Unusually Nippy Quaker

Question
I have a quaker parrot (almost 10 months old) who loves me dearly, but in the past month, has become vicious and malicous towards other family members. I don't know it's gender, but its really threatened when anyone else but me goes near.I thought maybe it's a male and thinks I'm its mate (protective) but it even HATES my twin sister, who looks just like me.Its a very bad habit, do you have an idea how to solve it or what's causing it? Thanks so much.

Answer
Hello Olivia,

At this age your bird is going through his teenage phase. Now you are experiencing adult behaviors. If you are giving him signals that you are a mated pair then you are telling him to be aggressive to all other of the flock. And he is certainly smart enough to know the different between you and your sister.

You want to address this from a couple of angles. One, change your relationship to one of flock mate. Next is to include training sessions as part of his basic care. Also understand that parrots are wild animals. They shouldn't be expected to be friendly to those outside the flock, as they would not be in the wild either. Below I include a link to a past answer where I discuss training. Anyone who wants to have a trusting relationship with your bird needs to go through these training exercises and work to establish that relationship.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Birds-General-2349/Biting-3.htm

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Parrots-1638/Biting-plucking-1.htm

Jennifer
www.feathersandscales.com