Indian Ringneck keeps biting

[abdud1]

Hi, we got our indian ringneck, Mango, about 3 months ago when he (not sure if hes a boy or girl) was aprox 4 months old. It was not tame, if you went anywhere near the cage he would get upset. He is not clipped, and lives in a fairly large cage with toys. By working really slowly with Mango (clicker and pointer training) he is now doing really well. It comes out of its cage 2 or 3 times a day by stepping up voluntarily onto a perch, and will now step up easily onto the perch when it is outside it's cage. Mango will now also fly a short distance to his perch when directed.

The trouble is if you put your hand anywhere near him he will bite. He used to accept treats quite nicely, usually smallish pieces of apple. Now he seems to deliberately move his head round the apple so he can try to bite your finger instead.

Not sure what to do now as the bites really do hurt. They absolutely do not seem to be out of fear, sometimes he will take the apple, drop it, and then go for your hand.

Starting today (we only realised you should do this today after reading parrot wizards book) we have started removing his food overnight, and for part of the day so he is actually hungry during training. This doesn't seem to have improved his behaviour much, he took the first couple of treats ok, and then seemed to be going for the hand again.

He seems like he would be ready to move on and try allsorts if we could just get passed the biting, as he seems to enjoy the pointer training, and looks up from what he is doing and pays attention as soon as he sees the pointer. The trouble is we are all too nervous to try stepping up onto the hand as he is almost guaranteed to bite very hard.

We tried some suede gloves for a while, but these seem to have been counter productive as he loved chewing on the suede!

Any ideas please as we really don't know how to help Mango progress while he is biting like this!
Many thanks

[Wolf]

How much time have you spent just sitting and talking or singing with Mango? Have you learned any of his/ her body language? Have you learned what Mango's favorite foods are?

I am going to bet that you just jumped right into training your bird, instead of taking the time to learn about your bird through firsthand experience while building a solid foundation of trust with Mango.

Well if that is true, then you missed your first chance with your bird. Lets go back and do these missed steps and see if Mango, will forgive this and begin to accept you. Start with Mango in his cage. you enter the room where mango is. Watch Mango to see when he starts to show signs of nervousness or starts to move away from you. Stop as soon as he does this. From this spot, talk to Mango about anything that you want to but be sure that you use a lot of praise type words such as good boy, I love you and so on. Speak softly to him like this for 10 to 15 minutes. Say 'Bye to Mango and leave.
Do this two or three times a day and in a couple of days or so you will find yourself right in front of the cage. Now, we see if Mango will approach you through the cage bars and let you touch him. If he accepts this, meaning that he allows you to touch him, it is time to start working with to cage door open and you directly in front of it. Bring with you for the next three or four sessions a small flat dish and place two or three different foods on it, just a couple of pieces of each one and write down which food he takes first, second and so on. Bring enough that you can refill with different bits of food at least twice. During this time all you want to do is watch what he does with the food and continue to talk to him. After about four sets of food only put on the dish the things that he took first and do this again noting what food he takes and in what order. When you have done this take the first three preferred foods and remove them from his normal meals as they are your treats for Mango. Continue with these talk sessions with the door open, but now place your hand just inside the door of the cage and wait for him to come to your hand on his own, and when he does offer him a treat. Don't forget that you should be talking to him through this whole process. After him touching your hand about three different times, start to vary the time when you offer the treat so as you give him a treat for touching your hand, the next time you offer the treat when he touches your hand but you offer it in such a way that he needs to step on your hand with at least one foot to reach the treat. The third time offer to scratch his head instead of the food treat. Vary this routine until he will step all the way on to your hand, all of the time talking to him.

Now that you have built this basic base of trust you can begin with the training that you have already done and he will pick it up much quicker than before and then continue on from their. In addition to the above steps you need to make sure that the room Mango is in is safe for him and that he cannot escape from it. Then open his cage door a couple of hours before his evening meal and let him come out and explore and play and fly, you know just let him be himself. if you have a hard time catching him wait until after dark and he will either have returned to his cage by himself or he will be much easier to catch and put in his cage for the night.

[Pajarita]

Yes, Wolf is right. You have fallen into the 'training without bonding' hole so now you need to climb up from it by forgetting about training and concentrating in just loving your bird and making him love you. I also do not agree with Michael's method of withholding food from them (a high value item is OK but not food). It works for the trainer/owner of a bird that performs in shows in the sense that the bird will be hungry and willing to do anything for the food he needs, but it breaks the 'covenant' that people made when they decided to keep companion animals.

[abdud1]

Thank you for the advice, I think we took things really slowly to begin with, but then once he would take treats from our hands we rushed into training him as we wanted to be able to get Mango out of the cage so he could play.

Mango is now totally happy for us to go near the cage, and if we sit next to the cage and talk to him he will come over, and seems to be talking back to us in his own way, but as yet not right up to the bars so we can touch him.

We also open the cage so he can let himself out to play, and he will come to within a couple of feet of us just out of curiosity I think as he does this even if nobody is talking to him and there is no food on offer.

Just wanted to check whether to help him get used to hands would it be a good idea to hand feed him treats through the bars like grapes or small pieces of apple, or would this encourage him to bite?

Also would it be ok to start talking to him with the door open, and hands by the door, or do we need to be more patient and wait until we can pet him through the bars first?

Many thanks

[Wolf]

By all means offer him treats from your hand, through the bars as well as with the cage open. As to whether it will encourage him to bite, it is really hard to say. Most birds will warn you that they will bite if you are pushing them too fast, so you need to watch him and try to learn his body language so that you will know when he starts to get annoyed and can change what you are doing and avoid being bitten. Also you can use treats that are long enough that he doesn't have to touch your fingers to get the treat, millet works very well for this if he likes it. Then as both you and he trust each other more you can make the treat shorter until he will take it without going for you. As for working with the door open, a big yes with your hand right there, also a yes, just as long as he is not attacking it.