Older bird that bites

[jeeckard2]

I rescued a cherry-headed conure a few months ago. He is at least 7 or 8 years old, never had much human contact and stayed in his cage most of his life. I'm fairly sure he was never hand-fed. I also have two cockatiels that I've had since they were babies, and they are trained well.

The problem is that the conure bites a lot, drawing blood from my hand, ear, neck and face. I know there are several issues I'm dealing with, and I'm just trying to figure out the best solution.

First, the conure has fallen in love with my female cockatiel. He follows her around, flirts with her, tries to get close. She tolerates him, but she's just not that into him. To make matters worse, the female cockatiel is bonded with me - not the other cockatiel. The two cockatiels tolerate each other only.

I believe part of the problem stems from his lack of human interaction, and he's scared of people. Second, he's jealous of my relationship with his love interest. The female cuddles with me, rides on my shoulder and loves when I rub her head. He wants me to stop messing with his girl.

I keep all three in a separate room, and they're not caged. I don't plan on caging them, so if that is a solution, I'll just keep buying Band-Aids.

Any ideas on getting an older conure to stop biting?

[Kathleen]

I see this question from people who have aggressive birds a lot... "how do I get it to stop biting me??" You can't. I think most parrots will bite once in a while. What you can do is minimize the biting through training techniques.

First I want to ask you a few questions because I don't know enough background information. If you help me understand the situation better, then I can give you advice and direct you to some articles that would be useful to you.

What happens before the bite? What is the sequence of events that leads to the bite? How do you approach the bird?

What happens after the bite? How do you react? How does the bird react to your reaction?