Excited biting and crazy behavior toward one person

[sadieko]

Hello! I share my life with a 10 year old male caique who exhibits extreme biting behavior in response to the presence of one of our roommates. If anyone has any advice for modifying this behavior, I would really appreciate it!

The History:
The caique, Ziggy, is a rehome. His previous owner got him as a newly weaned baby and had him for 9 years. According to her, she had no difficultly with him until he was 5 years old, at which point he would suddenly start biting her and only her for no apparent reason. Everyone else in her family was able to handle him; he only expressed this behavior toward her. After 4 years and visits with many different behaviorists, she couldn't deal with it anymore and returned him to the parrot store.

My roommate, Joe, and I met him there while I was waiting for my baby senegal to be weaned. He'd been in the store for a while because of his high price tag, but Joe fell utterly in love and ended up bringing him home.

The Behavior:
Ziggy is very tame and loves being handled by everyone, including strangers. We often take him out into public where he basks in the attention and will calmly step up even for excitable children, keeping his cool the whole time. As you can imagine, both the pet store and our family were confused as to how this bird could be considered a biter.

The first biting behavior we noticed was in regard to 1) food aggression and 2) not wanting to be removed from his favorite spot, usually a shoulder. This biting was always accompanied by screaming, pinion eyes, and feathers standing straight up. We've pretty much eliminated this through training (talking to him softly while he's eating so that he knows we're not going to steal his food, giving him something else if he's gotten food he can't have, offering treats and praise for stepping up from his favorite spots without aggression, etc.) All incidents of biting vanished.

Then we got fourth person in the house.

The new roommate, Momo, was at first able to handle Ziggy without difficulty. She has little interest in birds, though, so she interacted with him rarely. Things took a sudden turn during our yearly roadtrip to Los Angeles. I had Ziggy out on my shoulder in the car during a potty break and Momo leaned down next to me to pick up something she dropped. He suddenly lunged over and bit her on the ear.

Because it was so unexpected, we all reacted badly, which I'm sure only reinforced the behavior. (My suspicion is that he'd been trying to catch her attention for a while and bit her out of frustration/excitement when she was finally close enough.) Since then, not only has Momo not been able to handle Ziggy, no one else can hold him when she is near. He will bite hands, perches, toys; anything to express his extreme emotion. He will lunge at her and latch on if she gets too close, then proceed to bite anyone that removes him. Quite a few band aids have been required to repair the damage.

This biting is silent and proceeded by pinion eyes, an extended head, slicked down feathers, and slightly open wings. Where-as his aggressive biting involved tearing and ripping with the side of his beak, this biting he will grab with his whole beak and grind. Usually it happens so fast that by the time we notice him getting worked up, he's already latched on.

The Environment/Care taking:
Ziggy shares a 41" X 21" divided cage with another caique; a 1-year-old male named Crisco. Crisco and Ziggy love each other and get along swimmingly 90% of the time. However, Crisco is a hyper-active baby who sometimes wears out Ziggy's patience, so we put the divider in their cage to separate them while we're at work. The cage currently sits near a window, so they can see outside, and in between the cockatiels' and the senegal's cages, to promote flock togetherness.

Ziggy enjoys a variety of toys. He had little interest in them when we first got him, but watching Crisco and the other birds go nuts with toys has really encouraged him to play more. He gets mist showers and/or baths every few days and sits in the outside-cage on the balcony whenever the weather is good. As I said above, we love to take him out on trips or when we go shopping.

Out-of-cage/playtime starts off with cuddles, surfing, head scratches, wrestling, and lots of cheering and singing. After that, we put him and Crisco on the one of the gyms to play by themselves. Ziggy would much rather be with us, so it sometimes takes a little encouragement to get him interested in the gym toys.

Both Ziggy and Crisco are clipped. Bedtime is at 9:30.

Diet: Pellets, vegetables served daily, cooked bean mix served in moderation, and nuts and fruits as treats.

What We've Done About the Biting:

Well, the bad stuff we've done is to react to it. When he isn't biting someone's skin (ie, he's on the gym or something), watching him go crazy eyed and spastic on one of his toys is pretty funny and awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, I know perfectly well that our laughing only encourages him to believe it's good a way to get attention, so that's something have to train ourselves out of first.

