I've been battling with my cockatoo to get her to try and not go after our furniture in the house (mainly our couches) and see them as a chew toy. Unfortunately, it's with relatively no success. Those of you who have Too's know what I mean when I saw a Cockatoo doesn't want to play with anything, they want to destroy it.
Franky - our U2 - is about 4 years old now - we've only had her since Oct 2007 - and she's been great up until a few weeks ago. It seems when she sees our couch she gets an unavoidable urge to cease what ever she's doing and go and chew on it. I get to her rather quickly so very little if, if any, damage is done to the couch. But she then relentlessly tries to get to the couch over and over again to try and chew on any corner she can get her mouth on.
I was wonder what any of you might suggest to help disway or stop this behaviour. All suggestions welcome.
She's got plenty of wooden toys in her cage that she does a fast job at destroying and we have chew toys on her play gym. It seems nothing looks any more fun to her than to just try and chew on the couch. I say "No franky... no chew... bad bird..." and then remove her from the corner she's chewing on.
And that's just the first problem. The second is:
She then gets very aggressive (angry) and I'm forced to put her back into her cage before I'm mauled by what used to be a very friendly beak and now I'm attacked by it. She's drawn blood in me almost 5 times in the last two months biting at my face, arms, neck, head and fingers with extreme force. Once she gets on this war path, I have to toss a towel or blanket over her and rush her to her cage. As she will not stop her attack for nothing, flying right at me mouth wide open. She doesn't nip, she takes a good 2 inches of flesh into her mouth when she gets a chunk and pierces the skin.
Again, "No bad bird... bad Franky, no bite... no bite!" I say sternly and with the towel I have to capture her in (because she'll bite my fingers/hand/arms off if I don't protect myself against that mouth) put her and leave her in her cage for the evening as she doesn't settle down for days sometimes. This has been happening for at least the last 4 weeks. Does anyone have any ideas on what it is I can to rectify/correct/help my situation? First to avoid the furniture as a chew toy and also (mostly) to get my gentle girl back. I haven't been doing anything different. She's been a "dream girl" since we got her and now this.
The only environmental change that has occurred is that we got her a larger cage almost two months ago (double the size of her old cage). I've also increased the amount of chew toys in her cage (including rawhide, leather, wood and rope). It's getting to be a "gamble" to even get her out anymore as we're afraid she'll get out of her cage and two minutes later get on the war path again.
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Originally Posted by Old cage: 24x36x50
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Originally Posted by New cage: 46x36x84
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She used to be my "cuddle bug"... and was always trying to crawl under my hand, chin, or arm to get me to pet her. Now sometimes that's followed by an onslaught of war.
Again any help from some experienced Too owners would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks.