I’ve owned my female black headed caique Rosie, for about 5 years now. She is a rehome parrot, and has always been a little ‘special’. Her former owners raised her like a human child instead of a bird, so as a result she still doesn’t quiet understand that humans aren’t her at her beck and call 24/7. Despite her rotisserie chicken look, she is very outgoing – loves to dance, sing, and interact with people.
However, she is typical caique with the whole split personality thing. I swear, one day she is super cute and snuggly, the next her eyes are pinning, and she wants to kill me. Or anyone near her cage. Or anyone in the house. God forbid someone tries to be nice and win her over with a treat. She’ll snap the food out of your hand, throw it on the ground, and then hang on to the cage, reaching both her little feet out through the bars to try and grab you. When she has your finger, she tries to pull it back into her lair, so that she can satisfy her craving for human flesh. However, the elevator doesn’t go quite to the top, and she fails to realize that no person is going to be stupid enough to let their finger be ravaged on by a savage parrot. So in the birdie tug of war, the human always wins.
A pissed off caique is a scary thing. The feathers on the back of their nape raise, they puff themselves up and hold their wings slightly away from their body to make themselves look bigger, and walk with a slow, steady swagger. I call it the ‘march of death’. Like amazons, caiques will fan their tails out – but only when seriously pissed. On top of all this, their eyes will dilate, so all you see is a little black dot in the middle of blood red eyes. It’s extremely creepy.
I’ve witnessed more then one event of a ‘caique gone rouge’. One memorable incident is when a particularly evil caique was running around, hopping like a crazed kangaroo on the floor, screaming ‘WHAAAAAAAA’ and threatening everyone’s feet. It was like there was a mouse in the house – everyone was up on a chair telling each other “No, you go first, you try and catch it”, fearing for their limbs.
For the past 3 weeks, I’ve been unable to get Rosie out of her cage without toweling her. She must be in Mr. Hyde mode (as we so loving refer to her drastic personality changes), because every time she sees someone, she lets out this evil laugh, her eyes dilate, and she stalks the length of the cage, trying to lure you in with sweet little words of ‘cmere, cmere’. Of course, if you venture closer, she lunges at the cage and attempts to reach whatever bit of you she can.
Anyone know of an anti-evil caique potion? Maybe some ‘on/off’ switch for the multiple personalities?
You might also like
6 Comments
I have 3 caiques (2 BH and one WB) and one of BHCs is almost like this (I’ve never had to use a towel on her, though). I’ve had her since she was 9 months old (she’s almost 7 years old now). She’ll stalk across my desk, wings lifted, eyes pinned, charging like a little tiger at the last minute, and if I don’t move my hand, bite me for blood; the next minute she’s rolling over and play-wrestling with the same hand like it’s her favorite toy. She’s also a notorious biter of bare feet (mine). She dominates the other two caiques like she’s queen of the household, even though she’s a little bit smaller than they are. She’ll chase them around like she wants to kill them one minute and be snuggly-lovey-dovey the next.
Caiques are clowns, but they can be evil clowns. 😛
Haha, your caique sounds a lot like my Rosie. Sometimes when she is in this mood, I can gently towel her, and scratch her head, and she will make all her cute happy noises and her eyes will return to normal. I’ll let her out of the towel and she’ll be distracted for awhile, preening and playing. Then all of a sudden its like something remind her ‘oh, right, I’m supposed to hate you today’ and she snaps and reverts back to her evil self. Upon which I must towel her and pop her back in her cage, unless I want my hands a bloody mess.
I also have a BHC that i rehomed that loves me but over the past few years behaves like this towards my boyfriend, its such a shame as he hardly comes out his cage now as they can do suprising amounts of damsgae with such a small beak! I also have who a female that’s nothing but loving towards everyone and the male also turned on her so i have had to seperate them. Would love to know a cure for this naughty behaviour
LOL
This is an old post, but so fun to read.
I recognize it all and you will found out yourselfby now that there is no antidote for these little two-faces 🙂
And yet … they are so irresistibly sweet (at times).
Our almost 2 year old male WHC is going through this now! He was adopted by us 5 months ago and a two day vacay turned him into Dr. Evil—especially toward my hubs. I can handle him most days, but he’s still not relenting with my husband. I love the little bugger, but I can’t say I would recommend this breed! Their beaks can tear you up.
Our almost 2 year old male WBC is going through this now! He was adopted by us 5 months ago and a two day vacay turned him into Dr. Evil—especially toward my hubs. I can handle him most days, but he’s still not relenting with my husband. I love the little bugger, but I can’t say I would recommend this breed! Their beaks can tear you up.