When he is biting flesh, we've gotten pretty good at holding back screams and quietly getting him put back into his cage. Then we ignore him until he is calm again.

The new thing that we have started trying is to have Momo interact with Ziggy more while he's in his cage. It might convince him that he doesn't need to shed everything around him to get her attention, but we'll see.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for dealing with this? Thank you for your time!

[Loco Buddy]

Ha ha^ You've pretty much described my 11yr old male caique!

Our caique is sooo similar to yours, that I thought I was reading a description of my own, "Buddy". Some caique behavior from what I've learned is very unpredictable.

Don't get me wrong, Buddy is a sweet and loving bird, but we can read his "moods" fairly easy. When strangers come over, I'm VERY cautious when they are close. He usually fluffs up, and goes through his whistling repertoire, and lets me pull out his wings to show off his beautiful blue. That's about all I can do before he starts to get to the point of being bossy or headstrong. He doesn't like being pulled away from his favorite "at the moment" spot either. I literally have to force him up on my fingers/hand while he screeches and bites(not crazy biting with the eyes) in his attempt to argue on why he should stay. He seems to love my wife's company more than mine because she tends to let him stay wherever he wants for extended periods of time. She also lets him follow her around the bathroom or the kitchen. When he is on her shoulder, and it's time to go back in the cage, my wife has a hard time getting him off. That's where I'll have to walk over and basically "take the beatin" so as to put him back in the cage.......making me the "bad guy".

We've just gone through a few month faze where Buddy stopped at nothing to try and attack and bite me viciously. I couldn't get anywhere near his cage without him beating his beak on the cage with his eyes all dilated and making his pissed off sounds. I literally had to wear an oven mitten to go into the cage so that I could change his water and food. During this faze, he odored my wife, and would try to atack me even when she was holding him. My wife thought it was hilarious! Actually, it started to hurt my feelings a little! It was hard, and I wondered what I did, but it has finally passed...NOW, he has fallen back in love with me! Now when I pass his cage, he sqweeks like a little baby, and paces the bottom back and forth, desperately trying to get me to let him out. When I finally open the cage, he jumps out, and even flys if he has to to get to me. He runs up and down my arm, fluffed out, wings slightly open, sqweeking and screeching, while biting me lightly. He rubs his beek all over my fingers and hand too. He tries to get up on my shoulder(which I never let him do), and gets mad if I try to stop him(but he gets over it fast). This has been going on for about a month, and it's the first time I've ever seen this behavior in his entire life. He did go through the "mean, I want to kill you stage" last year....about the same time, but never the desperate "I love you" stage. I'm figuring that it has to do something with mating season??? He acts the same to my wife ALWAYS, but for me, I guess I'm his soulmate?

A normal Buddy loves the big obnoxious toy in his cage. He loves to hang from it, and give himself "massages". He loves to whistle and seems always content. He's pretty patient about getting out of his cage, and he's fairly calm. He loves both of us about equal(my wife a little more), and is an all around sweet bird. Unfortunately, we think he's going through a hormonal change right now, and we hope he gets through it soon.

If you have any specific questions you want to ask to compare, let me know, cause I'd be curious too. Hope you can find some similarities from the info I wrote! I know I did from you!

[Freedomoflight]

I just have to say, both of your posts are great and well written for other caique owners to refer to. I think the behavior you are both describing is just... caique. They make snap decisions about people and it can take a long time to change their minds, if at all. caiques are very dr. jekyll mr. hyde, which is why I don't think they are for everyone!

[sweetpeaches]

altho I really don't have anything to add to your problems with your caique, I too just want to say I appreciate your openess with your lives with your caiques. my caique is just a year old and has never exhibited these type of behaviors yet. and i think it's great you guys are trying to adapt to them and their unpredictable behaviors. hopefully, these are just transitional times and things will eventually calm down or you'll be able to figure out a way to "work" with your caique. i wish you both the very best.

[Loco Buddy]

Thanks for the kind posts from both of you above...freedomoflight and sweetpeaches.

It' good to know that there are other caique owners out there that can understand and at least relate to some of the things that most of us go through with our loved caiques!

I'll try to put up some pics of Buddy here, if anyone is interested in seeing my baby.I do have some over at the caique forum under the same Loco Buddy