Did your IRN bluff?

[InTheAir]

Hey guys,

I missed out on that bluffing stage, I guess Nele was too lazy or something. I'm interested in contributing factors though.
Would you please answer my survey, pretty please?

1) male or female
2) did s/he have a noticeable bluffing stage
3) flighted or clipped
4) handraised or parent raised
5) current age of bird
6) age of bird when you got it

Anything else you want to add.

Mine is Nele:
1) dna sexed male
2) no
3) flighted since fledging
4) handraised
5) about 10 months old
6) 3 months
Spends upwards of 10 minutes a day trick training using positive reinforcement.


Regards,
Claire

[Skyes_crew]

Ill get you started Claire

Hamlet
1. DNA'd Male
2. No bluffing stage ( must be lazy too lol )
3. Flighted never clipped
4. Parent raised
5. 5 months
6. 3 months

Hamlet is super laid back. Never bites. Totally trusting. Well socialized. Will sit on anyone, male or female, adult or child. Learns quickly. He is flight recall trained, working hard on target training without a clicker, and knows a handful of tricks. Will begin working on flighted tricks within the next three months.

Skye
1. DNA'd Male
2. None that I know of
3. Clipped when I got him. Fully flighted now
4. Hand raised
5. 15 months
6. 10 months

Skye is too smart for his own good, but lacks the confidence that hamlet has. He's more timid, and spooks easier. He was not socialized well as a baby which is evident by his inability to go to anyone but females, and more preferably just me. Previous owner said reason for giving up was because he was nipping a lot, but I have not witnessed this behavior at all.

[jmlw7]

I'll add what we think so far even though we've only had Remy since April of this year

1) female (we think as we are assuming this on the female mating stance when we pet her)
2) yes - she bit us every time we tried getting her to step up for about 2-3 weeks after we first got her. but it could have been fear
3) clipped when we got her, but almost fully flighted now
4) no idea
5) 10 months
6) 8 months

Now Remy very rarely bites. She is gentle and still super hyper and attention demanding, but communicates by pushing our finger away gently with her beak or ducks out of the way when she doesnt want to step up or is tired or grumpy. Granted, her biting stage happened when we first got her but the pet store mentioned "lately the bird has gotten very nippy", so we think we got her in the middle of the bluffing stage. Which kind of worked in our favor, as even though she drew blood on our fingers over and over again (it was very very difficult for us the first 2 weeks) she was testing us as new owners and we were training her as a new pet, so we expected the pain and I think she got the idea. We had done a lot of research on bluffing when we got her also. We have pushed into her beak when she bit so many times that she recognized it was probably not effective to bite us. Things may change after mating season, we'll see.

[InTheAir]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Skye and jml!

#bump#

[Skyes_crew]

YW Claire

I can't believe more people haven't responded

[SunniDai]

Sunni:
1. DNA sexed female
2. not really. She is, however, just a year old. Doesn't the bluffing stage usually happen in the first year, though? Do any of these birds ever do anything according to the "regular" stage? lol
3. becoming flighted and we are both loving it
4. handraised
5. she's just a year old
6. got her when she was three weeks old

Oscar:
1. male
2. don't know. only had them six months
3. flighted. he had a horrible clip job from before, but they are growing out nicely
4. don't know.
5. close as we can tell, he is somewhere between two and three. his ring is coming in, but it's not fully there yet.
6. got him six months ago

Luna:
1. female
2. again, don't know...only had them six months
3. her horrible clip job from before is growing out, but she isn't completely comfortable flying yet. we are hoping
4. don't know
5. somewhere between two and three years old
6. got her six months ago

Not had any noticeable bluffing, but one thing I have discovered: nothing goes the way it's "planned" and they have their own ideas of how things go. I'm okay with that!
Dana

[InTheAir]

Thanks sunny dai.

*bump*
Hmmm.... so irns bite when they are not being understood by humans?
Has anyone had a buffing stage from their bird they could tell us about?

