Maybe I really am screwing up with Scooter -- bad morning

I got a new behavior out of the little guy I never want to see again. Perhaps it was some sort of misunderstanding and I hopefully handled it OK, but this is just not acceptable behavior and I don't understand it.

He stepped out of his cage very nicely for me and was being really pretty good. Lately, whenever I'm handling him, I try to run my hands down his wings, because he's gotten really stinky about letting me examine them, especially the right one, and I thought a little desensitization wouldn't hurt. That went sort of okay, and they he was begging for some more scritches. I was just thinking of putting him back in the cage and giving him fresh dry mix, when he hopped over to my shirt and climbed to the neckline. I thought he was going to either snuggle there or climb up to my head, both of which are behaviors he has done in the past but not recently. Instead, when I looked down and began to speak to him, he reached up and bit my lip. Hard. It seemed like a deliberate and aggressive act.

So I got him loosed, made him stay on my hand while I stopped the bleeding with the other one, and set him down on my knee for a while. He continued to be cranky and nippy, so I put him back in the cage and went and serviced Scotty's cage, fed Scotty, washed the blood off my face. Came back, took him out again. He again stepped up politely. He was not as sweet as he had been earlier, but he also didn't become a land shark. After a bit he indicated in a polite way that he wanted to go back, so I put him back and fed him.

Not happy.

I don't think it's you, but rather a Green Cheek thing. Cheney Bird has done this exact thing multiple times. I generally notice that he does this if he's particularly grumpy or has excessive energy that he can't channel. He also does it if I let him out of the cage too soon after I uncover the cages in the morning.

I can't say I handle the situation well. I know I don't, but my reaction must've been so jarring for him because he's all but stopped (knock on wood!). I generally need to shake him off of my face to get him to release his beak from my lip. Then I pick him up with a blanket or towel closest to me and put him back in the cage while I wonder how I got such a devil bird. I let him cool down for a couple of hours and he's fine when I let him back out, even wanting to be scritched.

When I got him, I was told that he did bite lips if you tried to kiss him. I wasn't told about spontaneous lunging for lips, so I'm not sure if it's something that he's done before. However, I have noticed I'm always talking or smiling/laughing when he does this.

Wow, I never would have pegged it as a species tendency. It did occur to me that he might have been meaning to climb. He's never done that before, the only time he's bitten anything but a finger in the past was when I tried to do the kiss thing when he was mad/agitated after I'd been away several days.

On the positive side, it's not a very bad lip bite, I can't really tell it's there now. And he was quite sweet the remainder of the morning.

This is not turning out to be my week.

If it's not a species thing, maybe Scooter and Cheney are long lost brothers. The bites never last long, but that area is so sensitive that it hurts terribly when they do it. And with Cheney, it's never because he wants to climb. It's because he wants to be a jerk or he's mad at something. He gets that crazy bird look in his eyes right before he's going to do it.

Off Topic, but I have to say.. I love how pictures of people with GCC's often have them on their heads! LOL!

VickiNumbers wrote:

Off Topic, but I have to say.. I love how pictures of people with GCC's often have them on their heads! LOL!

Even more off topic, I had all FOUR birds on my head.

the first day i got mikko she wanted to be on my head lol

im sorry that he bit you! i hope he doesnt do it again he probably woke up on the wrong side of the perch. my birdy has a tendancy for misplaced aggression maybe there was something bothering him?