Cocomo turns to the dark side.

[PyrateJim]

WOW!! Is all we can say .Dont know what happened in the last 48 hours, but Cocomo has gone E.V.I.L. Out on his play stand he is screaming. Feeding him his favorite nuts by hand he is now throwing them on the floor and bitting the hands. He has hit blood on my 2x in 2 days. He was on my arm earlier, I was petting him, and he was the Cocomo we love so dearly when he jumped onto my shoulder, latched onto the nap of my neck and bit down with all he could. I bent forward and put my hand up telling him to "step up" and he attacked my hand and arm. Wife came over and he went to her and she promptly walked him to his cage and he climbed right in, went to a hanging toy he has never touched and began to attack it. We went out for about an hour and came back home. He came out on my arm with no problem. Wife tried to feed him by hand, as we have usually been able to and he bit her and drew blood. He CALMLY was put back in hi scage and we all walked out of the room.

How do we figure out what is possessing Cocomo? This is a side of him we have never seen.

[ljhassell]

They to have days where they really dont want to be dealt with. All our birds have off days as we do, and we let them have their "to their own" hands off days. No one likes to be handled all the time, and we respect that. Some days they dont even want to come out of the cage and thats fine to.

[texbird]

besides the typical things - He isnt showing any signs of illness is he - like possibly being in pain?

[PyrateJim]

No signs of pain. In fact he took a nice shower with me yesterday and actually jumped under the shower head. He had been scrapping one of his toes with his beak before that, but hasnt since. Looks like he was going after some dead skin or scales.
The other thing I realized is that we had run out of food that came with Cocomo from the pet store and they kept it in a large plastic fish food container, so there is no way of knowing what brand it was. We picked up some macaw food from Petland on their suggestion as to what they feed their macaws.

Could a change in food brands, not necessairly food type, cause his rebellious mood?

[Copper]

Yes different food could do it, more likely though is he could be a bit hormonal.
My 3 girls have been more antsey than usual, although the screaming a couple times a day for extended times has settled down.
Those bites are another reason to not allow them on your shoulder.

[texbird]

Yeh hormonal is first suspect.
My birds are in the habit of getting special treats for breakfast (apple & nuts) I wonder if he is irritated at not getting his treats? Any way to check with the source?

[Amie]

I hope you can figure out what's going on soon, or he just goes back to normal!

[ljhassell]

I wouldnt worry, they all go through phases, bad days, mood swings, its all in how you handle it. To us if they dont want to be messed with we leave them be, until they come to us and want attention. I wouldnt want to be out of my home every waking minute, they get tired and craby just as we do. Also they go through teenage phase, and thats I love you next minute I hate you- so unconditional love doesnt have to be hands on all the time.

[bigred]

I was going to say hormonal as well . Zeus GW is usually a sweetheart as well, this is the first year she has had any kind of hormonal thing going on and let me tell ya, she turned into the devil! Just hateful and I was shocked. I just gave her space and watched her body language very closely! lol Good luck and hopefully he will be back to his sweet self soon.

[Beaks]

tis the season to be horney falalalalalalala

this too will soon pass (my macaws are all going bonkers and one just laid an egg so that explained it for me.)