Macaw Bite?

[Sparkles!]

Dogma starts where reason and understanding ends. I am the recipient of the some of the unprovoked attacks that redindiaink was speaking about. Generic statements like yours serves no one and most certainly they don't serve the well being of the bird in question.

Dogma, absolutes, point form presentation, all to impress us with the volume of your understanding. Dogma begins where intellect and reason ends.
"They always blame the bird", that statement in and of itself is worthy of challenge and ridicule. Most people that care enough to be here to ask about their bird biting them are frightened, sad, and seeking understanding that will lead to a resolution of their circumstance.
Formulaic vomit on a page that is placed there to fulfill the author's need for self-aggrandizement doesn't help birds or bird owners that are struggling with behaviour that seems beyond their influence. If your intent in your preceeding two post was to educate and enlighten then you failed miserably. You simply, by ignorance or convenience, left out genetic components amongst other unobservable influencers of bird behaviour.
People like you that post commentary so that you appear knowledgeable serve no one but yourselves.

Firstly, rude. Shame on you. It’s one thing to simply say “That’s your opinion. Here’s mine...” Your post... yeah. I’ll stick to saying I think it’s rude.

Secondly, many of us- although not all by any stretch of the matter- have dealt very frequently with those “frightened and sad” bird owners you referenced in your response. We (using “we” as a broad collective) have try educating, and we get refusal or owners rationalizing their bad behavior towards their birds from those owners. We try science based facts, we get refusal and disbelief. We try to help those poor scared owners, by simply giving them tried and true bird behavior knowledge and you know what? We get refusal from those “sad, scared owners” and push back from them saying it’s unreasonable, the expectations to not allow their bird on their shoulders, etc.

Sometimes it truly is as simple as telling people on here “Quit giving your hand to your bird to bite!” and “If you know the bird doesn’t like your husband, why are you forcing interactions between them?”

I challenge you to extrapolate upon your implied “left out genetic components” comment you mentioned. Macaws are no more genetically appropriated to bite than are any other species.

The beauty of this forum is that there are first time bird owners, seasoned foster/rescue warriors, Veterans (who we won’t ever call old!), and everything in between. And then the species spectrum; canaries in aviaries to the lone M2 to the household filled with a rainbow of Macaws.

One person’s experience may differ from another, but the fact that *your* experience isn’t the same does not degrade theirs. And while you may feel that the member you referred to, or me, or any other member here, has not done our due diligence in respecting where those “Sad, frightened owners” are coming from, does not make the advice given less true.

 

[redindiaink]

Birds are sentient creatures and hormones are very real.

• We create our own expectation for what the relationship with the bird will look like.
• We created the expectation that they behave the same today, as they did yesterday.
• We need to adjust to their changing behaviour.
• We assumed they would behave the same in a new environment as they did in the old.
• We don't realize that proximity equals opportunity.
• We give too much trust too quickly.
• We didn't know a certain person would trigger the bird.
• We decided to allow a bird with an unknown background, with an uncertain state of (non) attachment, on our shoulder.
• We made the decision to return them to their cage when they did something we didn't like.
• We didn't know how to safely stop them from climbing up our leg to get to our shoulder.
• We chose to hold them close enough to our face so they could reach it (twice).
• We expect that if we keep doing the same thing, the bird will eventually give us different results.

The only thing I'm more certain of, is that when people start a thread about their biting bird... they always blame the bird.

Some of this (all of this?) was directed at me. You're so far off base it's laughable. I don't blame Rosie for biting me. My mistake, if there ever was one, was to bring home a bird with a known history of hyper aggressive tendencies thinking I could do what others have failed at. You should talk to the volunteers at Greyhaven, or the former employees and volunteers of the World Parrot Refuge about Rosie.

So point by point.

• I have no expectations of what my relationship to her would look like.
• I have zero expectations here either, but if there isn't some semblance of sameness from day to day I think something is off (are they sick, injured?)
• To certain extent we need to adjust to them yes, but not always.
• I expect a birds behaviour to change based on the environment they're in to suggest otherwise is insulting my intelligence.
• Everyone thought Rosie only liked men. I challenged that assumption very early on well before we ever thought about bringing her home. Every meeting at the shelter we had with her suggested she would be ok with us both. If she had been aggressive at the shelter she wouldn't have come home. There are still people who meet us who believe she loves him and hates me.
• Trust is all we have.
• I returned Rosie that day to the cage because she was becoming over stimulated which leads to her being aggressive.
• I chose to let her up on my shoulder and I don't fault her for biting me. It was my mistake and I own it, but to try and shame me for it? Really? As for the second time she stepped up to my hand (well below my waist) and climbed my arm to attack. Next time I'll shoo her to her cage ...
• I don't do the same thing over and over. That would get us nowhere. I've spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on books, videos and an ethology course trying to understand why my birds are the way they are and how to best address their needs. I'm also painfully aware of my limitations.

The thing I find troubling about behavioural help people ask for and what's given is how some take a few sentences and run with an answer that has little bearing on the actual circumstances. I'm incredibly aware of bias, cultural fog and our inability to actually see what's happening in the moment. Worse, most of us will only ever have an exemplar of one to base our decisions on, and body language cheat sheets only get us so far, if they can get us anywhere at all considering humans suck at interpreting body language. Not to mention they are wild frickken animals imprinted on us that don't sense the world the way we do!

 

[flyzipper]

Some of this (all of this?) was directed at me.

My points weren't directed at anyone in particular, and apologize if they come across that way.

I took comments in the thread (some were obviously yours) and used them as illustrations of some of the many choices we have control over.

"It's your fault", is an over-simplification, but it's still a useful heuristic. To clarify, it's a mindset, not an accusation. Apparently it rubs people the wrong way, so I regret that. I don't mean it's your fault, so you deserve it. It's a recommendation to focus on what you can control (your actions), because that's our only lever in affecting an outcome.

When I say, "we're the adults in the room", so we're responsible, I'm saying we're responsible for the approach that's used in any given circumstance. Again, it's not an accusation that you're responsible for your bird being angry or fearful (as in your case). In other cases, however, people are the problem and responsible for that too. Either way, our choices, day by day, will make things incrementally better, or incrementally worse, over time.

I stand by the observation that people who have a healthy bond with their birds (especially when it's taken time and effort to build), have a very different mindset than the ones who don't.

 

[BrianB]

I jokingly say that getting bit is part of owning a bird. Birds will warn you when it's about to happen, you just have to learn their clues. Of course, a bird can and will change their clues from one minute to the next and it's your job to keep up. In all seriousness, you're probably going to get bit somewhere along the way. It's your job to understand why it happens and how to avoid it the next time. Your reaction means a lot. If you get nipped and jump away yelling and carrying on, the bird is going to do it again because it got a reaction out of you. If you haven't figured it out, macaws are prone to dramatics. If you have a low-key reaction, then it isn't as much fun and they will be less inclined to do it just for a reaction.

Sometimes you'll get bit and it isn't a bite at all. It was the bird using its beak to prevent itself from falling or getting injured. This is the one you really need to learn to identify. My buffons latched onto my ear to prevent himself from falling on the floor. It wasn't a bite, it was self-preservation. While it hurt and drew blood, it wasn't intentional and I knew that. I could have avoided it by wearing a different type of shirt and picking him up with a different arm.

Once you learn why a bite happens, you can avoid it in the future.... provided that you can keep up with the ever-changing and fickle reasons why a bird bites in the first place.