Horrible, Unexplainable attacking

[LightFlashA]

Hello all, it's me again with my year old Senegal Yui

I will try to go in chronological order. So I have started morning training sessions with Yui about 4 days ago. I am trying to achieve Micheal Sazhin's grabbing techniques, as I have purchased his book. It's taking her a while, but she is still making a bit of progress concerning letting me touch her back.

Regrettably, I'm often busy. During the week I have school and work, and I am not home for long periods of time until the late evening. However, I usually save every Sunday for her and I stay home so she can be out and about in my bedroom with me. She has no one person aggression towards my family.

What has happened today, on Sunday in which I have been with her all day, in the morning training session (which are before she has any thing to eat so she's usually very motivated, also her amount of food has been reduced as I read about Micheal Sazhin's food management) within a couple of minutes she began to drop the pistachios in disinterest, which hasn't happened in any training session before. Later in the day she began to act a bit antsy as I was cleaning my room. She began quite purposefully flying to me in attempts to attack me. I was panicked and I turned the lights off which either does or does not help in some situations, I attempted to grab her but her foot would not let go of the cage. I grabbed her like The Parrot Wizard does, around the neck, and yet as I am trying to get her in the cage she still managed to draw blood from my fingers. I let go and began to cry (pitiful, I know). I left the lights off in hopes she might calm down. I continued to clean in the dark.

I decided she might be okay now, so I turned the lights back on. I continued to clean and she acted fine for a while. She was perched on a set of drawers on the opposite end of the room that I was. She flew over to my shoulder, and tore into the side of my face. I became panicked again (which is probably a huge contributing factor, right?) and tried to shake her off, but she clung to my shirt. I rushed over to turn the lights off and grabbed her to put her in the cage. She didn't bite me while I tried to put her in, which boggles me. But after the struggle I sat on my bed and cried again for a bit (so very pitiful), only because my cheek hurt and so did my feelings. Why does this happen? Why am I such a bad parrot owner? What did I do wrong? I asked myself. (Parrot soap opera)

Anyway, now she is still in the cage. When I was crying she was growling at me. And now that I am calm, when I put my hand by the cage she will look at it and then suddenly lunge and try to bite me, also if I put my face near her to look at her she attacks. She's been in there for about 30 minutes? Help, please!!!

I have no idea why, I want to say hormones but it's not even the season and I haven't been giving her a high potency diet. This has been happening less but it has happened before. I am so confused and frustrated, and I'm so thankful for this forum, haha!

Thank you all for your time!

[Wolf]

I can't answer yet, as I don't have enough information. Please go into detail and tell me what and when you feed Yui. Also what is her daily routine, When does she get up and go to bed, time out of cage , how much interaction with you and so forth.

[LightFlashA]

Sure!

During the week, her schedule follows mine. We wake up at 5:00 a.m. To get ready for school. She stands on my towel rack while I take a shower, and then I give her fresh food and she happily enters her cage and I leave for school. That's the same throughout the week, and depending on the day I either have time to go home before work and spend 10 to 15 minutes with her or I have to go straight to work from school. I arrive home at around 10 each night after work.

Sometimes, most often Friday, I put Yui into her carrier (which she doesn't like, but I will desensitize her soon) and take her to my boyfriends house while I am at work. After work, I go to my boyfriends house to spend time with the both of them and then get home at around 11:30 then.

On the weekends I usually do the same as Friday, except I spend time at my boyfriends all day because I don't work Saturdays.

I feed her Caitec Oven Fresh Bites Medium Parrot (usually 6 or less pellets a day) along with two small handfuls of DJ Feathers Aviary Fruits and Nuts mix.

She just attacked me again, this time it seemed like it was over the popcorn I was eating . I gave her some!!! But she eats half of it and asks for more. I gave her some more and she dropped it and attacked me again. I'm desperately trying to not react poorly.

Thanks for all your help!

[Wolf]

Better!! What fresh food do you give her and is that her breakfast? What does she have to eat during the day while you are gone? When does she get her dinner? Who gives it to her? I am now going to look up the pellets and the other food that you said and then I will return here and see if you have read this and replied or not.

