So a little background first, my grandparents are the owners of 6 birds; a Hyacinth macaw (named Sapphire), a blue and gold macaw, an African grey, a green conure, a red and green macaw and a double yellow headed Amazon. None of their wings are clipped, so they are able to fly. I decided to spend 3 weeks at their house this summer since all the family is coming out like the good ol' days. I've never been a fan of their birds, but I've also never been scared of them or shown fear.
In the past Sapphire and I got along. She would step up for me, stand on my shoulder and never lunged to bite me. When I arrived and went in to hug my grandma, Sapphire was on her shoulder, and she lunged to bite me. This wasn't a one off thing though it kept happening. I am also the only family member being targeted for no good reason. Sapphire is unique from the others in that she's very spolied and is never on her tree/perch but always on one of my grandparents. I will be sitting on the couch and she will fly over to me then attempt to get a bite in. When she does this I am advised to yell at her and usually she backs off, but this can happen up to 5 times a day or more so it gets old fast.
Today was the worst yet. I was carrying around my 3 year old cousin pretending to give him airplane rides, when Sapphire flew straight at us. She landed for a moment on my cousin before I swatted her away. He was crying, I was shaken up and the bird was put in her cage. I was then scolded for swatting away the bird and my grandma blamed it all on me for showing fear during her past attempts to inflict bodily harm towards me. The bird always gets babied and receives sympathy because she's only a few years old and doesn't know any better blah blah blah etc etc. I asked my grandma what she would do if the bird actually bit me. I was dismissed by her saying that that's a hypothetical scenario, she would never really bite me and also that my grandma is too old to listen to this.
The only punishment she gets is going into her cage for an hour before getting let back out and the cycle essentially repeats. It's getting real old real fast and I'm wondering what can be done to curb her aggressive behavior, since my grandparents don't seem to think it's an issue. One more thing to keep in mind is these birds are out of their cages 24 hours a day 7 days a week, except for Sapphire who sleeps in her cage at night when family visits, and sleeps outside the cage at all other times. These birds are beyond spoiled and I'm at my wit's end. Tempted to let her bite me so that maybe my grandparents take me seriously haha. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/cmmgwo/help_with_overly_aggressive_hyacinth_macaw/
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