Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Where to go from here with my biting atiel?

I just bought a hand fed atiel from a pet store but was bought from their breeder (it is a small mom and pop pet store). She is less than 1 year old. In the store she was friendly and never bit me. Once I brought her home I gave her a day to relax and adjust before handling her. She seemed relaxed with the noise in our house, she likes our dogs, and she cries when we leave the room, all good sighs that she is ready to come out of her cage. But when we try to get her out by hand she screams, bites and tries to get away (sometimes resulting in broken tail feathers). I take her out using a perch without huge problems but she goes straight to my shoulder and nips at any hands that try to coax her down. Even millet won't entice her down. My question is where should I go from here? I am not in a situation where her cage can be open all day due to our dogs. One internet source suggests keeping our hands out of the cage and hand feeding her through the bars until she is ready to sit i our hands and eat, while a pet store says to forcibly remove her from her cage no matter what scene she makes. I don't want her to think coming out of her cage is a punishment like the former would suggest but the latter seems like it would allow her to be cage aggressive. Please let me know what has worked best for you in the past.

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