Aggressive conure

[faithapaul1]

Howdy everyone!

My green cheek was hatched sometime between February and April of 2018, so I am guessing he is around ten months.

He's great, a cutie pie, and one of the biggest clowns, but he has started to show some aggression towards other women. For the last few weeks he's turned on my mom, who has done nothing but love him, feed him, and talk sweetly to him, but it's gotten so bad that he now throws himself at the bars of the cage when she passes by. My mom has done nothing wrong, I assure you. She loves birds and is quite bonded to my cockatiel. In particular he goes after her face and is quick to draw blood.

I've been trying to work with him and my mom on this. At first I attributed his behavior to molting, but now I am not so sure. It seems he will be fine with her one second, letting her scratch his head, and standing calmly on her hand, then the next he'll march up to her face or neck (or even jump to those places) and take a big chomp! He gets all fluffed up, too. With my mom he's actually ran across the table and tried to bite her hands several times.

I haven't witnessed this behavior with men, on the contrary he seems to adore men. My roommate who he used to love, same with every other woman except myself, he's started to act more and more aggressive towards, each time trying to go after their faces. He acts real sweet, really calm at first, mouth closed,then marches straight to the shoulder, poofs up and tries to bite and will not give up, just keeps biting until they manage to get him off or I take him off, and then he's fine -- no aggression towards me or them so long as they don't touch him. I don't understand it. And if anyone tries to prevent him from climbing to the shoulder area he bites extremely hard. It doesn't seem to matter if I'm there or not there.

My main question is do you think this is hormonal behavior? I realize something is going on, and I am taking the steps to correct it (i.e. cage time as soon as he acts aggressive). He's eating zupreem pellets and a cooked mash of veggies and Harrison's food. We do not know for sure if he's a boy, but even so, isn't he a little young to be getting hormonal?

Thank so much!

 

[Farlie]

It is pretty common for a male to bond to a female human and visa versa. Are you sure of the sex? Jealousy also raises it ugly head sometimes. Your bird is still pretty young and still developing its personality. Please don't force it to do anything. Let it take its course naturally.
My girlfriend and I raised a Quaker. Well, she did most of the raising and I just helped occasionally. Surprising enough, after about 6 months this bird turned on her and acted just like your bird is doing. We found out later that it was a female Quaker and bonded to me rather then my girlfriend who actually raised her.
Birds are wonderful creatures but, birds will be birds.

 

[JLcribber]

You bird is maturing. Start here.

Site Name - Articles - Behavioral - Sex And The Psittacine

 

[LSA]

You said GCC, right? GCCs, M or F, usually reach sexual maturity at ~9- 12 monthes making this perfect timing. Additionally, Fall is hormonal season for conures. This can last from almost nonexistent to days to weeks to months. They usually chose the potential mate entity well before courting behavior and aggression begin. My GCC tried to fight and bite everything in sight including me.

 

[Monica]

Simply caging your conure will not teach your conure to *NOT* do that behavior.

Instead, you need to work on teaching your conure new behaviors. What can he do instead of those behaviors? Can he... forage for food? Learn target training? Turn around? Fetch? Etc?


My mitred conure, Charlie, was supposedly a mans bird. He's 24 years old, never laid an egg and was supposed to only like men. I'm female and he seems to like me just fine! Actually, he doesn't seem to prefer any one gender over another.

I also had a female conure, confirmed hen. Jayde *did not* like men, but she liked women. Actually, her preference was for the older, grandmotherly type women. I'm young(er). She decided I was a-okay! Until she met "Auntie K"... she really liked Auntie K... to the point that she'd yell at me for separating them and going home... Jayde only got to see her if I took Jayde with me to the local bird club meetings... but once back home, things went back to normal.