Aggressive Green Cheek

[inkspider]

My 1 year old Green Cheek Conure has been getting more and more aggressive. It started several months ago with him attacking my mom on occasion, but it has progressed to him latching on to my neck, face, arms, or hands if he’s out of the cage. He still gets lots of out of cage time, I just endure him taking chunks out of me at least once an hour. I’ve been trying my best to discourage his behavior and encourage kind behavior, but it just keeps getting worse. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to rehome him, he’s my baby. Nothing came up with any vet tests so he isn’t sick. His DNA test did come back female several months ago (we tried calling him “she” and he got very upset so he’s still a “he”) does anyone have any advice?

 

[KiwiAndBubblesBudgies1]

My 1 year old Green Cheek Conure has been getting more and more aggressive. It started several months ago with him attacking my mom on occasion, but it has progressed to him latching on to my neck, face, arms, or hands if he’s out of the cage. He still gets lots of out of cage time, I just endure him taking chunks out of me at least once an hour. I’ve been trying my best to discourage his behavior and encourage kind behavior, but it just keeps getting worse. I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to rehome him, he’s my baby. Nothing came up with any vet tests so he isn’t sick. His DNA test did come back female several months ago (we tried calling him “she” and he got very upset so he’s still a “he”) does anyone have any advice?

I have a female budgie, Bubbles- she is extremely violent, but mostly towards Kiwi. But if I try doing anything she doesn’t want me doing (ex. taking her to a different room during one of Kiwi’s seizures) she bites me- probably as hard as a budgie possibly can- and digs her beak into me until I boop her head and distract her. Try giving your bird more things to chew on, like safe paper, cardboard toys, something to shred. This could just be because your bird really wants to shred something but can’t find something suitable. But I also do find that female birds are a hundred times more aggressive, so it may be that-

 

[Cottonoid]

Giving my bird lots of stuff to chew and thread and play with really helps keep him from doing things I don't want him to, so that's a great idea.

I'm guessing this has been really hard for you and your mom!! I think it's great you're here and hopefully you'll get some good ideas from folks who have been through this - it's more common that you'd think.

I wonder if (he) could be going through puberty? I'd have to look it up, but the age range seems about right for a GCC.

If so, that stage of their lives makes everything go haywire and a lot of parrots act out like this.

If that might be playing a part, you can do a few things to try to minimize hormones. A big one is making sure he gets a full 12 hours of sleep in the dark. That can be hard this time of year in the northern hemisphere when they want to be with us later in the day! Removing sugary foods from their diet can also help - so more veggies, less fruit.

Those are the big pieces I remember, hopefully others will chime in with more ideas.

 

[inkspider]

I have a female budgie, Bubbles- she is extremely violent, but mostly towards Kiwi. But if I try doing anything she doesn’t want me doing (ex. taking her to a different room during one of Kiwi’s seizures) she bites me- probably as hard as a budgie possibly can- and digs her beak into me until I boop her head and distract her. Try giving your bird more things to chew on, like safe paper, cardboard toys, something to shred. This could just be because your bird really wants to shred something but can’t find something suitable. But I also do find that female birds are a hundred times more aggressive, so it may be that-

Giving my bird lots of stuff to chew and thread and play with really helps keep him from doing things I don't want him to, so that's a great idea.

I'm guessing this has been really hard for you and your mom!! I think it's great you're here and hopefully you'll get some good ideas from folks who have been through this - it's more common that you'd think.

I wonder if (he) could be going through puberty? I'd have to look it up, but the age range seems about right for a GCC.

If so, that stage of their lives makes everything go haywire and a lot of parrots act out like this.

If that might be playing a part, you can do a few things to try to minimize hormones. A big one is making sure he gets a full 12 hours of sleep in the dark. That can be hard this time of year in the northern hemisphere when they want to be with us later in the day! Removing sugary foods from their diet can also help - so more veggies, less fruit.

Those are the big pieces I remember, hopefully others will chime in with more ideas.

Thank you guys so much! I’ve been buying more and more different kinds of toys to try and see what he likes, ultimately he doesn’t play with them much and spends most of his cage time screaming at whatever neighbor is mowing their lawn from his platform perch by the window. He is pretty hormonal right now, but we’ve been trying to work through it with him. We just ordered some clickers to try clicker training to focus him more, they should be here tomorrow. It’s been really hard because not only is he my son, but he’s also my emotional support animal, and an extremely needed one at that. Today we managed to distract him with trying to take a cap off a pen so that I could hold him, he sat nicely on my hand while he played, but as soon as he got distracted he went back to biting. I’m hoping this is a good sign that target and clicker training will work! It really helps to know there are others out there who have these problems and where their solution was not rehoming the bird. I don’t want to rehome him unless it’s absolutely necessary.

 

[HeatherG]

I had a greencheek for many years. He was more aggressively bossy if his cage was higher. Since I’m not very tall, that was a problem, so I tried to keep his cage lower or even step up on a stool next to his cage to get him.

I would suggest not allowing access to cage paper, shreddable stuff, or boxes and huts; and maybe keeping in mind that little birds may have short attention spans. Along with the other things Cottonoid recommended to decrease hormone changes related to egg laying.

 

[inkspider]

Update: he has returned to his normal dealing with puberty moodiness (which I’m perfectly ok with, I can take plenty of frustrated bites, the problem was really the fact that he was attacking me outright, frustrations and emotions are part of the deal) around Monday evening when he was stuck mostly in the cage for the day with only about 20 minutes of out time because if I tried to get him out he would start attacking. That evening he came out mostly nicely for my dad (my dad works night shifts and sleeps during the day, Roman (the green cheek) LOVES him but doesn’t get to spend much time with him) after that his behavior went back to normal. It seemed like he just realized what he had been doing. He was aware that we were getting hurt, but I think he realized how scared we were getting and what it was doing to us emotionally. He’s a very very smart bird, emotionally at least, and understands more than I could ever think was possible, but he has a tendency to not realize any affect his actions have. We always refer to him as something akin to a human toddler, because he really is. Just right now he’s also dealing with hormones and puberty. But I think he’ll be alright now. Clicker training is going well, and the fecal lab work I had done when he was first getting moody (to make sure it was puberty and not signs of illness) came back completely normal this morning. Thanks for all the advice!