New umbrella too owner

[Greta]

Hi all, just joined the forum. My husband and I just adopted a 12 year old umbrella cockatoo named Sophie. We've owned cockatiels before but this is our first Too, we've done a lot of research but are still learning.

Working on learning her body language now. Anyone know what it may mean when she flairs/pushes the feathers around her mouth forward?

 

[Marlee99]

Hi there, I just joined the forum also. I am a new cockatoo owner myself. I bought a video called Understanding Parrot Body Language by Barbara Heidenreich. It has been helpful it explains all kinds of different body language. What I saw on the video is that the flairing of the feathers around her mouth mean she is content. But maybe others can jump in and explain. Have fun and good luck.

 

[greycloud]

Welcome to the forum! Yes feathers fanned up around the sides of the beak is a sign of content, resting and happiness.

 

[MikeyTN]

Welcome to the forum. You'll learn over time just by watching her. We love our Cockatoo, she's very playful. She likes to hang upside down. Bobbing her head up and down and do her little dance. I can tell when she's upset cause her crown will be fully react. You can feel what she's trying to tell you when something is wrong. Like last night one of the parakeet went over to visit her. She does not like them and was flopping in her cage and screaming hell. I had to put the parakeet up on his side of the cage. You can see it in her eyes how upset she was. Those little parakeets test their limits, kinda evil...lol

 

[Greta]

Thanks all! Sophie is doing wonderful! She has really adapted quickly to her new home and will cuddle with me now. We're trying to spend our time with her evenly so she doesn't bond too closely with either my husband or myself - we don't want her to her to get territorial or protective. She's also doing well with the clicker training we've started with her and with switching over her diet - she was fed all seed before we got her.

She did do one upsetting thing last week - she was on my shoulder at the dining room table and my 14 yr old daughter was sitting next to me. I leaned closer and Sophie readily went over to my daughters shoulder only to immediately bite her on the neck. I took her off and put her on her perch for a bit, but I just can't understand why she even went onto her shoulder if she wasn't liking her - seemed like she did it just so she could bite her. The bite wasn't serious - really didn't even break the skin, just left a nice, big, red scratch for a day or so. My daughter, before and since, had scratched her head and Sophie lets her, it just confounded me when she did that, cause she wasn't trying to catch herself from falling or anything - she just climbed over and bit her. Any thoughts?