Grim the bare-eyed cockatoo: general update and request for advice

[Francie Mae]

Hey everyone! Wanted to post an update about Grim. This is another long one but I bolded important stuff.
Flying
He’s flying now! His wings were clipped when we got him, and I’m not sure how much experience he had with flying before that, but now he’ll fly to a room if he hears someone. The flying came about after we moved his cage from one side of the room to the other to get him comfortable with ‘new things.’ I’m hoping to continue to find little things like that to do to get him comfortable with change. The only ‘issue’ (but an expected behavior) is he will fly onto us whenever we pass by and he won’t step off when we need him to. His cage has an exterior perch, so most of the day he does have the choice to leave/fly if he wants (he’s in the living room now, so someone is always nearby) because we don’t want to keep him locked up all day. I don’t mind having him on my shoulder in theory, but in practice it’s challenging, because he’s gotten quite nippy, and the little guy will not step down back onto his perch when asked.

Biting
We’ve been seeing him bite more often, but it doesn’t seem to be out of aggression. Regardless, as one would expect, it hurts. My opinion on him hasn’t changed though because I knew going into it we would get bitten a lot. We gently but firmly tell him no, which sort of makes him stop? Sometimes he will get a reaction out of us, though, when he gets us by surprise; he bites the mole on my neck which inadvertently makes me yelp. He likes to preen me so I think he thinks it’s a bug. I also have stud earrings that I can’t take out because the piercing is relatively new, and he tries to rip them out. He hasn’t drawn blood anywhere from biting but he has left some bruises. He seems to be much gentler with me than my parents, but it’s still risky territory. Most injuries heal and most pain is temporary but if anyone has any tips on how to continue to discourage this behavior let me know! I don’t hold it against him because he is a parrot, and that’s part of the package, but if we can lessen it that would be great.

Preening
But that does bring me to something cute he does—the aforementioned preening! He runs his beak through my hair. He doesn’t pull. He tries his best to pull out my elastic hair ties, though! (Side note: is it okay if he chews on those? He doesn’t *eat* them, he just likes to chew, but I’m still concerned). He seems to preen me the most, but I think it’s because I have the longest hair out of all of us.

Talking
And, other fun news, he’s a big talker! His vocabulary is more than I expected for a bird of his age; I was under the impression that birds don’t really talk a whole lot until they’re older. I could be wrong on that front, but it’s still nice to hear him vocalize. So far, he says ‘hiiiiii,’ ‘step up,’ ‘MWAH,’ and ‘ohhhh!’ He also beak clicks if I make kissy sounds at him which is cute.

Relationships
Interaction wise, his favorite person started off as my mom, but now he seems to favor me and my dad. Luckily, though, he gets along with all household members. As for our Labrador, he’s getting more and more comfortable. He hasn’t acknowledged the cats. They also don’t acknowledge him lol. He’s still shy around strangers, but we want to make sure he keeps getting introduced to people so he’s used to it.

Noise level
Also as expected, this little man can scream. When one person leaves the room, even if there’s someone else still there, he gets upset and screams. It’s hard to ignore him until he stops because he *will* scream for long durations, and since he’s in a room people pass through, he inadvertently gets what he wants eventually because we go through the room, even if not immediate. We could wait him out (even though that would take a very long time) but our house is one big circle so we can’t totally ignore him until he’s calm. We also were trying to respond to him if he interrupted his screaming fit by deciding to talk to us instead, but that’s hard to time because it’s scream —> ‘step up!’ —> scream.

Training
Ah, the tale of Grim and his toy rope. We were fools to think his lonely scream was loud, because his shriek of otherworldly fear surpasses all known decibels. When my dad held a bird toy rope he got for Grim in front of him his resulting screech was bloodcurdling. I think the poor guy thought it was a snake. So we put the rope out of sight, but over time would touch it and bend it in front of him and let him look at it. But a week or two went by and he was still very adamant that the rope was a product of fatal evil, and while I really want to avoid pushing his boundaries and making him think that he’s not safe with/respected by me, I do want to help him adjust to new things, so I tried a new method. I held the rope up and he screamed, but I talked him down and pet him a bit and then tried again. After a minute or two I coaxed him into touching the rope. He pulled away like he’d been burned but I gave him a sunflower seed. Then I held up some other stuff that he’s not scared of and told him to ‘touch,’ and repeated the reward of the sunflower seed (I don’t want to spoil him with treats so if anyone has a better alternative for training/encouragement let me know!). The next time I held up the rope, he squawked but didn’t scream, and then touched it again. Eventually he stopped squawking/screaming and started chewing on it like he does with his other toys. He screamed later when he saw the rope at a different angle but I’m really proud of him for the progress that he made.

Diet
As for diet, he’s eating more fruit than last I posted, and while we don’t think it’s necessarily enough, it’s a definite improvement—but a big portion of his meals end up on the bottom of his cage. He’ll pick something up, take a bite, then drop it, and do that again and again until his bowl is empty. If he doesn’t like something in his bowl he’ll straight up toss it, but with his usual fruits/vegetable/seed/etc, it seems more that his eating style is just very inefficient rather than him having a dislike for it. My dad usually refills it if too much of it ends up on the floor, because he doesn’t want him to accidentally starve himself. He has access to fresh fruits/vegetables, both chopped and in normal pieces, but he eats ‘Harrison’s kibble’ for birds the most.

