Hi all, I came and joined specifically to get some insight into what happened - please let me know if this should be somewhere else.
I have a 4 1/2 yr old male cockatiel, Zima, who is normally a sweet and affectionate boy who loves his scratches and cuddles. For context he has two cages; a large cage filled with toys, food, water and branches that I call his "day cage", and a small travel cage that I call his "sleeping cage". As per the names, he is in his day cage during the day and moves to his sleeping cage at night or when I need to move him. His day cage sits next to a window where a perch hangs on the side where he can sit to watch the day go by. He likes to sleep in the smaller cage and whenever i keep him overnight in the big cage it is almost certain he will have a night fright and I worry he will injure himself.
Today while I was working on the computer, some large birds flew close to the window and understandably frightened Zima to the point of screaming and flying around in a panic. My first thought was to put him in his sleeping cage and cover him with a blanket to help him calm down in a quiet room. After about 10 minutes I go to get him out of the cage, and he starts lunging at the bars and does the typical angry cockatiel screech. I got confused at this because I have only once heard him do this, which is when he broke a blood feather a couple years ago and was in pain. Naturally I worry that he's in pain and let him out, where he then proceeds to fly directly at me while still screeching and starts furiously attacking my hands, ears and hair. Zima managed to get a hold of my neck right behind my ear and took a good chunk out of my neck before I could get him off and back into his big cage. He calmed down after about 30 minutes of being back in his big cage and is back to his normal talkative, cuddly self.
My question is, what happened here that might have caused this sudden change? Did I maybe bring out some hormonal aggression by doing this?
I understand if what I did was the wrong thing to do and I would like to know if there is something better I can do to prevent this from happening again in the future.
I have a 4 1/2 yr old male cockatiel, Zima, who is normally a sweet and affectionate boy who loves his scratches and cuddles. For context he has two cages; a large cage filled with toys, food, water and branches that I call his "day cage", and a small travel cage that I call his "sleeping cage". As per the names, he is in his day cage during the day and moves to his sleeping cage at night or when I need to move him. His day cage sits next to a window where a perch hangs on the side where he can sit to watch the day go by. He likes to sleep in the smaller cage and whenever i keep him overnight in the big cage it is almost certain he will have a night fright and I worry he will injure himself.
Today while I was working on the computer, some large birds flew close to the window and understandably frightened Zima to the point of screaming and flying around in a panic. My first thought was to put him in his sleeping cage and cover him with a blanket to help him calm down in a quiet room. After about 10 minutes I go to get him out of the cage, and he starts lunging at the bars and does the typical angry cockatiel screech. I got confused at this because I have only once heard him do this, which is when he broke a blood feather a couple years ago and was in pain. Naturally I worry that he's in pain and let him out, where he then proceeds to fly directly at me while still screeching and starts furiously attacking my hands, ears and hair. Zima managed to get a hold of my neck right behind my ear and took a good chunk out of my neck before I could get him off and back into his big cage. He calmed down after about 30 minutes of being back in his big cage and is back to his normal talkative, cuddly self.
My question is, what happened here that might have caused this sudden change? Did I maybe bring out some hormonal aggression by doing this?
I understand if what I did was the wrong thing to do and I would like to know if there is something better I can do to prevent this from happening again in the future.