How to handle biting?

[Maltee]

What do I do if my parrot tries to bite me when I ask her to step up? Should I intentionally ignore the behavior, withdraw my hand and turn my back to her? Or should I force the issue and "force" her to step up by pushing my finger into her chest? I've seen people do both these techniques and I don't know if that's something I should do. Should I do something else?

[Dave & Karen]

Here's something you can try, This works best when the bird is out of the cage or if you can get your hand behind the perch. Basically, you put your hand behind the bird and ask her to step back, then she can step back onto your hand instead of stepping up onto your hand.
When we got our anazon the previous owner showed us that was the way he trained her instead of stepping up and it works. she does step up really well, but she prefers to back up onto my hand. I kinda questioned the previous owner about the stepping her back instead of stepping her up and he just said that's what she preferred, then he was holding our sun conure and showed me just how quick and easy it was to teach this to a bird.. He had Koolaid stepping back for him within 5 minutes just by perching him on his finger and putting his other finger behind him and touching his foot. What works so well about stepping them backwards is that they really can't bite you when you come up from underneith and to the back of their foot, and some birds are just more comfortable stepping back instead of up. You can try this with her perched outside her cage to see if she'll do it more comfortably.

As far as the biting when you step her up the usual way from the front, best thing to do is ignore the bite. Is she biting hard or just growling and grabbing your finger but not biting down? Some birds will put on this show where they'll growl and nip at or grab your finger without biting as a sign of disaproval but won't bite down, and some will grab your finger and push it away instead of stepping up, they can do this with their beak or with a foot. If she's not biting down or biting hard, just igonore the behavior. If she does bite you hard, you'll still need to ignore it as much as you can, but try just opening her cage and letting her come out on her own then walk up and close the cage door once she's out, this can take some time but it'll get her out where you can work with her.

[Maltee]

Thanks for the tip.

I pull my hand away before she can really grab it, so I'm not sure how hard she would bite, if she would at all. But I think for the most part she is doing a lot of aggressive huffing and puffing.

[Wayne361]

Your best bet would be go back to basics in taming. Micheal has a bunch of info on his blog. Also dont react to biting. You are in essense reinforcing this behaviour. Avoidance is best. But cart meet horse......taming is your best option IMO....