Adopted a four year old male in July. He is fine when he is out, will sit on the sofa arm near me and whistle. The moment my hand goes through the cage door he leans back, flattens his crest, holds his wings away from his body and hisses, and last week he lunged.
I feed him, I clean up after him, and it does feel personal even though I know that is daft. Where do I start with this, and am I making it worse by carrying on reaching in?
Three months is not long for a rehomed tiel and you do not know what hands meant in the last house. If he was ever grabbed or toweled without anything good attached to it, he has already learned what a hand arriving means.
So rebuild it cheaply. Sit near the cage and read aloud or whistle without trying to touch him. Millet through the bars, then from your fingers, then from a flat palm. Approach at his eye level or below, never down from above, which is how every predator he has an instinct about arrives.
@millet_through_bars · 3h ago · 2 replies
You are making it worse, and the mechanism is the useful part. A hiss is a warning, and a warning that gets ignored stops being issued. He will skip it next time and go to the bite, because the hiss did not work and the bite will.
The pattern you described is cage territory rather than dislike of you: sweet outside, defensive the second a hand crosses the door. The cage is the one place that is his. Stop reaching in. Let him come out on his own and do everything else outside it.
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@hand_in_the_cage · 2h ago
I have to get in there to change food and water though. Do I just accept being hissed at for that?
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