Senegal biting suggestion

[Strawfrawg]

Hi, Gang.

I have been away for a while...lots going on. Wanted to post an update on my Sennie, Marvin, born Jan 24th, now 6 1/2 months old. Marvin generally has a very calm, sweet, easygoing personality, but we did go through a nasty biting stage for a couple of months. He would bite down hard and not let go. I tried everything I found here and nothing worked. This does, though: When he starts to bite, I cup my hand over his head and face. As soon as it "goes dark", he lets go and becomes still. It's like a reset button. When I release him it's lke it never happened. Try this if nothing else is doing the trick!

Also, he was biting certain people much harder than others, and I now know why. After these people had been bitten once in a particular place, they would anticipate a hard bite every time he mouthed that body part so they would immediately pull back. Then came the bite...Marvin was only biting down hard as a reflex, to try to hold onto the body part of interest. If the person stays still, he mouths the body part to explore but does not bite down. Since we started observing these two techniques, bites have become very rare.

[janetafloat]

Welcome back, Strawfrawg, we missed you! Thanks for the suggestion - Alfie does sometimes get in a particular mood where he clamps his beak around my finger painfully when he's on my hand, I'll try your trick next time.

[Strawfrawg]

Thanks for the welcome back. Let me know if the trick works!

Marvin has just gone through a first minor molt and his eyes are almost golden now. He's becoming a big boy, behaviorally, though he is obviously still a baby in many ways. For lack of a better way to put it, he has become much more thoughtful and reasonable. And even more affectionate, which blows my mind. I don't know how I managed to get so lucky.

How's your boy Alfie doing with eating his pellets? Still baking the bird cookies? I keep trying new recipes, trying to get the perfect balance of nutrition and consistency. They aren't pretty, but man does Marvin love them!

[nightjars]

Thanks for the information; our Sennie has the same tendency (super loving most the time, nippy as all get-out other times). Nothing I have tried has worked - ignoring the bites, putting him in his cage, telling him "no bite", etc - all the normal suggestions. I'll give this a try and report back if it helps!

[Gohan]

I will surely try it

[janetafloat]

Yep, I'm still making the pellet cookies, he gets two every evening, it's the only way he's going to eat any pellet, I've tried everything. I swore I wasn't going to buy any more pellets but he's moulting like crazy and I really don't know what to give him, he won't touch grains and is very limited on the veg he'll eat. The pellet cookies are a good staple and I figure it's all good stuff in them.

[CSLFiero]

I just poke their beak off. Because the beak tapers to a point as it goes from their face to the tip, it's easy to lever their beak off whatever they are on with a gentle squeeze at the base of wherever they're squeezing. It causes no pain, even when they're on tight and you need to pry them off a little harder. The worst thing that happens as that when the beak comes off, you fingers will continue to slide down the taper and you might grab their soft tongue harder than you might like, but even this isn't so bad and has never been severe enough to bother my jardine (admitably I've only had her a week, but this technique has been useful since day one).

The main problem with this method is that it does absolutely nothing to deter my pet from going at it again, it's just not very convincing. And I think my parrot nibbles stuff she shouldn't just so that I'll hold her beak (she quite likes beak rubbings).

If you want to try this, remember it's not a puling motion/effort that removes the beak. That's like trying to pull your finger out of a pair of pliers by pulling on the pliers. You're just going to hurt yourself and escalate the situation. You have to use leverage, you have to unclamp the pliers. I don't know if that's EXACTLY what's going on, maybe the birdie just feels more around her mouth and she opens up to get more in, but the tactic never failed me.

