Galah attacking me

[petra]

I have a pair of 14 month old galahs who I put into an aviary about 6 weeks ago. Over the past couple of weeks the hand raised female, who has been pretty good until now, has started becoming aggressive towards me. All I have to do is walk up to the aviary, and she starts raising all her feathers and eyeballing me. The moment I open the door she's hurrying to get to me. It used to be so she could say hello, now it's so she can hurt me.

The first day she had a go at me it was my face and hands that copped it, and since I started keeping my face turned away from her she's been biting any part of me that she can get to. The back of my neck, arms, hands, ears ... if she can't grab bare skin she'll bite me through my clothes. I'm at the point of having to wear a jumper, gardening gloves and a towel over my head just to feed them without getting savaged. The (parent raised, hand tame) male is not aggressive at all. They've been together since the age of 6 months and seem pretty happy together.

Can someone please tell me, why is she doing this and is she likely to stop? 

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[joiner]

Hi Petra
I can't answer your questions definitively, but can only offer a few guesses based on my fairly limited experience.

We have a male galah aged now about 2 and a half years. He has done a similar thing to my son (6 years old) and I reckon it was a dominance thing. We just rode it out. I made my son wear sunglasses whenever he was near Phoenix (the galah) because he kind of aimed for the face. And i made my son try and ignore him. Things settled down after a month or so, and now they are fine together. Then there was a patch of a bout a week when he started the same behaviour with my daughter. She's 10 and quite close to Phoenix, so it was traumatic for her. I made her back off in terms of play, because I noticed that the play was getting him excited and aggressive. It worked.

Ive been most closely bonded to Phoenix, and we have good trust. But ... I've had a few times when I've been going into his cage with food and he has jumped on my back and bitten me, or run after my shoes biting. ZIt's only ever wihen I have his food bowls in hand. My answer has been to distract him with a few sunflower seeds while I put the bowls into place. If he tries to bite I take themback outside and let him spend 15 minutes alone.

As i said, I think it's a dominance/territorial thing. Galahs, like dogs, have a pecking order and I reckon your girl might be trying to put herself a rung or two above you.

Is the cage taller than you? And do you let her sit on your shoulder?

I have read that the dominant galah's sit on the highest branches while the lesser ones get the lower positions. If you let her perch above you whe feels dominant: worth thinking about.
I hope this helps.
Cheers
Tony