Aggression related to going back to his cage

[spooky]

Hello, I'm new here.

I have a male cockatiel a little over a year old; I've had him for about 10-11 months. He is tame and fully flighted. He is my first bird since I had untamed parakeets as a kid so I'm still learning. He's friendly and cuddly and talkative (and demanding), but he's developing a mean streak that I don't know how to deal with.

The biggest problem is when we try to pick him up off the floor, he lunges and bites hands and feet no matter what. Even if I try to use a perch he'll dash to the side to get at my hand. The result is usually being forced to unceremoniously towel him to put him back in his cage. Obviously this is not helping because it makes him mad, but I don't want to make him think he can do what he wants as long as he's on the floor. He already does think that--if he thinks we're going to put him away, or if he misbehaves, he immediately flies to the ground, and the above cycle ensues.

It's getting worse. Now if I ask him to step up off my desk or onto my hand from my shoulder, he bites. Today and yesterday he was opening his beak at my FACE while on my shoulder, where normally he is calm and happy as a peach. He's also bitten my fiance on the face a few times recently, unprovoked. It's at the point that I usually place him back in his cage by shoving my shoulder into the cage near a perch so he steps off that way, not involving my hands at all.

He was doing this months ago, but then his preferred method of aggravation was flying around and perching on the curtain rods where I could not reach him. At that time I considered getting him clipped, because I hear it can serve as an attitude check and it also would prevent him from working himself up into a stressful ball of anger and fear while flying around the room avoiding me. It didn't happen because I had to board him for a week while I was on vacation, and since he came back he's been pleasant and sweet as can be. But in the past week or so he's started up again, and I have no clue. Clipping him would just put him on the floor more often. I've tried goading him onto my forearm with some millet, but even then he tries to bite first. Do I just let him bite me?

He gets 13 hours of darkness and avi-calm in his water. We often leave his cage door open so he can come and go as he pleases, and he spends a lot of time foraging and playing in his cage when the door is open, so I don't think he views the cage negatively. I only let him have food in his cage.

Any ideas? I never really trained him because he was so sociable and well-behaved, I didn't see the need. I think I need to train him to respect step up, step down, and recall, but I don't know where to start because every time my hands go near him (except to take him out of his cage) he becomes aggressive, even when I'm holding a treat.

[liz]

I have never caged my Amazons but Myrtle went through a month long phase that she would not go "nite nite". I spent as high as an hour following her from one room to another with her staying just out of my reach. That phase past.
Then Rambo started getting up in the middle of the night to find me. One night I had to carry him back 3 times.
Twice with Myrtle and once with Rambo I had to let them sleep with me. I don't know what caused Myrtle's problem but Rambo needed me because he was in a new house in a thunder storm.

You could always turn out the lights and go to bed.

[spooky]

?? I'm not talking about putting him to bed, this is happening during the day. He is allowed out of his cage for most of the day but not all of it, so there are several times per day where he needs to be put inside his cage. I can't leave him out unattended; way too many household hazards. My problem is I need to train out his aggression so he stops attacking my hands when I try to pick him up.

[Wolf]

I understand the problem that you are having, but now we need to work out the causes of the problem. I say causes because from your description there is more than one factor causing the issue.
Lets start off with finding out about his diet. What do you feed him and when do you feed it to him ? Next what time does he get up and go to bed? Is his cage covered or not ? Now we need to get an idea of his daily schedule so tell me about a normal day beginning with when he gets up and tell me what he does all day long, how often you pick him up and for what reason, how much time does he have interacting with you and what you do when interacting with him and finish of with when he goes to bed.

[Pajarita]

Yes, please, answer Wolf's questions so we have more information to go by and can give you more specific pointers but, in the meantime, I suggest you look at things from his point of view keeping in mind this: self-fulfilling prophecy.

[spooky]

This morning when i went to take him out of his cage, like normal, he hissed at me. That's never happened before.

He's on a mixed seed + pellet diet, along with Nutriberries and Pelletberries and a bowl of dried vegtables & nuts. He's a seed junkie so my vet suggested I give him the Nutri/pellet berries and he loves them, and they also keep him busy foraging at the bottom of his cage. I give him fresh veg/fruit or egg when I can, though not as often as I should. He's an adventurous eater. I give him Avicalm in his water. I freshen/change his food and water every morning when I change his cage paper. He gets up at 10:30 am and goes to bed at 9:30 pm. He is covered by an opaque fleece blanket in a quiet, dark room.

