Starting To Get Aggressive with Family Members

[kikidee]

Hey everyone,
So my POW parakeet Navi is now a little over 7 months old. My parents and I love him because he's such a character and loves to follow us and have our attention. I think he feels closest to me but when I'm at school my mom spends a lot of time with him and he loves her a lot too. He gets probably 3-5 hours out of cage time minimum a day to run around the house and hang out with us. I've held off on trick / flight recall training because I just want his first year to be bonding with my family and I.

Recently he has started attacking my mom however. He'll come out and be fine and then suddenly start bitting her feet and chasing her feet when she walks away. She'll pick him up and he'll start biting her hands and screeching/almost growling at her, sounding pissed off. This has happened when I am with her and sometimes when I am not there. He started doing it to me too but only twice so far. He won't bite my feet but he'll gently bite my fingers and make the sounds like he's mad about something. I don't know what he's trying to tell me, and my mom is starting to feel like he doesn't like her. He just started flying too (but not a whole lot), so not sure if that is a factor.
Any suggestions or opinions?

[Pajarita]

Well, he is too young to be hormonal and he seems to have plenty of out of cage time and attention so what comes to mind is: keeping him up after dark (making him tired and cranky), feeding him pellets made with soy and too much protein (which would bring on an early onset of puberty) and him having a partial or mild clip (you say he flies but not too much and that's strange for a young, fully flighted bird) - do any of these fit his living conditions? If not, then you don't really have a problem bird but an aviary bird which is what this species is supposed to be, anyway.

[kikidee]

When I got him at 2&1/2 months old he had been clipped but I haven't clipped him since. He just in the past month has been able to fully fly and he isn't that great at it but he's getting better.
To be honest we have been keeping him up past when it's dark which is mainly my fault because when I come home from school it's already dark and I want to give him more attention. Maybe he's just cranky?

[Wolf]

He may indeed just be cranky from a lack of sleep, but don't discount the effects of diet either. With that in mind, may I ask what you feed him and when he gets fed?

[kikidee]

According to a previous post, pajarita told me that he should be fed seeds with veggies and fruit because of the type of parakeet he is. So I feed him two different seed mixes I get from the parrot store I got him from and will give him celery leaves, bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, and other safe fruits and veggies, except he definitely prefers fruit over most veggies.