Galah biting

[amarie]

Hi everyone, I'm new here but I'll post an introduction once I get good pictures of my Galah!
Anyways, I've Bandit (he's around 1 almost 2) for a while now and he is pretty tame, totally comfortable with everything and me. He loves playing with me and getting his head scratched but sometimes when I hold him, he'll start biting my fingers, sometimes he'll stop but a lot of the times, when he starts biting my fingers, at first it won't hurt so I don't react to it, then he'll start biting harder until it's pretty painful. Sometimes when I try to get him off he'll even cling on even harder. I'm not sure what I can do to teach him not to bite? Please help!

[Wolf]

Although this bird is a bit old for it, this may be an extension of the beaking habit of younger parrots while they are learning about their environment, and could also be related to preening behavior. The thing that I would do is to move the birds beak to the side while saying something to the effect of " be gentle", Gently, gently", or " be nice". If needed put the bird down on the closest suitable place and ignore it for a few minutes. This will take a bit of time to be effective while the bird makes the connection, nothing is ever really quick with parrots when it involves behavior modification.

[liz]

biting at cuddle time is a way to use more sences. it is natural and is only done to the ones they love. he needs to learn the word ouch. spoken in a natural voice they learn how hard they can chomp you. I use owe. yrtle got too rough one day while I was consentrating on something else. she said "owe?).

I was working on this post while wolf was posting. he covered it but since I made an effort to type I am posting anyway.

[Wolf]

And I would like to encourage more people to post in response to question, they can offer different ways to do thing or they may support what was said and still offer their own way of using the same information or just agree. It is a good thing.

[amarie]

Thanks so much guys! I'll keep you updated if any problems arise or improvements. Thanks again!