He's very vibrant when I wake him up. He batbirds, says hello, babbles at me, makes kissy noises, bounces up and down. He's doing this right now even though he hissed at me. I take him out when I change his paper (or rather, he just comes out and I let him hang out on my shoulder or wander around on the floor, foraging at seed he's spilled outside his cage.) Then I usually put him back and he eats.

I take him out again after I eat lunch (I am an illustrator and work from home, in the same room as his cage is). I spend at least half an hour with him. If he's good (staying on my shoulder) he can stay out while I get back to work; if he's frisky and trying to play on my desk I have to put him away because he inevitably starts chasing my hands while I type or use my graphics tablet. Or if I'm working traditionally he has to go back, no questions. I can't have him getting into paint, pooping on and shredding drawings, chewing on graphite, stealing my pencils/brushes... that's a safety thing of course, as well as protecting my work. I mainly work on the computer though.

I usually take him out again in the later afternoon. Then after dinner, I let him out and leave his cage open so he can hang out with me and my fiance. He goes between perching on us, foraging on the floor/playing (flirting with our feet, LOL), and spending time in the cage on his own, eating or playing. He usually hangs out like this until his bedtime... so I think he's getting plenty of time out? Sometimes he gets put away for a short period if he's misbehaving (like pecking at our faces for attention, biting hands, etc.) I do this without a fuss, just tell him no and put him away.

Granted, he used to have more free reign, but I was very ill and not working. That was months ago; I gradually got him used to spending more time in his cage during the day and he's fine with it. Every now and then he'll have a cranky day where he screeches at me or otherwise tries to annoy me into taking him out, but I ignore it. (Earplugs).

At some point each day he gets a good head scratch, lots and lots of kisses, and he'll fly like a maniac around the room for exercise. When he's chilling with us, he sits on my/my SO's shoulder, chest, forearm, knee, or leg, depending on my position. I give him kisses and play up-and-down with him, and we sing and talk to each other. I talk to him when he's in his cage too.

These days I don't really pick him up with my hands at all, unless I'm taking him out of the cage. Except for today, he always steps up without any fuss. every day he's deliberately flying to the floor more often if he thinks he's done anything wrong (even gentle corrections, like "Spooky, get off my keyboard *pick him up and put him on my shoulder or my chair* that don't result in me putting him away right away.) And once he's on the floor, he gets so mean and awful he inevitably gets put back in the cage anyway. Sometimes, if my SO is home, I can leave the room and he'll fly up to my fiance once I'm gone.

It's becoming a self-perpetuating cycle and I don't know how to break it! Do I let him stay on the floor until he's ready to fly up to me and be put away (or enters the cage himself)? Isn't that training him that he can control me? :\ I know he's upset ad confused, and getting worse by the day, but I don't know how to break the cycle. He's always been a rascal bird, very domineering (so much for "gentle, sweet" cockatiels, haha! He doesn't bow his head when he wants a head scratch, he just shoves his face into your face) and I can deal with that, but the aggression has to stop. The more he attacks or hurts us, the less we trust him and want to interact with him, and I don't want him to end up as this un-handlable, untame bird that just sits there. If it comes to that I guess I'll get him a bigger cage and a friend to keep him company so he doesn't go crazy from loneliness...or rehome him... but I don't want that to happen! I got him because I wanted a friend; birds are hard but the relationship I have with him is worth it. He's smart and funny and brings to much joy to my life. And I'm losing that. It's making me feel like crap and I know he's not happy either, but I don't know how to fix it.

Thank you so much for your help.

[spooky]

Oh, I have one of those featherbrite lamps on his cage too. On at 10:30, off at 4:00. He has lots of toys of different types that get rotated every few weeks. Natural or rope perches, save for one of those pedi-perches to keep his nails blunt. There are no mirrors or really shiny toys. He has a cuttlebone and veg mineral block and uses both. The cage is 24x24 wide and 36" tall (plus the stand). No grate at the bottom so he can forage. It's against a wall and he can see me when I'm at my desk; my back isn't turned to him.

Sometimes he chews on the cage bars for a while? That's stopped a bit though after I put chewable toys in the places he's chew the most.

I have a desktop perch station and a java branch on the outside of his cage. He likes to perch on curtain rods and the window sill. Sometimes I take him outside in his travel cage for extra stimulation; he's not harnessed trained though I hope to get him there at some point.

Poops are regular and normal, though yesterday they were really watery at night (he was sitting on my leg--NOT PLEASANT.) Morning poop looked fine.