[ellieelectrons]

Janey
1) female
2) yes
3) clipped (at the time, now fully flighted)
4) handraised
5) almost 5
6) 6 weeks

Charlie
1) male
2) not that I'm aware of
3) clipped (at the time)
4) handraised
5) almost 4
6) 3 months (approx)

When Janey first bluffed, I came out into the kitchen where I had placed her play gym on the kitchen bench and I approached the gym (which I think was quite a typical morning for us). Janey ran up to me really quickly and lunged at me with a bit of a hiss. I was really shocked, she'd never done anything like that before. It was a while ago so I can't remember everything that happened exactly. I felt that it was probably her transition from baby to adult. I probably didn't know as much as I should about IRNs at the time and it was a long time ago now, so I can't really remember it very well.

I have worked with other young IRNs that will bite quite hard but it is definitely just exploratory biting and I wouldn't personally class it as bluffing although it can hurt because they're still figuring out what beak pressure is appropriate.

Ellie.

[InTheAir]

Thanks Ellie.

[jmlw7]

Hmmm.... so irns bite when they are not being understood by humans?
Has anyone had a buffing stage from their bird they could tell us about?

In my short experience with Remy of only a few months, I think that IRN's bite when they are hormonal, scared, grumpy and/or feeling trapped (i.e., wings clipped) - which she had all of those things at the 8 month mark, and molting and coming into breeding season. I also definitely feel like this is a female thing - I havent read many stories about males bluffing.

She is definitely not shy and barely skittish - she was more aggressive and not like the birds who flap around the cage when scared. She was a lunger and a biter. When we first got her, she was sweet and then overnight when we were taming her to step up, she would draw blood every time. When we would transport her - gym or plant to her cage for bedtime, she would draw blood. Every time we tried to feed her, she would draw blood. Over and over - we had to use a dowel perch almost exclusively for bedtime. After a while - and I know many would disagree with me - we showed her she had no choice and would always put our hands in her face, around her, touching her, etc no matter how hard she bit or disliked it. We truly gave her no choice and we kind of felt bad we were forcing the issue but we didnt care, it was getting way too painful. She learned that biting didnt really do anything and eventually stopped. She learned to trust our hands very quickly. She hasnt bit since she began to fly either. I think that had a lot to do with it.

I probably wouldnt have changed anything though - I would have trained her with wings clipped no matter how hard she bit, because it really gave her no choice but to "deal" with our hands. As she became more tame, the flying started and we are ok now. Now she cant bear to be separated from us

[solobaby]

Solo
1) male
2) bluffing stage noticed but not that bad
3) lightly clipped but still flys
4) handraised
5) 2years and 11 months
6) 9 weeks

[InTheAir]

Jmlw: I've been thinking about that sort of thing for a while. We are lucky that Nila is easy going. We have a very firm idea of what we could accept from him behaviour wise and he's never pushed it. I don't know how we would address it if he did, but so far, he is content to stick within the unwritten rules.
There are times when we just expect him to put up with stuff like being grabbed and held, like when our last flatmate would leave the door open, and it's not a big issue.. He doesn't look super happy about it though.
I think it's important to be able to grab a pet in emergency, I do grab him occasionally and ply him with sunflower seeds just for training. I don't remember to train it much though. Usually he only gets grabbed because it is necessary and isn't rewarded for it.
I wonder if things like this have much bearing on his general behaviour and attitude. ..

[ltillery33]

1)not sure if a boy or girl- only 5 months old
2)going through extreme bluffing or being scared ( just got our baby a week ago) was told my breeder that he/she is going through the bluffing stage. hmm.
3) clipped at the moment, but will be allowed to be full flighted (breeder did this before picking up our IRN)
4)handraised
5)5 months
6)5 months

I knew about the bluffing stage, did lots of research on owning an IRN for about 2 years now before taking the plunge and getting a baby of my own. But with me having Rheumatoid arthritis, my hands are screaming at me from getting bit. I do not force bullet out of the cage though, and our baby has a nice sized cage with a play stand on top. I do hold our baby daily and talk to him/her. Bullet makes very quiet little chirps, until he/she hears our other birds (GCC and budgie) and then screams, but still not as loud as our GCC. lol. Just ready for this stage to be over with, but being patient at the same time.