Vet
That brings me to talk about the vet! We’ve been trying to get an appointment with the nearest avian/exotic vet. I believe we do have an appointment booked. We want to make sure he’s a healthy weight, and also confirm his age and that he’s a boy. Of course I would still want him if ‘he’ ended up being a girl, or older/younger than we were told, but we would like to know for sure (If anyone has any insight on his age based on the pics I posted on this thread, let me know—but I know age is very hard to determine on appearance alone at this age). We also need his nails trimmed, because he’s been cutting us up when he lands. I actually don’t mind a few scratches at all compared to biting because I’ve fostered a lot of kittens and they left me worse for wear than Grim does, but I also do think he’s gentler with me. It could be because my dad has ‘older skin,’ but his arm is super scabbed/clawed up from Grim landing on him.

Behavior by age
While we’ve done a lot of research, my dad was wondering what people’s experiences with their cockatoos have been as they age. The only significant change in behavior I’ve read to expect is when they sexually mature at 5/6yrs they start screaming/biting a lot more, but my dad wanted me to ask if adolescent cockatoos bite more or less than cockatoos that are over a year old (Grim is about 8 months). I was under the impression that young cockatoos scream less than cockatoos that are a bit older (the stage before ‘puberty’ but after his first year of life), but I don’t know about biting. If he’s going to start biting/screaming more as he gets older than we’ll handle that, but in your guys’ experience, what did you notice?

Harness training
Does anyone have any advice for how to get started or good resources to get him accustomed to wearing one? We’d like to start that soon

Bird poop
If you’ve managed to get your bird to go in one spot, how did you do it? I know I’ve talked about this before but I wanted to check in again. Parrot poop is no biggie compared to the chicken poop and cat vomit i’m used to, especially since it comes right off my clothes, but..with how often he likes to preen my hair, which goes down to the middle of my back and is therefore in the poop-zone…if he can be encouraged to go on his perch, that would be cool. Also, though, I can just tie my hair up. Assuming the little devil doesn’t take the hair tie out.

Conclusion
Overall, y’all, I love this bird. If it was possible to discourage him from biting me and trying to extract my earrings that would be rad, since I do like my earlobes intact, but as I said, I don’t hold it against him. He’s my little guy. Adulthood seems less scary knowing that I’ll have him as a constant. I look forward to letting him out in the morning and I miss him when we put him away at night. If we can mitigate the biting I’d let him perch on my shoulder or arm as long as he wanted since I enjoy his company. As is, though, I have to kind of be on my guard. But i’m sure one way or another it’ll work out, especially since hearing your guys’ experience has been such a help If you guys have any thoughts or advice or questions let me know, and thank you so much for reading.

Pictures:
(Because of the length of the post, i’m making a separate one to put pictures!)

 

[DonnaBudgie]

It sounds like you're doing everything right with Grim. Cockatoos can be very headstrong and challenging. Some nipping is to be expected. If you wear a Hoodie when he's hanging out on your shoulder it will help protect your face, neck and ears. Have your dad wear long sleeved shirts to protect his arms. I wouldn't let him sit on visitors' shoulders. The last thing you want is a lawsuit after he takes a bite out someones face!
As for harness training, you should get a harness and get him used ro seeing it before trying to put him in it. Handle him as much as you can, including touching his wings because that will make it much easier to put the harness on him.
My Goffin's started talking his first year. He would say "Caspie Boy" and rhen scream. Yup. They can be very loud. Casper would scream especially loud when I was talking on the phone.
I, too, was convinced for no reason that Casper was a boy until "he" laid an egg years later. Apparently the female Goffin's has brown eyes and CA Miumales have black eyes but I didn't know this. They say that sex in Bare Eyes can only be determined by DNA (or egg laying). Is there some reason you'd prefer Grim be a male?


Keep i0i

 

[Francie Mae]

We don’t prefer male or female, we would just like to know Also, I thought you weren’t supposed to touch their wings because it makes them hormonal?

Thank you so much for the advice by the way! I like the hoodie idea a lot. And yeah, we don’t let him sit on visitors—not that he even would currently, though.

Your Goffin’s lil phrase sounds so cute aw

 

[DonnaBudgie]

You will have to touch his wings to get the harness on so he needs to be used to it. My Goffins loved having wing massages. Grim is too young now to get hormonal so don't worry about it now. Once puberty hits you shouldn't do it routinely except to put his harness on.

I think you should find out his sex because anyone who has a female parrot needs to be aware of the signs of egg binding. Vet care for a female vs a male may be different as they may need to take reproductive system problems into consideration if the bird is ever unwell.

 

[rheashard2]

You sound like you're doing a lot of good work! I do suggest that you decrease the reinforcement for his screaming. Positive or negative reinforcement can encourage unwanted behavior. It's normal bird behavior to take a bite and drop. I cut food items up small. This will decrease the waste. Get your friend used to having wings, feet handled. This will aid in harness training. Also if you need to check for injury, nail clipping etc. My CAG, knows wearing harness neans a trip outside or a car ride. That doesn't mean that on some occasions she won't act like it's a hangmans noose! After 21 yrs, I don't expect that to change. I am not a fan of parrots sitting on shoulders. Even a 'playful' nip can do serious harm to your ears, nose, eyes and mouth. Here prevention is key. A significant number of parrots do not like or will not tolerate earrings, watches, nail polish (esp certain colors), tattoos and more. It's a bird thing. Good luck with your friend.