Question about behavior change

[JWollenman]

Hello everyone, first time poster here.

So I've got two green cheek conures, I've had them for about four or five years now, and until recently I haven't had any problems with them.

Their main home is a big cage in my office, but I have a smaller cage in my bedroom that I use as their sleeping cage.

A few months ago, one of them became incredibly hostile and territorial whenever she's in the sleeping cage. Fluffed up, charges at anything that approaches the cage from outside, and has taken several nice deep chunks out of my hand when I try to remove her. I can't just leave her in the cage though, as she absolutely refuses to go poop while inside that cage.

This wasn't a gradual change in behavior, one day she was completely fine and normal, and the next day she was like this as if a switch had been flicked somewhere.

Once she's out of the sleeping cage, she's perfectly fine and normal, no further behavioral problems.

Is there anything that I can do to curb this behavior short of just having them just sleep in the big cage from now on? I don't want to separate them and have them sleep in separate cages unless that'll do something to fix the problem.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[Anansi]

Hello, and welcome to the Parrot Forums family!

So one of your gcc's has become cage territorial. One thing to remember is that there's no need for you to go through a bloodletting every time you need to take her out. Invest in a perch or perch-like stick and use that to remove her from her sleeping cage. And as you've pointed out, her behavior is fine once she's out.

Many people have birds who are stubbornly territorial, so they use the stick method to bypass this hardwired instinct to protect their "nest".

That said, one thing that sometimes works to snap them out of that behavior is to completely rearrange everything inside of that cage. Perches, toys, foraging activities... the works. Doing so might take her far enough outside of her comfort zone that she no longer views the sleep cage as her nest.

Another tactic is to attach a perch to the inside surface of the sleep cage's door, and then train them to go to that perch whenever they are ready to come out. You'd do this via target training, targeting each of them to the "exit perch" before opening the door. Then, once they are on that perch, you can swing the door open... thus taking them outside of the sleep cage's boundaries. (Of course, that particular method only works for doors that open by swinging from side to side, rather than those that either slide or open and close vertically.)

Here is a link to a video on targeting, in case you are unfamiliar: [ame="https://youtu.be/HaOicTtwIZo"]Beginners guide to target training parrots - YouTube[/ame]

Another thing to be on the lookout for, btw, is if that territorial aggression begins to manifest against her cage mate. The smaller size of the sleep cage might be the trigger, and unless she's viewing her cage mate as her actual bonded mate, the aggression might not stop with you. If this wound up being the case, you would indeed have to separate them.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Anansi, thanks for that... I have just stolen it to use in the future when territoriality gets questioned, and I'll gratefully credit you! Great pointers and insights!

 

[Anansi]

Anytime, my friend.