Biting problem emerging

[cml]

Thanks for helping Michael, I will try to answer the questions you had below =)!

Is it more confident?

I think this is a key point, yes I handle him more confidently, this could probably be tracked back towards us developing a good bond where he doesnt bite and he trusts me completely (he can start rolling off my shoulder while playing with something, relying on me to catch him).

It's really important that the bites do not affect her behavior one bit because the moment they make her act different, the bird is definitely getting reinforced for biting and will more so continue.

Yes we know this, but it isnt always easy with an amazon biting down hard. She tries to do this, hence her wounds, but have you any suggestions other than keeping the hand in place? As it is now she's scared of keeping her hand in place, so she retracts it, because she tried it for a couple of weeks and all she got was infected wounds.

Also, if the bird is starting to like you then the more your wife does the better.

Yes we figured this as well =).

Sounds like it is very young so it's definitely still possible to correct this.

We hope so!

And liz:

I am sorry.

No problem at all, I know you were just trying to help .
I just got aggrivated when people start throwing that kind of accusations at me when they arent based on anything real. No hard feelings, ok?

[Michael]

Well I think prevention and protection play a large role with pretty much any parrot bigger than a budgie if it is a biter. So it's more about doing things so a bite is:

A) Not needed by the parrot
B) A bite cannot reach or cannot hurt

Using a glove, handheld perch, shirt sleeve, or something to hold the parrot can keep the bite out of reach or preventing too much damage. This is as important of a confidence booster to the trainer as it is protection from bites. Staying out of reach of bites is another big thing. Cuing no touch tricks such as shake or target gets the bird to obey and be rewarded without any contact.

I can't tell if your wife is doing anything to "deserve" a bite but it's very important that the person isn't doing specific things that make the parrot bite. It could be touching in a wrong place, denying the parrot what it wants, punishing the parrot (and it may well be unintentional).

In the longer term, I suggest your wife goes through the positively reinforced taming steps to touch/hold the parrot. Also I suggest working into rewarding step up as a secondary reinforcer. Once biting is reduced to a point where she can have the parrot step up most of the time do this. Cue a trick, step up to get reward and eat on hand. Mix that up with step up on hand to be cued a trick and given a reward. This sets up a variable ratio reinforcement for stepping up and naturally for not biting. Hope these things help.