What to expect from a Bare-eyed when it reaches maturity?

[BirdIsTheWord]

I've heard they aren't as bad as a larger cockatoo,but is this true? Does anyone have experience with them after they have reached sexual maturity? I'm just afraid it will choose my fiance as it's mate and hate me. He says he's not touching the bird lol. Will socializing it with alot of people prevent it from choosing one person and make it easier when it matures? Also is there a difference when it comes to male or female? When it goes into breeding behavior how long will this last?

[pchela]

All birds are different. First, yes, absolutely, socializing your parrot now and getting him used to lots of people will help a lot. Definitely work on that.

Most all parrots go through a terrible twos stage... just wait it out while still providing firm boundaries and you will be fine. The bird is going to test you just like a toddler would, to see what he can get away with. This can last several months or even a year or so. Some birds don't really ever cause any problems for their owners.

The same is true of the bird reaching sexual maturity. Just be patient and keep on socializing and providing boundaries and you should get through okay. The breeding behavior is usually a yearly thing and some birds will go through a few weeks a year where they are grumpy and mean, others aren't phased at all.

There shouldn't be too much difference between the male and female as far as behavior goes.

Just socialize, and positive reinforcement training (clicker training) will be a great help. I'd highly recommend starting that.

[BirdIsTheWord]

Hes only a month right now, but as soon as hes fully feathered and more curious i'm going to start training. I've clicker trained my cat and she can do several things. She even use to go potty on the toilet. I've got a book on clicker training parrots so i'm ready when the time comes. How should I go about letting it know something it does is bad...like biting?

[pchela]

You don't really let them know things are bad... instead you reinforce good behaviors and ignore bad until they eventually abandon the bad stuff. If you yell or fuss at them they just perceive it as attention and continue the bad behavior.

[Michael]

I concur with pchela.