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Cage Aggression

Tabracadabra

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I’m looking for tips on how to deal with cage aggression with an untame bird. Izi, my female parrotlet, has started landing on my hand and biting hard enough to draw blood whenever I reach into her cage. I don’t mind that she’s untame; her roomie Popo is untame also. But he just skirts away from me when I have to get in there to clean and whatnot.

I’ve got to get in there several times a day, is wearing gloves my only option? It all seems so stressful for Izi. She chatters and shrieks, and runs around. This morning she ran up my arm and made a solid attempt at my eye.

I never chase her or give her negative feedback of any kind, what can I do to make this less stressful for her and less dangerous for me?
 

Mizzely

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For my untame quaker I opened the cage and let him come out before I went into the cage. I never reached in when he was in there. It also helps a LOT to have a cage with food doors.

Gloves scared him more.

Why do you have to be in the cage several times a day?
 

Tabracadabra

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Ah, I should have mentioned in the first post, neither of them will leave the cage, even in a closed room with no one else in it. I’ve neen trying to tempt them out with millet and seeds, they will not cross the cage door. It’s open all day, sometimes all night too.

I go to change their bathwater and put down their veggies (which they ignore too) and change the papers in the cage. I keep them on top of the grate, so I can’t just slide the tray out.

I could do it all in one pass, I had read somewhere on the forum that it was better not to let them go too long without contact, so I pop into the room to talk to them and fuss with their paper towels a few times a day.

I could just reduce it to bare caretaking and accept that Izi will never view me as anything but a threat that she’s lucky to survive everyday. It just seems so stressful and awful for her.
 
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JLcribber

@cockatoojohn
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Ah, I should have mentioned in the first post, neither of them will leave the cage, even in a closed room with no one else in it. I’ve neen trying to tempt them out with millet and seeds, they will not cross the cage door. It’s open all day, sometimes all night too.
Then you haven't waited long enough. If they wanted to come out they would. Right now they choose not to.

How long have you had the birds? What have you got set up outside the cage that would be worth leaving for? (Play area/enrichment) if they are not tame "you" are not a reward (yet). Anything you do would be perceived as a threat.
 

Gribouille

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My parrotlet is tame but he gets overexcited when I touch newspaper. So removing it from the bottom of a cage and laying a new shirt nearly has to be done with earprotection if I don't want to turn deaf. He jumps on my shoulder or hand and wants to "help", he goes crazy...

I don't change the newspaper in his cage every day because he never goes on the bottom, and his cage is actually a large roden cage so it doesn't have a tray. I have to lift the upper part of the cage to access the bottom, and if he is in his cage he stays in while the upper part is on the floor and I access the bottom part. That could be a solution for you.

I also hang apple/salat/etc bites on the inside of the cage walls, attaching them with small hair claws (you can also find those attaching orchidea)

upload_2018-10-13_23-41-13.jpeg .

Even tame, my parrotlet tries to attack me when I attach them inside. I use the fruit bite as a shield, he bites in there, I push him away, attach it and remove my hand.
 
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