Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, I have a eight and a half year old cockatiel that is very cage aggresive. During breeding season he is also very aggro out of his cage as well.
I got this bird as a gift when he was a baby from a family member. They bought him from a grocery store and I don't think he was hand fed, esp. considering his attitude.
He is a sweet bird deep inside but he had and still has major aggression issues.
His aggression was managable at first, but as a young bird he had a knack for getting into trouble.
First, his leg band somehow got caught in a toy and in the end the vet had to amputate one of his toes and part of another. Thanks to how they they bandaged it, one of the otherwise good toes is facing the wrong direction as well. After all that trauma he got more aggressive.
Awhile later in life he somehow got into some fly tape (LONG story) and after another traumatic vet visit and after removing a couple good chunks of my fingers, he hit a peak of aggression and after all these years has never really recovered from all of that.
Because of his mutilated foot, he wings are also not clipped and this adds to the dominance aggression I'm sure, but with a bum foot and five ats in the house I can not really clip his wings.
Anyway, over the years I have tried everything in the book to tame and train him and he can be quite the nice little bird out of his cage. In his cage however, he is insane. Whenever anyone gets close he attacks his toys, perches and bars in a huge show of aggression. When anyone tries to get him out he lunges and attacks. He gives no warning bites, but goes straight for blood (and he is usually quite succesful).
I've been told over and over to "just not react" and ignore his biting and that they don't bite hard enough to draw blood. However, I have the scars to prove that wrong. He has bitten me and drawn blood stright through the sleeve of a fairly thick hoodie , in fact.
I've tried training him to come out on a perch, but when I try to get him with one he just panics.
my current method is to put a perch and dishes on the outside of his cage and I keep him out as long as possible, trying to break the bond he has with his cage. but, every morning I get him out I get antoher bite or two.
Any suggestions?

Whenever he is away from the cage he is nice?? If so it sounds more like being cage territorial than aggression from other reasons. I am sure you have already tried but is there anyway to get him to come to you from the cage. Will he fly over to you or climb over to you for a favorite treat or a toy? This would be the first choice of course to work with him. The second choice would be the distraction method. Keep a toy, perch etc handy when getting him out of his cage. When he goes to bite place the toy in front of the beak (don't poke it at him just hold it in front of him) so he has to bite it instead of your hand. Then while he attacks the toy get him to step up onto the other hand, if possible always keeping the toy between your hand and his beak so he will bite it instead. You can use as small of a toy as you want or as large. You can go further with this method even which is called "targeting" when your bird does go to bite the item you are holding give a single word or two word command (in relation to the bite such as target, touch, stick etc) do this everytime you work with him. Eventually he should come to associate the word with the bite and will wait to bite until he hears the word (this can take quite a while) then you can start spacing out the targeting further apart until you either don't use this commmand at all or only seldom when you can see he is feeling more aggressive or nippy.

Also yes I do know a cockatiels bite can hurt and can draw blood. You would think the smaller the bird the less the damage and in some respects that is true as a cockatiel will never do the damage that a macaw can LOL! This does not mean that their bite doesn't hurt or that it won't draw blood but some larger bird owners may feel that it wouldn't be as bad. It just depends on your context. I have had more bites and scars left from lovebirds up to quakers than I ever have from macaws and cockatoos though. I think one of the main things is that little birds are easier to feel threatened and their only defence is a bite, whereas the larger birds can puff out, bob around and lunge without doing any damage and still intimidate their owners (this does not mean their bite isn't serious when it comes because believe me it is

Good luck and let us know if you have already tried targeting or how it goes for you.