Very needy and aggressive

[Murphy91]

Hi, long-time reader of these forums and came here seeking much needed specific advice. I'll keep it short. I have an 8 month old Indian Plum-Head.

- Very territorial of cage, swing/toys and especially food (splayed tail, lunging, eye pinning, aggressive sounds)
- Obsessed with me, won't sit on perches etc outside of cage, just flies to shoulder and becomes aggressive towards fingers, ears
- Can't get off shoulder without grabbing her so I don't let her on there
- She loves to sit on my arm while I study or watch tv which is fine with me but while she's on there she is very aggressive towards fingers and hands (I'll just be scratching my arm and she displays the same cage territorial aggression mentioned above).
- Extremely flighty and weary of new things, hands, sudden noises
- Find it difficult to train her because of her obsession with me plus the fear of new things

I know these issues are all related and I guess what I'm looking for is someone who's had a similar experience and could offer some insight.

Thanks for your time

 

[lotosha]

I would suggest maybe clipping her wings. And maybe start target training while she's sitting inside her cage so she won't be able to try climb on you. Hope that helps.

 

[MikeyTN]

How long have you had your bird???

 

[Murphy91]

Yeah definitely getting her wings clipped, she flies into windows when she gets startled. Had her for 7 months...

 

[MikeyTN]

You can clip to train yes but you can also train without clip, the choice is yours to decide what you want to do. With the windows situation, I put sheer curtains on my windows, other people have put decals and such on the windows so birds wouldn't fly into them. That's something to consider. Whenever you train her, best to be alone without any disturbance from anything. Let her learn to trust you more. Once you decide to clip or not to clip and start your training process, please do let us know your progress and if you run into a road block, I can try to further assist you there.

 

[Murphy91]

Alright, cheers for the tips!

 

[Murphy91]

Well I think I made a bit of progress this arvo... I was studying and she was sitting on her perch in my room. She flew to me 10 times and 10 times I picked her up and put her back on it... She then seemed to get the idea and played with her toy for a good hour by herself which I don't think has ever happened before.