[Wolf]

The very first thing that comes to mind is that he is hormonal and the is is further indicated by his diet and by the times that he gets up and goes to bed. This has been going on for a pretty good length of time as illustrated by the use of avi-calm to sedate him. I do like that you are using a full spectrum light, but I do worry about them as they can easily cause serious damage to your bird if the Cri, K Temp or UV output is not right These should be a Cri of 94+, a K Temp of 5000 to 5500 and a UV output of 2.

The diet that you are feeding him is to high in protein, which he is getting from several sources, seed, pellets, nutria-berries and pellet berries and although he no doubt likes it, he does not need to have eggs on top of these sources of protein. Too much protein in the diet increases a birds aggressiveness and interferes with a normal reproductive cycle as it can keep them locked in the breeding cycle due to the continued production of hormones, which is the primary use for the proteins in their diet.
Then there is the matter of the times that he gets up and goes to bed. These times are such that he is not being exposed to the light that occurs during the twilight period just before dawn and the twilight period of dusk is compromised by artificial lighting. The properties of the light at these time are used by the bird to set and reset the birds internal biological clock which is used to signal the start of the breeding season and its hormonal production. Since he is not exposed to this special light, his internal clock is not in sync with the seasons resulting in his reproductive cycle being all over the place instead of when it should be. Hormones and excessive hormones also translate into increased aggression. But this is not the worst of it. You see when the bird enters the reproductive cycle its sexual organs, which are all internal increase in size from about the size of a pea to a size of up to 100 times their normal size and this causes pressure on them as well as the other organs close to them and this pressure results in intense pain for the bird and over time this pain escalates to the point that the bird can barely stand to be touched and lashes out in pain which means you get bitten unpredictably.
I think that the early stages of this were confused with nerves resulting in the use of avi-calm, which is no longer effective. My Grey was on this product when she first came to live with me and she had some bad side effects from it, so I took her off of it.
The reason for his screaming is that he wants your attention, they are highly social animals and need to interact with you for several hours on a daily basis. I think that if you will reduce the protein intake and improve his diet, get him on a solar light schedule and spend adequate amounts of time with him that screaming and aggression will be significantly reduced. Also instead of ignoring his screams, answer him, he is much like a baby in this respect and should never be ignored when screaming for you.
And the last suggestion is that you should consider getting him a companion as no human can truly fulfill the social needs of any species of parrot and the smaller ones are more flock oriented than the larger ones, which means that they all do much better with at least on companion of their own species.

[Pajarita]

Yep, Wolf gave you all the right pointers so I will just recap them for you:

1. Put him at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk
2. Full spectrum light: CRI 94+, Ktemp 5000 to 5500. Featherbright is only 91 in CRI and, although it has a Ktemp of 5500, for a bird that, like yours, is overly hormonal, I would go with one that is only 5000. And, I don't know if you are putting it in a lamp but, if you are, please don't. Put it in the ceiling fixture.
3. Reduce protein dramatically or you will end up with a bird with liver and kidney issues. My tiels eat gloop and leafy greens for breakfast (I give them fruit also but they don't eat it except for pomegranate seeds).
4. Allow four to five hours of out of cage time with two to three of one-on-one.
5. Get the poor bird a mate. Half an hour here and there doesn't do it for them, they need company 24/7/365.

[spooky]

Thank you so much, both of you.

The daylight schedule is the hardest part. I work from home; his cage is in the same room as where I work and where we watch TV, play video games, etc.; the only other place is the bedroom. I also have major depression so getting up early is very difficult. On my best days I manage 9:00.
My "work day" is adjusted accordingly, meaning I work until 8:30 pm or so at least.

I have the featherbrite light on one of those top of cage mounts, so it shines directly down on him. Is that bad? I will look for a more appropriate bulb Would putting the full spectrum light on during the late afternoon and into the early night help, in terms of fixing his internal clock?

Oof, I'm torn about a second bird... I don't really want one and neither does my SO. I've always heard to only get one if you want one, not for the bird, since there is no guarantee they'll like each other. Two birds is twice the work and it seems I'm not doing so well with just one. I don't know if I could care for two properly.

What is gloop, is it like mash/chop? I've been meaning to make up a batch of that and freeze most of it so he gets veggies that aren't just "what I had for dinner or lunch" veggies. What should I cut down on besides excluding egg? No seed/pellet mix, just berries? No berries, just seed/pellet mix? His weight is good and consistent. (91g) And how do I encourage him to only eat his veggies... he is a bit of a seed junkie. Should I remove all seed while veg is offered? I've heard birds will starve themselves rather than eat things they don't want to...

Thank you again for your help.

He's better today, no hissing, and after a rough morning yesterday he was really good and friendly for the rest of the day. Granted I was walking on eggshells... but it's a start towards rebuilding trust.