What are your birds bad habits? :)

[shadoes]

hehe.. what I mean for instance..

Sydney my cockatiel has taken to whining like my dog when he wants something. if that doesn't work he simply elevates the noise level until he gets some sort of response hehe.

With the whining thing took me a bit to pick up what he was doing until I heard Drake whining at the same time the bird was hehe

[Monica]

Noel screams and yells at me if I don't wake up at a timely manner to feed her. She does the same thing when she wants Casey to sleep near her but Casey has other plans on her mind, or when she wants to go near Casey but can't cause she can't fly... Or when Casey is stuck (i.e. in a cage!)

Casey hisses at me if I don't scritch her right or if I disturb her BEAUTY sleep!

Kirby picks on his sis all the time, and am wondering if there is a possibility that she could have her own cage, but I'm not sure how I could get that worked out for her.

The worse has got to be Smurf though... He will feed and/or hump anything that he sees fit, or that will allow him!!! UGH!!! The little player....

[Alyce Johnson]

My Berta has decided that a loud macaw sqwauk is in order if I do not pick her up and hold her very soon after I get home from work. She does let me take a potty break, thankfully! But as soon as I get back out to the living room if I pay attention to anything or anyone else ahead of her, she starts the loud stuff.

This is pretty new - she seems to have found her voice, so to speak, and since we live in an apt, I dont have the option of ignoring her. So I'm basically training her to do it, by picking her up, but I dont really have many other options, either.

She also attacks my husband, if he gets too close to her, when I'm there. He reports she's much nicer to him when I'm gone. But I have also noticed that he interacts with her in a way that tends to get her worked up, although he doesnt seem to realize it.

I suspect he's more careful and more respectful when I'm gone, because he knows he's going to have to pick her up & put her in her cage etc. So he probaby avoids starting anything and keeps her more calm, just without even being consciously aware of the difference in his own behavior, when I'm gone.

Pico our amazon nips me sometimes, when I try to take him out of his cage. But he has never broken the skin or even bruised me - it's more just symbolic or perhaps to intimidate (which doesnt work at all, as I got used to getting bit by the macaw before we got Pico, so he really just doesnt scare me). He always relents and steps up anyway, right after the nip. But he prefers my husband - he seems to know I'm spoken for, as Berta's mate, and that he was purchased to be Steve's large bird.

Our two younger GC conures are nicknamed "the little criminals" - which is very fitting. They like to fly around and escape capture. Even fully clipped they are just too aerodynamic - you cant keep them totally grounded - you'd probably have to snip their tail feathers. (Which I'd never ever do, of course!)

They also like to steal food from the larger birds. They were playing chicken with the macaw, for awhile. I had to move her stand, and keep them in their cage when she was out as they simply would not behave, and didnt seem to care that she could literally bite them in half. They figured out she's blind, I think, and began having great sport with her.

But our worst offender is our eldest GC conure, Emerald. She was a re-homed bird, put out for adoption for biting the mother of her original owner once the young man went away to college. Mom wasnt up for being chewed on. Of course, they were not honest at the bird store about her past habits and we learned the truth only after we'd gotten her and become very attached to the little devil.

She really bites *hard* though - and even though she's tiny she regularly draws blood and leaves small scars. She doesnt just bite hands, either. She's been known to bite my chin, cheeks and tip of nose, too - in every case cutting lose a small flap of skin, drawing lots of blood and even leaving a permanent (though tiny) scar, on my chin. She's serioius about doing damage, when she bites.

She's mostly a territorial biter, but she will dive at you through the cage bars or from the vantage point of her perch, so you have to watch how close you are to her. It makes it really hard to work in their cage doing any kind of maintenance.

Also she's territorial about my husband, whom she regards as her mate. So she just bites me for spite, a lot of the time. She will walk over to me, step up on me, and then viciously bite, holding onto the loose flesh on the back of my hand, for example. Whatever body part she can get. She's really a problem, although she's a lot better with my husband, most of the time (but not all of the time, and never predictably).

She did lay some eggs awhle back, and while she was incubating them she was sweet as pie! She would eat from my fingers w/out nipping at all. I brought her food right to her, the whole time she was nesting, just like a good birdie mate. She'd let me pick her up and take her out of her nesting cage to poop - she was just a little doll!

I kissed and loved on her and fed her all kinds of treats. And then when she figured out the eggs were not going to hatch and lost interest in them, her hormones changed again and she returned to the very worst of her former self. I was soo disappointed! She was So sweet, there for awhile.

[Tiki]

They all like to chew on magazines, books and remote controls! They will perch on my laptop and poop, I have to make sure they are always facing me so they don't hit the keyboard. Seems they don't like anything that takes attention from themselves!

[Casa Amazona]

Lope is far and away my orneriest fid. They all get greeted when I come home, then I go upstairs to change into my bird clothes. Then it starts -- that shrill MRHA contact call -- until I get back downstairs. That's not the bad part -- it's only a contact call, after all. Should I have the audacity to actually try to pick him up, touch him or take care of his cage, he'll bite the snot out of me. So what is it, love or hate? I say it's hormones.

[Kateykat]

Miroki will call in a loud (and I mean LOUD) pitch shriek from the moment he hears my car in the drive way until I walk through the front door. Mullani imitates my mobile phone to a T and always makes me double check to see if its ringing! Murro likes to poop in my hair! It doesn't matter how many times he has pooped before I pick him up he will go straight into my pony tail and poop! Lovely.

[The Outlaw]

Let me count the ways:

All of them are spoiled rotten and think that I'm their personal slave, however, far and away the most irritating thing that ALL of them do is toss and mangle my reading glasses. And, its impossible to carry on a phone conversation because all of them attack whatever phone I'm using. I have replaced so many telephone cords its shocking.

[roseanne]

Shelby CAG meows very loudly when he is upset. He also bites me hard when I'm talking on the phone he sneaks up and bites, why I don't know. He also tries to attack the phone if it is within his reach.

Arnold CAG tries to bite if I go into HIS territory- the bathroom-when he is out he is either on his stand or in the bathroom.

[Kristi]

Marley won't poop anywhere but my kitchen floor during the day....he will fly down from his cage or his boing into the kitchen and do his business right in front of the kitchen sink. That little turd. (No pun intended).

Goliath doesn't really have any bad habits...the only thing he does that irritates me sometimes is he'll get to "loving" me on my face (kisses, little love nips, etc.) and he gets so excited sometimes that he'll grab the middle part of my nose (between my two nostrils) with his beak and it sure hurts! He doesn't grab it hard, but I guess I'm just really sensitive right there. All I have to do is say "Goliath, EASY!" and he stops. I don't know what that is all about, but I love him anyway!

[PEANUT]

KRAMER CROWS LIKE A ROOSTER. mOST OF THE TIME IT IS CUTE EXCEPT WHEN HE DOES IT ABOUT 6 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.