Attacking food containers / dishes ????

[Swampy459]

I have a Miligold Macaw who is a dream bird. She's constantly wanting to come out. she's loveable, she dances and does "big eagle" on command. She's gone from "screaming fits" to one squawk when we leave the room (started out taking a few steps away, then offering a treat, then stepping a little farther then offering a treat, and eventually to the door and offering a treat, now... she looks forward to me leaving the room)

She never bites out of aggression but there have been a couple of accidental nips because of one bad habit ... when she sees her food container, the lid of her food container, her food dish, anything to do with food she viciously attacks it. She's in such a frenzy attacking it that she's actually missed and got my finger once and toe once. I don't mean she "tosses her seed" or "plays with her dish" this is a serious attack. She is trying to kill that container (and especially the lid?)

I heard Chet Womach mention "food dish aggression" as one of the things his video solves so I know it must be a somewhat common problem.

My question is -- what caused this behavior to develop and how do I stop it?

[Kathleen]

If the bird is just trying to play around with the container, then a possible way rid of this problem is to let the bird "kill" the food container because eventually, the bird is going to get bored of it and lose interest. If the bird is really trying to attack the container and becomes defensive around it, you can try to alter the consequences that come about when the bird sees the food bowl or the food container. Maybe a way to do this is to show the bird the container and then maybe cue the bird to do a trick or reward the bird somehow. You can only encourage behavior and make a situation or object rewarding to distract the bird from doing behavior that you don't want.

More solutions may be to to keep the foot container out of the bird's access so that it can't attack it by keeping the bird away in its cage while you are preparing its food, replacing the container with one that is different or storing the food a different way.