I write this with several bleeding stab wounds throughout my body. I have a just-turned-4 year old lovebird named Bean, and our first two years together, while somewhat troubled due to her behavior with humans that aren't me, were pretty great.
I got her at around 5 months old and she hasn't really been neglected at all. Large cage, toys, free time, harrisons, even managed to spot train the little shizz, was socialized a lot when she was younger however all of that seemed to have gone out the window.
The last two years she's been a ticking time bomb. Due to egg laying and aggression I opted to get her injected with lupron once a month and she hasn't had problems with egg laying anymore, however her aggression is still out of control.
She pulls the dirtiest tricks like leaning her head down for a scritch, getting a scritch for 10-30 seconds, and then piercing my finger with all her force. Today she did just that but then pulled a 1-2 punch by then lunging for my face. I managed to block it with my hand and her beak landed right on my nail, I just held her there to bask in her own mistakes and afterwards wrapped her in a towl and put her in her time out cage.
I wish this were a rare occurrence but she just has insane aggression flare ups everyday. Everyone in my family is terrified of holding her, and the craziest thing is that it just seems to be pure malice sometimes. When she wants something from me she knows to not pull any of this shizz, shes still spot trained, she knows exactly what she has to do to get a reward. However if she's full and see's no benefit in playing along she just goes berserk. She was flighted and indoor recall trained from a young age, however when the behavior problems got really bad I opted to clip her wings to knock her down a peg. It worked for a while but she has since adapted and can somehow still fly straight with all her primaries clipped halfway, just fueled by pure rage. She will actually land on me, crawl underneath my jacket, and bite me on the back or stomach as hard as she can completely unprovoked.
I've also tried dropping lupron to see if that may have been contributing at all but her aggression was just as bad and she was laying eggs.
I spoke to her vet about it and he says she's likely from a long lineage of selectively bred breeding parrots, which leads to insane hormone imbalances and attitude problems. I've never given up on a bird before, my old tiel was a lovely old man and I currently also have a pionus who is a saint, but I'm greatly concerned that her bad habits will rub off on him.
At this point I'm thinking of rehoming her, I'm sure she'll be happier as a breeding parrot... but it's especially sad because on some select days, maybe when the lupron kicks in, I catch glimpses of the little bird that used to fall asleep on her back on my hands, now I'm just honestly terrified of holding her....
Is she beyond being a pet?
Advice/thoughts welcome.
I got her at around 5 months old and she hasn't really been neglected at all. Large cage, toys, free time, harrisons, even managed to spot train the little shizz, was socialized a lot when she was younger however all of that seemed to have gone out the window.
The last two years she's been a ticking time bomb. Due to egg laying and aggression I opted to get her injected with lupron once a month and she hasn't had problems with egg laying anymore, however her aggression is still out of control.
She pulls the dirtiest tricks like leaning her head down for a scritch, getting a scritch for 10-30 seconds, and then piercing my finger with all her force. Today she did just that but then pulled a 1-2 punch by then lunging for my face. I managed to block it with my hand and her beak landed right on my nail, I just held her there to bask in her own mistakes and afterwards wrapped her in a towl and put her in her time out cage.
I wish this were a rare occurrence but she just has insane aggression flare ups everyday. Everyone in my family is terrified of holding her, and the craziest thing is that it just seems to be pure malice sometimes. When she wants something from me she knows to not pull any of this shizz, shes still spot trained, she knows exactly what she has to do to get a reward. However if she's full and see's no benefit in playing along she just goes berserk. She was flighted and indoor recall trained from a young age, however when the behavior problems got really bad I opted to clip her wings to knock her down a peg. It worked for a while but she has since adapted and can somehow still fly straight with all her primaries clipped halfway, just fueled by pure rage. She will actually land on me, crawl underneath my jacket, and bite me on the back or stomach as hard as she can completely unprovoked.
I've also tried dropping lupron to see if that may have been contributing at all but her aggression was just as bad and she was laying eggs.
I spoke to her vet about it and he says she's likely from a long lineage of selectively bred breeding parrots, which leads to insane hormone imbalances and attitude problems. I've never given up on a bird before, my old tiel was a lovely old man and I currently also have a pionus who is a saint, but I'm greatly concerned that her bad habits will rub off on him.
At this point I'm thinking of rehoming her, I'm sure she'll be happier as a breeding parrot... but it's especially sad because on some select days, maybe when the lupron kicks in, I catch glimpses of the little bird that used to fall asleep on her back on my hands, now I'm just honestly terrified of holding her....
Is she beyond being a pet?
Advice/thoughts welcome.