Maniac toes

[Typhoonkin]

Hi!

I'm not sure if there is another thread about this already, and if there is i do apologize, but my problem is almost dire!

My lori, goose, is about 7 months old now, and she's VERY hand friendly (to me anyways she's also nose friendly..mouth friendly.. sleep on desk friendly.. ) however i am having massive drama with her trying to trim her toenails, they are really quite long, and very sharp, sharp enough that i've been asked if i cut myself (which i don't, i just have a REALLY hyperactive lori who runs up and down my arm and tries to roll around and do silly things while her nails are wedged underneath my skin....)

my problem is, she actually BITES when i try to hold her to have someone to do them, like bites to kill right now i have bloody and swollen fingers! she isn't really friendly with anyone else, but she bites her legs when her nails get caught in my shirts, so they need a chop ASAP!

what do i do?!


edit: on a side note, i got her when she was 4 weeks old, i had to spoon feed her for a bit, but the breeder clipped one of her wings, and it still hasn't grown back, is that normal?

[WhiteRaven]

I know what you mean by mouth friendly and nose friendly, lol! When my rainbow lorikeet was young he had super sharp nails and I too had people concerned if I cut myself! D: Nope, I just own a parrot!

The best thing to do would take her to an avian vet to get her nails trimmed. If she gets them caught, she could even end up ripping a toenail out or if he gets really stuck, she may injure himself with trying to chew at her foot.

Nails contain a quick which, if cut, bleed and bleed and bleed. This can be fatal if not stopped right away (I have lost a bird this way when my mum decided to trim the nails when I was at school :( ). Therefore they should only be cut by an experienced person who knows exactly where to trim.

This should help with the needle sharp nails too! You could even mention to the vet that you want to make sure the nails are not sharp enough to continually cut you. The other benefit of getting the vet to do it is your lorikeet won't hold a grudge against you (some, not all, birds do) or be afraid of you.

I can hold budgies and tiels to trim their wings but I could never hold my lorikeet, they seem to be able to get around and bite. >_> Most of them do dislike being restrained and will bite to get away, despite how friendly and tame they are. A way to get her more calm for being restrained is to get her use to having a towel put over her and eventually even get her use to being wrapped in one without him being anxious about it (vets use towels to hold birds). However that is more of a long term thing and will take time, but it's just a tip. :P

As for the wing clipping, it can take up to several months for the wings to grow back, depending on when the next moult is. Yes it is normal and will eventually grow back. Did the breeder clip the wing before she had learnt to fly though? Also, if you want to continue having the wings clipped, make sure both she has both clipped evenly when she is due. Clipping one wing is an outdated and dangerous method.

I hope that helps. Sorry if I was confusing. :P It's 1am here.

[Typhoonkin]

thankyou very much for your reply! i feel like a dolt for not thinking about a vet! i can't seem to find an 'avian' vet in my area, but i did call my local, who insisted they do it regularly and they would deal with my sweet perfect goose making them look like a suicide attempt by tearing them to shred with her nasty beak! she has such an attitude! but i <3 her.


she isn't a big fan of being covered by anything, apart from climbing inside my hoody or in my shirt for a nap

she has started to bite her own legs due to them being long, she gets them caught on my tshirts, and then she arks up like its her foots fault, when its my fault oh well, it will be fixed tomorrow. its oddly only gotten bad in the last week, it isn't like i've neglected her!

and yeah the breeder only did one wing, and just chopped the line, it looks ridiculous and he did it before she could fly, dedication of pestering me at breakfast time taught her to fly though! she insists on being there to swing off my wrists and sample it as i make it, she taste tests for the scaly breasted too ^_^ greedy girl

[WhiteRaven]

As long as the local vet is experienced cutting bird nails, it should be fine. :)

With the "towel game" I mentioned, you could start by putting the towel over your own head and playing "peek a boo" with her, eventually she may want to run under there and join you. Like I said, it's a good game to teach your bird because when she needs to see a vet, it will help her stress less when being held.

My lorikeet's nails have gotten long before too so I know what you mean. :) It was nerve wracking to see him getting caught in the carpet or my clothes and even resorting to biting to free himself. >_> So I took him to the vet to get them trimmed. You can help stop nails from over growing by providing natural perches with bark in her cage and a "pedi perch" or similar that is slightly wider than her feet:

I put my lorikeet's favourite toy next to it so he was on it often. Don't use those sand paper covers for perches though, they may hurt her feet.