[charlotte&mango]

I've had my 3 month old Senegal for a week now .. the first day she was so lovely and cuddly. Since then she has got worse and worse. She will NOT stay on my finger for more than a second or two without flying off. Then it is an absolute battle to get her back, she will step up onto the stick, but then fly straight off again. If I try with my hand, she'll run at it and bite down HARD (my hands are absolutely covered in punctures and beak shaped bruises)
When I walk past her cage she will run at the bars with her beak open ready to attack.
If I put my hand anywhere near her she bites.
I've tried ignoring her - she likes this, she doesnt want my attention.
I've tried saying 'no' firmly and giving her a bold stare - doesnt deter her in the slightest.
I've tried blowing her, this will distract her for a second and then she flies at my face.
If I dont pull away and push back, she bites harder.
If I try playing with her beak, she will maneuver out of it and bite me again.
The cupping her head idea just makes her attack the palm of my hand.
Tried making it worth her while like giving her sunflower seeds (her favourite) and she will take it eat and then bite me

I'm at my wits end, I really dont know what to do and she is terrifying me.

[Dave & Karen]

Here's something I learned from a parrotlet forum, used it on our first parrotlets, then used it on all the other birds we've adopted since and it works pretty good.
The way it works is that you train the bird to be gentle on command, they use the command "gentle beak" which I decided to use as well, but it can be a one word command if you don't want to say "gentle beak" to your bird hunderds of times...

What you do is simply touch your bird's beak and say "gentle beak" or whatever word you chose as your command for this, but you touch the beak and say "gentle beak" over and over and eventually the bird will touch you with their beak when you say it. What you do is when you see your bird is planning on biting you, just say "gentle beak" right before the bite and he'll touch you with his beak instead of biting.
This can take a few days with a new baby bird or it can take a few weeks or more, but it will work.

With our first parrotlet, he liked to land on one of us then bite down just enough to break the skin, then he would get mad and growl if you tried to move him or stop the bite, he wasn't biting out of fear but he was more biting because he liked to bite more than anything else. Once I started this training with him it seemed useless because for one I couldn't touch his beak without getting bit, and when I was able to touch his beak he would reply with another bite... this bird was a mini biting machine for sure...

Anyway, finally, after a few weeks, he finally did it, he was on me and went in for a bite and I told him "gentle beak" and he nudged me with his beak and flew off instead of biting me and flying off... Progress... Finally... So now knowing it was working, I kept it up and he eventually grew out of his biting habit but when I saw a bite coming I had a way to stop him.

I got a sun conure next and he wasn't nearly as much of a biter as Blue was, but he had his moments so I used the same training on him and it worked. After that I used it on every new bird we got successfully, then we got another parrotlet...

This guy I wasn't about to give him the chance to bite me like before so as soon as I gained his trust by offering him a treat everytime I passed by him but never tried to touch or handle him, just hand him a treat and let him carry on with whatever he was doing. Once he trusted me I started the "gentle beak" training but this time I was armed with lots of treats...

This time I would touch his beak and say "gentle beak" then hand him a treat, he wasn't touching me with his beak and he had no clue what I was doing but he got a treat everytime he heard this word and I touched his beak.
After a day or 2 of doing this randomly and repeatedly, he touched my finger with his beak... Lots of praise, and a very nice reward was given... This went on for a few days with him touching me with his beak every time I said "gentle beak" and when he tried to bite me, I just said "gentle beak" to him in a soft casual tone (we NEVER yell at our birds, do we?) and he touched my finger with an open beak, so again, lots of praise and a nice reward.

Anyway, try it and work with him on it, you should be able to get him to stop biting this way, just remember, talk to your bird in a soft, casual tone as the more firm or agressive your tone is, they will pick up on it and may bite down because of that instead of just touching you with the beak.
ANY time your bird has a part of your body in his/her mouth, talk softly to him, the gentle tone of your voie alone may be what saves you from a nasty bite.

[charlotte&mango]

Thank you so much for getting back to me! Do you recommend doing all of this inside the cage or once she is out? I am worried I am scaring her in the cage as she will back into the corner if i put my hand in. Although when she is out (we usually play in quite a large room) she will keep flying off before I get a chance to get my hand near her.
Also, when she does bite do I still say no?
In addition, how do I stop her from flying off?