by Pajarita » Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:16 am
Hi, Daminou, welcome to the forum and I am sorry you are having this problem with your bird. Now, a question: why do you say that the parrot is hormonal this time of the year? Because, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, the only parrots that are now hormonal are the short day breeders (like cockatoos, African Grays, etc). Macaws are not short day breeders, they are long day breeders so the bird should not be hormonal right now (all my long day breeders abandoned their nest weeks ago).
Now, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere and the bird is hormonal, you need to re-evaluate her light schedule and diet (because those are the two breeding triggers pet birds use in captivity). The reason why I mention this first of all is that your bird does not sound just 'plain' hormonal, it sounds overly hormonal. Let me explain. 'Plain' hormonal is when the bird, having had a normal circannual cycle for a few years (meaning, the bird's seasons -as in breeding, molting, etc happen when they are supposed to happen and last as long as they are supposed to last), is going through the breeding season (for macaws in the Northern Hemisphere, this happens in Spring). Overly hormonal is when the bird has a screwed up endocrine system and has been producing sexual hormones for years. When this happens, the bird is not only terribly sexually frustrated but also very uncomfortable physically (all the way up to feeling chronic pain) - and it is this that causes birds to be super aggressive. Birds that are 'plain' hormonal would defend their nest and get a little 'testy' but they will not be aggressive to the point of attack and drawing blood.
So, tell us, what is her light schedule and her diet and we might be able to give you a few pointers to remedy the situation.
Aside from that, all parrots are one-person birds. This is pretty inevitable because this is the way nature made them BUT if the bird is content in its life (solar schedule, good quality full spectrum light for during the day, diet, flight, many hours of out-of-cage and more than enough one-on-one time, etc) it might show jealousy toward the partner of the owner but, in time and with patience, it resolves itself and the bird accepts the other person as a flock mate. Your girlfriend training the bird is not going to change anything. It might even make things worse because as far as the bird is concerned, this person has no right whatsoever to ask anything of her. Your girlfriend needs to win her over by praising her, giving her treats, etc. Work (training) is not going to do it, flattery and gifts will. But it takes time and it takes patience - and then it takes more time and more patience. And, if the bird is overly hormonal, it does not work. So the first thing you need to so is to make sure the bird is not overly hormonal and that means re-evaluating her light schedule (this is essential!), her diet (too much protein does it too) and her daily routine to ensure that she is content with her life because a bird that feels that is not getting what it needs is not going to be 'cooperative' - parrots are highly intelligent and use their brains to make deductions the same way that people do so it's extremely hard to trick them or to change a behavior that, as far as they are concerned, it's 100% justified.
But, also, not having a reaction when bit is not the way to go. I know that there are lots of people out there that say that if you show pain, you reinforce the behavior but it's bunk! These animals read our body language, learn to understand and speak our spoken language, can count, understand the concept of time, past and future, use tools, figure out problems and are inherently empathetic AND compassionate... do you really believe that they will confuse an exclamation of pain with reinforcement of a behavior? It's absolutely ridiculous! Parrots are not aggressive by nature - they are not predators and they did not evolve to live in a hierarchical society so there is no aggression gene in them. They only defend and protect (their nests, their offspring, their mates) - and this is what your bird is doing. She perceives your girlfriend as competition for your love so she tries to keep her away from you (because you belong to her and not to your girlfriend) so no PDAs in front of her and tell your girlfriend not to ask her for anything, the bird will resent it. She can talk from afar (praise, praise, praise) to her and she can offer her a treat every now and then (she can be the one to give her the high value item) but no other interaction (and no staring, either - she needs to kind of ignore her most of the time) with the bird until the bird accepts her as a flock mate. When it comes to any relationship with a parrot, it is the parrot that is in charge of the timeline - not the humans. All we can do is strife to make them accept us first, then trust us and, last but not least, love us.
I've only had the trouble you are having with one bird: Zoey Senegal. She was given up because she kept on attacking the wife of the owner. They tried clipping her, keeping her in a cage, etc. Nothing worked so the wife gave the husband an ultimatum: it was her or the bird. He chose her. So Zoey came to live with me and she bonded with me right away -even though her previous and only owner was a man- and she hated my husband because she was used to doing this in her previous home. But, in time, she realized that my husband was no threat to the relationship we had so she accepted him and stopped biting him. He can now move her from point A to point B, make her step up, give her treats, etc without a problem. But it took time because she had to unlearn the behavior she had developed in her previous home (BTW, the wife as not a nice person! I did not like her either).
So, tell us about her diet, her light schedule, her daily routine and we will be able to give you more pointers to resolve this problem.