connor&co
Moving in
- Joined
- 4/3/24
- Messages
- 8
Hello all!
I got my GCC, Connor, in 2018 and he's 5 now. He was very sweet and cuddly for the first few years, and I expected some change as he matured, but it's been night and day.
Some general info:
He sleeps in a Prevue F040 and gets multiple hours, if not entire days when possible, of outside time.
He's on a diet of pellets with fresh food and seed treats.
He has multiple toys in his cage (but plays with none pfff).
So about two years ago, he became a biter. Suddenly he just wanted to clamp down, chew, shake his head, and rip out small chunks of me. Previously there had been the OCCASIONAL nip or exploratory bite, but that was it. During a routine vet visit, they said it was probably just hormones since nothing else has changed and he was otherwise given a clean bill of health. When it wasn't getting better, they started him on Lupron to see if that would help and... it didn't do anything.
It never stopped. I haven't been able to hold him without getting a half-dime sized piece of flesh torn off me (if he'll even step up at all without latching on) and I haven't been able to give him head scratches AT ALL. He bites when I open or close the cage. He bites when I'm feeding or refreshing water. He bites for literally everything. Always clamping, chewing, head shaking bites.
He has never been yelled at, struck, or in any other way physically punished. I'd been recommended to ignore him or put him back in his cage. Neither of which have helped at all (and ignoring your hand or arm being mutilated isn't really easy, appealing, or healthy).
He also humps one of his toys (never plays, just humps it). Generally I wouldn't have a problem with it, but it's every day for months, if not over a year now. Sometimes multiple times a day. I know it's a normal behavior, but it's borderline incessant and cannot be mentally or physically healthy at this point. If I were to remove the toy, he would just pick another. I can't have him in a basically empty cage... I can't really put anything around the room aside from perches since I rent. (Don't know where I should include this, but I have tried rearranging his cage as I've seen suggested on multiple sites)
Time exposed to daylight/light in general doesn't seem to make any difference either.
He is friends with my male budgies and they get supervised time. He has never tried to go after them and shows absolutely no signs of aggression towards them. The female budgies, however, get their own independent time out of their cage because he WILL bite them. They all get equal amounts of outside time.
He is due for a wellness check soon and I'll be trying to get in to a new avian vet further away since I left the last one due to a really nasty receptionist.
I'm just at an utter loss for where to go from here, to be honest. I don't know what the heck happened to flip this switch. I love him so much, but he did a total 180 and has been this way literally every day for the past almost two years.
I got my GCC, Connor, in 2018 and he's 5 now. He was very sweet and cuddly for the first few years, and I expected some change as he matured, but it's been night and day.
Some general info:
He sleeps in a Prevue F040 and gets multiple hours, if not entire days when possible, of outside time.
He's on a diet of pellets with fresh food and seed treats.
He has multiple toys in his cage (but plays with none pfff).
So about two years ago, he became a biter. Suddenly he just wanted to clamp down, chew, shake his head, and rip out small chunks of me. Previously there had been the OCCASIONAL nip or exploratory bite, but that was it. During a routine vet visit, they said it was probably just hormones since nothing else has changed and he was otherwise given a clean bill of health. When it wasn't getting better, they started him on Lupron to see if that would help and... it didn't do anything.
It never stopped. I haven't been able to hold him without getting a half-dime sized piece of flesh torn off me (if he'll even step up at all without latching on) and I haven't been able to give him head scratches AT ALL. He bites when I open or close the cage. He bites when I'm feeding or refreshing water. He bites for literally everything. Always clamping, chewing, head shaking bites.
He has never been yelled at, struck, or in any other way physically punished. I'd been recommended to ignore him or put him back in his cage. Neither of which have helped at all (and ignoring your hand or arm being mutilated isn't really easy, appealing, or healthy).
He also humps one of his toys (never plays, just humps it). Generally I wouldn't have a problem with it, but it's every day for months, if not over a year now. Sometimes multiple times a day. I know it's a normal behavior, but it's borderline incessant and cannot be mentally or physically healthy at this point. If I were to remove the toy, he would just pick another. I can't have him in a basically empty cage... I can't really put anything around the room aside from perches since I rent. (Don't know where I should include this, but I have tried rearranging his cage as I've seen suggested on multiple sites)
Time exposed to daylight/light in general doesn't seem to make any difference either.
He is friends with my male budgies and they get supervised time. He has never tried to go after them and shows absolutely no signs of aggression towards them. The female budgies, however, get their own independent time out of their cage because he WILL bite them. They all get equal amounts of outside time.
He is due for a wellness check soon and I'll be trying to get in to a new avian vet further away since I left the last one due to a really nasty receptionist.
I'm just at an utter loss for where to go from here, to be honest. I don't know what the heck happened to flip this switch. I love him so much, but he did a total 180 and has been this way literally every day for the past almost two years.