romeo home she ignored me and preferred my boyfriend (Tommy is not a bird person and though he does take good care of her in my absence doesn't really want a lot to do with her). At first I was like great I got this bird for myself and it wants him. After a week or so she decided to Velcro herself to me and doesn't really want anything to do with him now. I think in the begging I was trying to hard to form a relationship, so I backed off and started to ignore her (playing hard to get works fabulous when dealing with Toos they can't stand to not be center of attention) and it drew her to me. The vomiting though is a very strong sign that this may become your wife's bird :11:. Its still very early and he could just as easily come back around to you. Though Romeo took to Tommy early she never showed any mating behavior with him, its only ever been me (tried to breed twice - I strongly discourage this, and she doesn't actually produce vomit but she goes through the motions more often than I would like). Maybe hes just mad at you about the bath thing.

 

[Pedro]

Mike I am not sure if your thinking this is unacceptable behavior or not. But if you do allow this to go on it will be harder to reinforce a positive behavior. I don't allow my male to try & mate my hand or regurg on me. That is unacceptable. Male eclectus can & do get very aggressive especially around breeding times.

I have a great relationship with my 11 year old, as long as he doesn't try to mate or feed me he can climb all over me, as soon as he starts to get that look i immediately put him back on his perch. I adopted my bird a few years back & he was terribly human imprinted. Poor thing didn't know he was a bird. So I used to put all my weaned baby eclectus in with him.

My eclectus have the best of both worlds they all live in aviaries & spend time inside the house when i have the time to spend with them.

 

[Spiritbird]

Do you think he is testing you? If he is your spouses bird then you can get the baby amazon. Right??

That may be in the picture down the road, but right now, having two birds is draining on me hahahahahaha.

 

[mtdoramike]

That could be. He was really miffed yesterday. So we'll see how it works out with a little more time. It's only been like 4 days. But I knew that I was riding on the coat tails of the deceased owners bond that he had built up with Mac over the 3 years. So I would eventually have to form my own bond with him now.

Hopefully he's not seeing me as competition since it's looking like he has chosen my wife as a mate.

 

[Abzeez]

I haven't been on in a day or two so I am out of the loop. What kind of parrot did you take in?

 

[Pedro]

Mike all is not lost you just have to know how to reinforce a more acceptable behavior & that includes biting. If you watch him carefully you will notice he will give a warning before the nip. With eclectus you have to learn their body language. It's very hard to get them to do what is required. They can be quiet stubborn at times.

Can i just say that what you are describing in your post is a very uncomfortable bird that maybe hasn't been give the time to really settle in before handling. We all know why birds bite, they are scared or we have done something they didn't like.

The Answers to why Birds Bite

Here is a link but i am sure you have probably read it before.

 

[mtdoramike]

I haven't been on in a day or two so I am out of the loop. What kind of parrot did you take in?

Mac is a 3 year old Eclectus male. He belonged to a lady whose husband had passed away about 4 months ago. Mac was actually her husbands bird and was strongly bonded to him. Due to financial reasons the widow had to down size and was having to sell her house and move into an apartment, plus she had to go back to work, which cause Mac to be stuck in a cage all day. He was used to being out all day because her husband worked out of the house. So the stress of losing his BFF and then going from having the run of the house all day to being stuck in a cage had caused him to start plucking his feathers around his legs and over preening his tail feathers.

I met him Sunday a week ago and he immediately took to me like glue hopped up on my shoulder and didn't want to get off. He even started rubbing his face against my cheek coooooing. The widow said I look quite a bit like her husband. So we decided to take him earlier in the week and went and picked him and his belongings up This past Sunday. He again, went right to me, up on my shoulder as if we were long lost buddies.
But then I noticed a change in Mac a couple of days after having him in our home. Before, I could hold out my hand and say step up or come on buddy and up he would go. But not anymore. Now, he will either refuse to step up or will give me a good pinch and then say "OUCH".

If he is sitting with me, he will stare at me as if wondering what is going on, which is understandable. I kind of had an idea that things were going down hill fast when I had him on my shoulder the other day and he gave my cheek a good pinch. That's when I decided NO SHOULDER TIME FOR YOU BUDDY, (better late than never). I broke my own rule by allowing a strange bird to perch on my shoulder, I guess because I felt sorry for him and it seemed to be comforting to him.