I'm very glad you were able to teach her to fly, a breeder should never clip a bird's wings before it learns to fly. Not knowing how to fly can do horrible things to a parrot's confidence and cause problems. But it seems she will be fine. Hehe, lorikeets are greedy little birds. :)

[Rahni]

When I first got Alfie, I clipped his nails because they were very sharp. It was such an awful experience for both him and me. Although I had him in a towel and was holding him as firmly but gently as possible, he was making this awful sound which I don't think I've heard him make since, except when the vet had to draw blood.
I took him to the vet a month or so later to be shown how to clip wings properly, and I also asked him for a better way of trimming his nails.
To my great surprise and skepticism, he said that people don't usually trim lorikeets nails, as they grow to a certain length. He said he had never seen a lorikeet with an overgrown nails. He said that they do tend to be longer then other parrots (and slightly sharper), because of the way they hang in trees to get to flowers, but they dull down if you don't trim them and they can stop growing.
As I said I was very skeptical, but about a year and a half later, I haven't trimmed Alfies nails again, and Keiko hasn't had hers trimmed once in her whole life, and believe it or not they are the right length and quite dull.

[WhiteRaven]

Originally Posted by Rahni

To my great surprise and skepticism, he said that people don't usually trim lorikeets nails, as they grow to a certain length. He said he had never seen a lorikeet with an overgrown nails. He said that they do tend to be longer then other parrots (and slightly sharper), because of the way they hang in trees to get to flowers, but they dull down if you don't trim them and they can stop growing.

I believe that is true, that lorikeet nails grow longer and sharper than other parrots. When I took my lorikeet in to a well known avian vet, I asked to get his long beak and nails trimmed. She didn't trim the beak because she said it was normal for lorikeets to have longer beaks compared to other parrots. She said the nails were a bit long though... and they were for his environment because he kept getting them caught.

[Typhoonkin]

thanks for the advice! i have one of those 'pedi perches' though she mainly just uses it for scraping food off her face, she's such a pig when she eats, all over her, me and well.. everything :) she doesn't use it much, and i can't seem to encourage her to spend time on it, she has tonnes of toys, but she prefers to just roll on the floor of her cage in her own poop ( lol ) throwing balls around and making a huge rukus! she's quite charming! maybe i could make a bottlecap (plastic) toy for her and hang it there, she loves those little things :)

hopefully though, if i can get a new - better pediperch, the one i have is quite rubbish IMO, its not varied in thickness, its just a rough thick thick of .. whatever it is made of, so between the initial trim, and a good pedi perch, she's sure to keep the serial killer out of her toenails, never before have i wept in pain as the day she lunged, grabbed my septum and tried to pretend my nose was a flower (gross!) her grip was OUCH! and as i coaxed her off she insisted on shaking her own foot, like it was stuck.. and it was, and i had a lovely septum piercing given to me! blood everywhere, little monster <3

[Ashling]

haha that's a cheap way to get a septum piercing! Does she do labrets as well?
I found that Ashling's nails didn't need as much trimming as my other birds, but I didn't know their nails were naturally longer and pointier. Makes perfect sense to me though :)

I only trim when the nails are getting painful and poking right into my skin, which isn't often because I try to buff them every other week to keep them blunt. I had the same trouble with trimming- she would scream and wriggle and pretend to bite me. However she loved buffing- she finds the sound exciting (she loves anything that sounds remotely like a zip) and I guess she likes the funny feeling on her feet. So I make it a fun experience with lots of praise, treats and encouragement. Now when trimming time comes, she isn't afraid... She stands perfectly still while I trim or buff her nails. Positive reinforcement is my best friend!

[LoryLady]

Monty's long pedi perch has been enough to keep her nails in check, she's never needed them clipped.

Having said that, the rainbows are much bigger than scalies!

Can you get her to do step ups on the pedi perch, if she's not really interested in it when it's in her cage?

The new avian vet said the same thing about the nails, they are longer than other parrots. Like the idea of buffing the nail rather than cutting it, to soften it. I'm pretty clumsy with scissors. Would do this if they started to get too pointy and curl over or something, but hasn't happened yet.

[Typhoonkin]

Originally Posted by Ashling

haha that's a cheap way to get a septum piercing! Does she do labrets as well?

haha! no but i have a vertical labret piercing which she quite enjoys and i have a few stretched BCR's (ball closure rings) which she likes to swing off.. wow she really wears the pants

i will definately have to work on her getting her towel friendly at home..

i took her to the vet today, getting her into her travel cage was some drama, she's usually pretty well behaved which from this thread doesn't make her sound like it, but anyways, she took a loving chunk off of my thumb, she hasn't really bitten to kill besides the times i've tried to coax her into letting my do her nails, but she did today, war wounds! i warned the vet she might bite as she has an attitude problem and a taste for bloody today, and out of spite she sat really well for him and the nurse and she's all trim and proper now

Originally Posted by LoryLady

Can you get her to do step ups on the pedi perch, if she's not really interested in it when it's in her cage?

unfortunately she never really mastered 'step up' she's more of a "c'mon" girl but we'll work on that :) she's quite cheeky, in the mornings she tells me 'c'mon' and she's learnt the chorus to 'psycho killer' by talking heads, it shouldn't be too hard for me to teach her routine things :) she's still quite young!