Well - it's something new with these gliders every day!

DeeDee, my 1 year old girl, has been going very slow with the bonding process (it's been about 3 months now), but we've made some real progress recently. The last few nights she has started to greet me at the cage door and will come out to climb on me.

Whenever I play with the gliders I wear a hoodie with the hood up, mainly because Kirby loves to climb and jump on my head. Two nights ago, DeeDee discovered that she can climb on my head too. When she was on my head, she started to attack the small bit of hair on top of my head that was showing under the hood. I grabbed at my hood to pull it over my hair, but she persisted, still trying to look for it. I had a little hairspray in my hair that night, so I thought maybe she didn't like the smell of that.

Last night, she climbed up to my head and proceeded to attack my hair again. This time, my hair was clean with no product in it. I even had my hair cut earlier that day, so it was washed in a new shampoo, so a totally different smell from the night before.

I know this is definitely not grooming, as I've been groomed many times before. She furiously attacks my hair, making angry noises, similar to those when gliders fight with each other. When I cover my hair, she still tries to hunt for it, searching to try and get under my hood. And Dee is still not bonded to me, so usually any quick movements I make, she will run away and hide in the cage. When I reached for my hood and yanked on it, she was un-phased and still tried to pursue my hair. I even tried to (gently) brush her away, and she still persisted.

Has anyone had this happen before? And any suggestions on how to get her to stop attacking my hair, save for maybe wearing a hat?

She has been such a sweet mild-mannered glider to both myself and my other two, so this weird aggression towards my hair really caught me off guard!

Well I can say I've had something similar to this happen to me.

Falcore is the sweetest of my three and more bonded to me than the others. He went through a phase of attacking my head/hair. One day when I had him out he was climbing on my back and shoulders and decided to go up on my head, as he had done several times before. This time was different, he started gnawing on a spot on the top of my head. I thought he was trying to groom me, he had never groomed me so I though I'd see just what it was like and let him do his work.

Well that didn't last long. It hurt. It felt like he was scraping his teeth into my scalp. I tried to distract him with a toy, give him a treat, move him but every time I did, he would go promptly (he's a slow moseying boy, doesn't go fast much at all) back to my head. Gnaw, chew, get moved, repeat. I put my hoodie up and he still was trying so hard to get at my scalp so I put him back inside his cage.

My hair was the same ole hair it has been since we got him, no new products, hair ties, etc., but he just all of the sudden was captivated by it for some reason. Next time I wore my winter hat and the same thing happened. He just did it through my hat. He didn't want to be anywhere but my head. Gnaw, scratch, chew, get moved, repeat. Ugh. Back to cage.

This went on for a week or two. I'd make sure to wear a hoodie or hat during playtimes. Eventually he lost interest in my head and things went back to normal. Playing and moseying about on me with no concern for my head. Not sure what it was, but I was glad when the little phase ended.

Maybe the same thing is happening to you. Hang in there, keep distracting when it happens and hopefully it ends soon.

Uggh. Well, it does make me feel better that I am not alone!

I am back to my normal state hair-wise tonight, and she still went after my hair. I pulled my hood down over my forehead so she couldn't get at my hair, but she still tried to hunt for it, but was fairly unsuccessful, thankfully.

I'm hoping this is just a phase like your guy! It's so hard because I'm excited that she's finally starting to come out to play, so I don't want to discourage her, but I also don't want her to eat my scalp!

Get yourself a feather cat toy, just make sure it doesn't have catnip. Us that to distract her, she wants to hunt.

Hunting...hmm maybe that was it for Falcore too. The feather cat toy is a good idea. We have a little bag of feathers that gets used for playtime, Falcore is the only one interested in them though.

Omg! Bless you! You saved my scalp!

The feather cat toy did the trick. She went crazy for it. She came out to play for a while, running all over me, too preoccupied with the cat toy to notice my hair. She did attack my hair once, but this was later on the night when I put the toy away and was just trying to get the kids back in the cage. As soon as I grabbed the cat toy again, she immediately forgot about my hair.

Thank you!

Mine just started playing with my hair. Wasn't so much attacking it, but he was definitely doing something with my hair!!

April

Just make sure to check their fingers, toes and limbs for hair.

Your hair is strong enough to cut off the blood supply to digits resulting in possible amputation.