Unpredictable Lovebird (forpus)

[Carmen]

I want to apologize beforehand for my poor English, but English isn't my Mothertongue.
My Forpus is almost 3 years old, he is born on the 26th of December 2008. He is with us since he is 4 weeks old and hand-reared him in the beginning. In the beginning he excepted everyone, when he got older he only excepted me and my parents. But since a couple of weeks, only me. But because I'm studying elsewhere, my parents are alone with him. That's why I have a couple of questions to make it more easy for them, because sometimes he is really unpredictable.
At least once a day he is allowed to fly around, but he usually prefers just sitting on your shoulder or his tree. Sometimes he will fall asleep on your shoulder, but when he wakes up he starts freaking out and also bites. He doesn't bite me, but he does bite my parents. He also freaks out sometimes when he is flying around or when he is just sitting around in his cage.
So I wonder why he acts like this. Because he can be really nice, he even knows a couple of words. But suddenly his behaviour changes and he will bite and shout.
We also wondered if he would behave better if we also get a female bird. We read that a Forpus can be agressive towards other birds and will bite them. So we were afraid that our bird would really harm the other bird. Also because he hasn't been around other birds since he's with us and we read that birds will see humans as their species and stop seeing birds as their species.
I really hope someone can help me.

 

[IolaniAviary]

Chances are Forpus is a female, from personal experience the unpredictable and more aggressive territorial Lovebirds are almost always female. The last thing you want for an aggressive bird is a mate, it will cause Forpus to become more aggressive towards you and Forpus may even regress into a less tame bird.

How old is Forpus? Female Lovebirds who are not well acclimated as a chick will go through the "terrible two" stage. This will include biting, irritability in the cage, not wanting to be touched, and so forth. During this time the best thing you can do is handle the bird as much as possible. Obviously Forpus could also be molting which would cause pain and discomfort leading to biting.

My suggestion is that you clip the wings and spend more hand-time. It sounds like Forpus may have dominated the family. He essentially does what he wants! He gets to sit on top of your shoulder which is a dominate position, and fall asleep and wake up at any point and bite. He is in 100% control. Instead of wanting to come out and looking forward to pets and kisses and treats, he looks forward to coming out and dominating his flock. Make the activities hand orientated. Have him eat treat from your hand, work on petting and being able to kiss and handle the bird. When he bites drop your hand about a centimeter which will throw him a bit off balance and soon enough he'll associate biting with losing balance.

Could you by chance post a picture of Forpus? The picture on your account is really quite interesting I've never seen a Lovebird like that.

 

[Carmen]

Thank you for your help. My forpus is a male, at least I've read that when a forpus has a lot of blue it's a male. I'll try the things you've said and will also ask my parents to do the same. Hopefully his behaviour will improve.
We have never clipped his wings, I've seen birds trying to fly with clipped wings and I felt so sorry for them, so I don't really want to clip my bird's wings.
He turns 3 in December.
Forpus isn't his name by the way, it's a species. There are two kinds of lovebirds. One is a Agapornis the other is a Forpus. I don't know if they are called the same in English. I've googled it, I think forpus is called pacific parrotlet.
I've created an album, so there are some more pictures.

 

[IolaniAviary]

Ok a Parrotlet is not a sub-species of Lovebird. They are confused often, this advice will still work though