Bluffing, Baby, or ?

[tbjones]

Hi All,

I have a 4 month old Gray IRN Named Zuul, I've had him for a little over a month now and I love him lots. However he is going through a stage where he is chewing everything in sight!

I'm home during the day and his cage is next to my desk, if I'm home and awake he is aloud out of his cage(it opens at the top and front) he loves climbing down to my desk and has kinda made his own little area on the end where he sits and brings things he likes to chew.

He will also happily chew my hand if I put it out to pick him up or ear when on my shoulder, I don't think its biting persay cause its never drawn blood but it does hurt at times, but I just ignore it cause he just seems to want to chew everything.

The problem is I've had to start hiding things from him and removing things from his reach, he chewed up my mouse pretty badly one time when I left the room, so much so I have to put it in a draw if I leave the room now.

He has also REALLY taken to a pair of apple ipod earphones, completely chewing them up and if I touch them he gets very annoyed.

Its not overly a big issue, just wondering if this is normal as he is the first bird I've had.

[ellieelectrons]

My husband has had to replace his iPhone headset several times! They love chewing them! You will have to keep things out of reach. Do you have a gym area which is his space? so that he is less likely to invade yours? You need to make it more attractive than your desk. Also, mine love chewing wooden blocks. You can either buy some or make some (out of birdie safe wood) and see if he likes them. You will need to experiment with different sizes. I also get some things that I know they like chewing and give them their own to play with (eg. I took the insides out of an old pen and let them play with it. I bought some pen grips from the newsagency for them to play with.) - you still have to watch them around your things though... it's kinda like childproofing a house. Oh, and I don't leave them unsupervised with a pen or pen grips because I need to watch that they're not swallowing any of the bits.

Regarding the biting of you, I think it's ok to let him know that you don't like it but you don't want to go crazy about it... a firm "no" or a slight wobble of your arm to put him off balance a little should be ok. If you start yelling and screaming at your bird, then you're right, they might start doing this to you to provoke this response.

Hope that helps.

Ellie.

[taywer321]

Just wondering, what age does "bluffing" usually happen?? My boy is 10 months old today and has never shown any aggression toward me or anyone else for that matter. But he has been showing a lot of aggression toward his toys! The toys he used to love holding in his feet and chewing and shaking around he now pins and bites at them, making a grunting noise and then throwing them to the floor. When I try to give his foot toys back, he does the same thing, attacking them fiercely and throwing them to the ground. He only does this to his toys and it just started a week or two ago.. Has anyone had their bird do this before too?? He's an odd one... Haha

[ellieelectrons]

Mine display the "getting angry at toys" behaviour and the grunting too. I'm not sure when bluffing is generally expected to start.

Ellie.

[tbjones]

Thanks Ellie, I've got one of the playset type things on order for him, but atm my desk is kinda his desk as well, I don't mind the company I guess.

Certain things I don't mind him chewing like I've given him a pen which he loves but yes I've had to setup a border on my desk and keep my mouse away from him, he gets really crabby if he trys to chew it and I move it, maybe I gave him too much freedom =/

I'll start setting better rules for him, normally he is happy he eats out of my hand and comes down to the table when we eat wanting some(my gf doesn't overly like that either, but I see it as a sign of affection that he wants to eat with us).