by Pajarita » Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:52 am
Welcome to the forum! Let me, first of all, clarify something for you: he hasn't bonded with you. It takes them much longer than a few days for this to happen. He is also, most likely, older than two. I don't know where you got him from and where you are located [geographically] but all large birds born in USA have leg bands with the year they were born engraved on them so check the leg band and see what year it says on it [it only shows the last two digits so, if he was born in, say, 2014, you will only see a 14 on it]. The reason why I think he is older is his aggression toward your child. He was not biting from fear, as Liz said. When a cockatoo walks over to a person with his wings half open like that [and I bet his beak was open, too], it's not fear, it's plain aggression - and it's always sexual hormones that caused it. And for this to have happened, the bird needs to have been already producing sexual hormones which, at two years of age, would have only now started so, for him to be so aggressive to 'competition' [I'll explain this below], he needs to be hormonal which means he has been producing sexual hormones for longer than a normal season.
Now, I'll be honest with you, cockatoos and children don't usually mix. There is the uncommon [but not rare] exception to the rule that actually works out fine with children BUT this only happens when the bird is not producing sexual hormones, and cockatoos being what we call 'hormonal' birds, the owner needs to have IMPECABLE husbandry and the bird has to have lived under this impecable husbandry for over a year [because it takes up to four season for the endocrine system to go back on track after being messed up by the wrong light schedule and diet]. Let me explain. Cockatoos bond VERY deeply to humans and are HIGHLY jealous of the object of their affection to the point that they would attack anybody and anything they consider competition to their relationbship. Birds that are overly-hormonal [this happens when people don't keep them the right way which, unfortunately, it's what happens to 95% of captive parrots] they would fixate on one person and attack everybody else. See, the thing is that although parrots are not naturally aggressive, they do defend and protect their mates, nests and babies so, when they see one person as the actual or potential mate [this is the way he sees you but it doesn't mean he will continue to regard you this way once he is no longer overly-hormonal], they make it their business to prevent anybody else from 'reaching' their chosen one. He /she doesn't like your daughter [and, most likely, he won't like anybody else, either] because he/she regards her as 'competition' -and this is something that you can't train out of the bird because it's hard-wired into their genes.
This can be corrected BUT it will take impecable husbandry and months and months. First of all, he/she needs to be kept at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk - this is ESSENTIAL and, if you cannot do it [anybody who works full time cannot do it], I would suggest you rethink the whole concept of owning this cockatoo because if this bird is bent on attacking your child within days of starting its honeymoon period, this is a bird that will need a lot of work. Secondly, he/she cannot be free-fed protein food -cockatoos need a high moisture diet with lots of produce and a limited amount of protein [higher than other parrots but still limited]. They also need an inordinate amount of time spent with their chosen human [and that means not less than 5 hours a day, every single day of the year, year after year] and HUGE amounts of chewing material as well as flight.
Cockatoos are the number one given up bird and there is a very good reason for that - namely, they are very hard to keep healthy and happy. And, an unhappy too will scream and bite and might even pluck his feathers and self-mutilate. I have a Lesser Sulfur male that loves my female African gray, Sophie, and he is so jealous of her that, if during breeding season, he sees me looking and talking to her, he will rush over to watch what I will do next - and if she happens to fly down to my shoulder or arm, he starts screaming bloody murder and rushes over.
I would keep the child away from the bird - I would actually keep the child in another room during the out-of-cage time [maybe while she is in school during the day?] and only allow her to give him treats when he is in its cage [but, please, make sure she keeps her finger far away from his beak because they can be tricky that way, they will make it look as if they go for the treat and bite the hand real quick]. And I would start the good diet and the strict solar schedule asap. This is a great time to do that because the days are getting shorter.