Will he hate me forever?

[Mooka]

Hi everyone, sorry this feels like a repeat question...

I have two green cheeks, one just doesn't like anyone.
He was about a year old when I got him (his previous owner couldn't keep him anymore) he was advertised as 'tame', which seems like a big lie. The person I bought him from said you can pick him up, but only after he was chased around the room and grabbed, to which he'd freeze up (I obviously never let that happen to him again). I've theorised he was probably meant to be an aviary bird and never got much handling when he was young (he was also kept in terrible conditions when I got him, all seed diet, fairly small cage with 3 other birds, one toy to share among them). I'm sure you guys know that a bird coming from that might take a while to warm up to a new owner and shake off that bad experience... but it's been 2 years. He's healthy, he plays with toys now and has a spacious cage and is out of the cage most of the time. But he still just isn't a fan of people, his bites are terrible, I've had some nasty green cheek bites from my other green cheek, but Chai's bites are so different, 10x more painful and scar inflicting. He won't step up unless he wants to, and then usually just tries to attack after he gets on.

It's not fear biting, I've seen that in him and that's just not it, he's not scared of me either, he'll fall asleep on me sometimes and is comfortable with me being around. He's just aggressive, things I did with my other green cheek just don't work the same on him... I trained the biting out of Kiwi (other other one) by giving her beak scratches through her cage bars and would do the whole 'just take the bite' and it worked really well, she never bites anymore. With Chai, his bites are honestly so bad I can't do training like that for very long and I eventually gave up after I wasn't really allowed to have open wounds on my hands when I started doing microbiology labs at uni, doing the beak scratching through cage bars just made him frustrated and more angry...


I don't mind if he doesn't want to touched much, that's fine, but I'd like it if he didn't attack all the time? You can just be writing something down or even resting your hand on the desk and he goes out of his way to come over and attack, now I just try not to leave my hand in his reach when he's in his Mood™
Has anyone got tips on long time aggressive birds like this?

 

[Zara]

 

[macawpower58]

The 'just take the bite' is poor advice IMO.
This (again IMO) just teaches the bird that you are not listening to them.
Not caring, or not understanding what they are saying.
So they bite harder and more often to try to get their message heard.
Biting then becomes a habit and an ingrained response.

Some birds also just do not like handling, except on their terms.
It's hard to know if this is your bird, or if your bird reverted to biting because people missed or ignored the first signs he sent.

This is also a behavior that takes time to resolve. Think a year, not a week or month.
I'd start watching and observing the signs he has before a bite.
Stop doing what you're doing at the very first sign, or even a bit before he shows he's unhappy/upset.

Become hands off for awhile. Teach him you will listen, will learn his language.
If he bites after stepping up, either allow him to remain where he is, or teach him to step up on a perch.
Ask him, don't require him to do it unless it's a safety necessity.

Allow him the choice to interact with you or not.