Anyway, while he has started becoming more aggressive towards me, he has actaully became more sweet towards my wife. Today he has started vomitting on her. He also has never bit her or gave her a pinch unlike me.

It just goes to show you, never take anything at face value, especially with birds. One minute your their BFF=Best Friend Forever and the next they are throwing you out like an old shoe.

 

[mtdoramike]

Now he could be still punishing me for taking him the shower yesterday and giving him a bath. He really HATED that. I should have done like Spirit said and introduced him to it gradually over a couple of days. But we were getting along rather well so I figured go for it.

 

[Pedro]

Mike the fact that this bird says OUCH after he has bitten you tells me that the bite is not something new, I have to say that it's a learned behavior. Something that you have to stop. I would be careful if i was your wife because he could turn on her & nip as well.

Mike anything that is unacceptable try to discourage it. It seems this bird has picked up a few unwanted habits. Eclectus males are usually wonderful pets.

 

[Pedro]

When my Eclectus have a shower they make a god awful squawk & they enjoy it so much. I just hose them in their cage & they hang upside down screeching & flapping away. They will even fight or chase each other away to get the spray.

Mike surely your bird has had showers in the last 3 years??? I am yet to see an Eclectus that doesn't go crazy when it rains or i am out hosing the yard.

 

[mtdoramike]

His previous owners tried to spray him and he didn't like it. So they didn't push the issue. She said that he would usually take a bath on his own, but after she started back to work and he was locked in his cage for 8 hours a day, she didn't see him taking a bath.

He was quite dusty and his feathers were matted pretty good when we got him. So it was quite obvious that he hadn't had a bath in a while. He's one of those birds that likes to take a bath in their water bowl.

 

[Pedro]

OK then, well i guess my helpful hints aren't helpful after all. Sorry.

 

[mtdoramike]

Mike the fact that this bird says OUCH after he has bitten you tells me that the bite is not something new, I have to say that it's a learned behavior. Something that you have to stop. I would be careful if i was your wife because he could turn on her & nip as well.

Mike anything that is unacceptable try to discourage it. It seems this bird has picked up a few unwanted habits. Eclectus males are usually wonderful pets.

Yep, that is one of the issues I had with the previous owners. I told her that they should NEVER have acknowledged this behavior. Now it just makes it more difficult.

 

[LoveMauiGus]

How's it going since he chomped you?

 

[mtdoramike]

How's it going since he chomped you?

Well, he hasn't broken the skin as yet. But he has given me a couple of good pressure pinches. It's mainly when I want him to do something that he doesn't want to do like go to bed. I was able to reach in and get him out of his cage and change his water dish out without any problem. But not anymore. I reached into his cage, removed his water dish, cleaned it and went to put it back into it's holder and scrambled across the cage and nailed me before I could remove my hand.

So now that I see there is a bit of cage aggression with him, I will wait until he comes out to interact with him or change his water and clean out his cage. Then slowly work on his his cage aggression.

I notice that one of the phrases he says quite often is " DON'T BITE ME, WANT TO STEP UP, GOOD BOY, GOOD BOY" the "don't bite me" phrase is usually in a strong male voice. He didn't learn that from me because when he bites me, I ignore it so he doesn't get the response he is hoping for.

After talking to the previous owner the other day, there was a bit more light shed on this. She said that ever since her husband passed away SHE has had to get Mac out of his cage in the morning using a towel. She said that he used to not bite when removing him from inside of his cage, but since she has started working again, she has limited time to spend with him. So in order to allow him out of his cage and some interaction with her, she would force him out of his cage (BINGO)!

Mike

 

[mtdoramike]

Oh, but to answer the question as to how it's been going: My wife actually had to point out to me "Stop trying to force him to do what YOU want him to do". She said, that she waits for Mac to come out of his cage and onto the top, then she slowly approaches Mac and asked if he would like to "Step Up" and if he does, he will put out his foot. But if he doesn't and only looks at her hand, then she will remove her hand until she thinks he's ready.

And she was right, after thinking about what I was doing, was offering Mac my hand while saying step up, but I was bumping his chest as if saying "you have no choice in this". Mac is a stubborn bird, unlike Tiki my Senegal and I should have stopped after the first bite or two and analyzed what I was doing wrong, that was causing the negative response that I was getting.

 

[Spiritbird]

https://companionparrotonline.com/Don_t_Make.html

 

[mtdoramike]

Thanks Spirit, I haven't read this before. It's very informative.