[Michael]

Sorry no time for an in depth reply but simply put it all takes time and you have to follow the whole method. I would focus on target training and trust building first. Heck it usually taked a week or two for food management to even just begin to kick in. Work on developing trust and motivation before beginning the grab training.

[shiraartain]

I cannot help here but just wanted to quickly say your tears aren't pathetic. Besides my youngest sisters I'm the only one who has cried over Fajr biting me :'). It is a bit of an emotional shock, but they are limited in their ways of communicating with us and if we are unable to notice that something is wrong from their body language, it's the best way they have to let us know.

[Wolf]

I am sure that Michael will get back to you concerning the food management when he has more time as he is usually very busy. And like him I also think that you have a ways to go in the trust department with your bird.
But I also think that you have a bigger problem to address at the moment as the biting attacks are likely to continue and probably increase in frequency unless you make some changes in your bird keeping practices. I have no desire to get on you in any way so I really hope that you will take a good look at what I am going to say and also take some time to do your own research as well. I do not expect you to just take my word for what I am getting ready to share with you. Also I will try to explain as we go along and will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
I really wish that you had been able to get to this and reply before I began this so that I would have a little more information to go on, but its ok . I really do understand how difficult it is when you must work and go to school at the same time and applaud you for trying so hard to make a better life for yourself and your bird. Although I think that you are doing the right thing for you and could not admire you more for it, it also is causing you to do poorly as you birds caretaker and you are really going to have to make some hard choices in this matter, I think.
Yui, and your two budgies need to be on a solar light schedule which means up with the sun and to bed by full dark. Also this means full exposure to the twilight periods that occur at dawn and dusk. You have done well in assessing the current situation as hormonal, because that is the biggest part of what is happening with Yui. I know that this is the wrong time of the year for her to be hormonal but with the late nights on a human light schedule and most likely no direct exposure to unfiltered sunlight or the twilight periods her biological clock can't reset to match the time of the year. And if you are petting her in any place other than the beak, head and neck then you make this even worse as any place on her body other than these three places are erogenous zones and you are stimulating her sexually and she has no way to release this pent up excitement. Also the lack of sleep for her is not helping her on this.
So you see, this is not a good situation for your bird and as difficult as it may be you need to figure out something to correct this for your birds benefit. Perhaps you have family that could help you with this or maybe a really good friend who can be trusted that can help. I don't know how to advise you on any of this except for what the birds need to be healthy and well adjusted.

[liz]

5 am to 10 pm is a very long time for her to be awake and alone. I hope you have the two budgies together. Is she near them?

Read the threads DIET & LIGHTING.

[LightFlashA]

Yes about the petting!

She gets uncomfortable if I try to pet her anywhere BUT her head actually.

And that brings me to what Micheal said, about building trust. I was determined to teach her to let me grab her, and then let me open her wings, and I was under the assumption that that would build some trust between us, as I said she's uncomfortable with me touching her back. So if there is another place I should start, could anyone clarify?

I felt as though starting with target training, even though I have realized it's many uses, wouldn't be best to start with because I felt she should be comfortable with me doing anything around her, and she would react better to the stick, as I know right now she would fly away at the sight of a stick.

And that brings me to her many fears, as she's quite the scaredy cat. I realized after all those attacks, that I am the only person that ever brings her anxiety or trouble of the sort. Whether it's putting her in the carrier or just trying to make her do something she doesn't want to do. That could be why she doesn't attack anyone but me.

I will return the budgies to my home from my boyfriend's so that she might have better company. She was vetted this evening, and I just felt frustrated because they were urging me to clip her wings because that would solve her behavioral problems. Whereas I agree strongly with Micheal, I feel that it will lead to many more behavioral problems.

I wish I had Micheal's book before I got her, because I thought I had done my research. But I was hardly ready to take good care of any parrot. Though I have learned that experience is the best teacher and I can't change the past, I make due with what I have. In the near future, I plan to spend all of my free time on her, which after high school a lot of my time will open up, I feel. During the summers also, I do spend all of my time with her or taking her to my boyfriend's.

[LightFlashA]

shiraartain yes, it always rips up my feelings!

Learning to control it, because crying only seems to make everything worse.

I think about when Micheal got bit by Santina at the rescue! That must have hurt a whole lot more, and he had absolutely no reaction!!!