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Can anyone please tell me what is happening to my Kokkewiet.

He bites me every chance he gets, I cannot even put my hand in his cage then he wants to bite me. Every time I go near him and I want him to step up then he wants to bite me.
His flight feathers are starting to grow back, can that be the problem?

If I call him, he responds and still gets excited when he sees me, but the minute I want to play with him, he bites me. He never did it before....WHAT'S GOING ON!!!????????!!!!!!!

This is how I feel.

Sounds like a mixture of two problems what would make your bird act this way:

1. He is moulting and they tend to be moody then.

And

2. Didnt you recently have to leave him for a short time?

I would contribute it more to the moulting and do alot of research on 'bluffing' using the SEACH feature above.

Hope you are taking those bites and not pulling back. Each time you pull back it reinforces the behavior of lunging/biting.

Ditto Mik...sounds like your typical bluffing and moulting case...it gets better!

Dani

Thanks you guys.
When Kokkewiet bites, I try to be strong and keep my finger there and when he sees I don't move he runs away.

I kind of thought maybe it can be bluffing and moulting but I didn't think it would be so BAD. It's like I have another bird in my house.

Will the tameness return?

I WANT MY KOKKEWIET BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

It depends on you...how long you let him do this for. You have to establish a pecking order and until that happens he's gonna keep testing his place. Even when you do from time to time he will try to see if he can get higher...fids are strange creatures...

Note on the bites...when he bites HARD push into him...do not pull away. If you push back this causes him to loose grip and release...best advice I ever got...been around the bigger birds and it works everytime

Dani

Dani03 wrote:It depends on you...how long you let him do this for. You have to establish a pecking order and until that happens he's gonna keep testing his place. Even when you do from time to time he will try to see if he can get higher...fids are strange creatures...

Note on the bites...when he bites HARD push into him...do not pull away. If you push back this causes him to loose grip and release...best advice I ever got...been around the bigger birds and it works everytime

Dani

*nods in agreement*

I would just like to ask; how can I not pull back when he bites so HARD .
This morning when I wanted to fill his food bowl he bit me so hard on my finger, he actually took my finger with his foot and held it (like he will hold a peanut or something) and bit me. IT WAS SO SORE, ACTUALLY WANTED TO CRY and then when he finally released me, he then bit me on my arm, and again he held it and did not release. There is actually a blood mark.

And after that, when I closed the cage door, he was so moody, he lunged at me the whole time, even though he was in his cage.

I feel like giving up on Kokkewiet. I tried so hard to tame him and he is/was as tame as a baby but now he is a vicious bird who I hate sometimes. I don't know him like this. He still talks and is still a chatterbox but when I go near him he just wants to bite. It's like, he doesn't know me.

Must I still try to play with him when he is like this or must I just leave him alone. I am so discouraged. I don't know anymore......

PLEASE HELP.........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pulling away is the first instinct you have but you must forget to do that! Pulling away makes if hurt more! Push into the bite...the bird will be forced to loosen the grip or fall backwards. Push into him not away...I promise once you learn do to this it will get better

Dani

Unfortunately you're just reinforcing negative behaviour for your bird. Unless you stop pulling away, you're going to have problems. One thing to try, is to offer the back of your closed fist to your bird, she won't be able to get a grip so will get frustrated and quit biting. If she continues to try and bite your finger, when she grips your finger use your thumb to hook around and hold her beak shut; she'll begin to associate biting with getting stuck, which she won't like.

I'm lazy, so if Sunni decides to bite me she gets ruffled up, because I grab her and rough her around a little and spread her wings out etc, she very rarely bites now because of this.

Nila hates for me to touch his wings. I've tried over and over but nothing helps. He goes into this trance and wants me to scratch his neck and head and he squats down and chirps and pins his eyes and then I can scratch him under his wings but I cannot extend them. If I try he immediately comes out of it and bites at me. If I try to touch his belly or chest or under his wings when he's on my hand or just hanging out with me, not in that little trance thing, he tries to bite me. I've tried using the sun flower seeds as a treat to distract him but he won't have it. He'll ignore the seed and bite at me and try to get away from me.
Any suggestions?

Sue and Nila

Hi Sue/Nila
The only time I can comfortably spread Sunni's wings (one at a time) is if I'm holding her in my hands. She's normally too distracted looking this way and that or trying to get a nibble on my fingers to focus much on herself so I just use one hand to gently extend the wing and hold it for about 10 seconds (it's a long 10 seconds ). Then I'll swap hands and do her other wing. Sometimes she squawks indignation, mostly she doesn't mind. Helped a lot with having her wings clipped as she accepted her wings being extended. Does Nila extend her wings in the shower? You could shower with her and wait until she extends in a trance, and then put your hand over her wing as if you were extending it yourself. If she realises that you're not hurting her in this position, she'll be more likely to accept in future. That's how I "tricked" Sunni into enjoying scratches (still working on it though).

Hang in there -- it might be molting. PeeGee gets real crabby when she molts. Evil, in fact. If she tries to bite me, I have her step up onto a perch and I put her back in her cage for a "time out".

Peegee is a beautiful queen, and you're right moulting makes it
so much worse.

Since Nila stopped losing feathers he's a lot sweeter again. And the floor is a lot cleaner again.

I will try extending the wings in the shower. See how that goes. Thanks for the tip.

Sue and Nila (who would like to be the king but he's to young and will be the prince for another year or two.)