HORRIBLE Biting Habit

[AS91379]

I have a Green Cheeked Conure who loves to bite EVERYTHING-- including me. Lately, it has progressed to the point of drawing blood on a daily basis. My method has been grabbing her beak while she tries to bite, releasing when she stops trying to bite, and rewarding the non-biting behavior with a treat. However, I'm pretty sure grabbing her beak is just royally pissing her off, and I don't want that. When I grab her beak, she shrieks at me and becomes almost frantic. I've tried knocking her off balance, distracting, etc., but the problem is that a.) she LOVES to bite and chew, and once she has something to chew, she doesn't want to give it up, and b.) she corrects getting knocked off balance with sinking claws and beak into my hand. Her favorite thing to attack is the hand she's sitting on, and all of the videos I've watched are on step-up biting/ cage aggression. This doesn't work for me. Help?

[AS91379]

As an afterthought, could teaching her lots of tricks help? Could she be expressing boredom, along with an intense desire to chew on everything? She has TONS of toys and loves to climb my curtains, but her interactions with me are generally limited to shoulder riding and petting.

[liz]

Welcome to the forum.

How old is she?
How long have you had her?
Where did you get her?

Calm down. She feels your emotions.

[AS91379]

I got her the beginning of August from a pet store. (I know, I know. Nasty pet stores, but they were taking awful care of her.) I don't know exactly how old she is, but I know she is very young.

[AS91379]

Oh, and because she's staring at me, making me feel like an awful person, I should note that she doesn't do this 24/7. She's usually very loving and adores me, but she gets in moods on a regular basis, and that's when the biting starts.

[Michael]

Trick training is a way of using positive reinforcement to reward not biting. Think about it. The parrot can't be getting treats while biting when it is supposed to be doing the trick. The parrot begins to learn what behavior is appropriate in general as well as the tricks. The parrot learns that waving its foot or touching the target gets treats and attention. On the other hand biting must be entirely ignored. Thus the parrot learns that absolutely nothing is gained from biting. Further, by using positively reinforced trick training, you gain a negative punishment for biting. You're going along doing tricks when suddenly there's a bite. Well you stop training and ignore the parrot. It is punished by losing the attention and positive reinforcement is was previously earning. This is a safe application of punishment while the things you were doing seem to only encourage more biting.

[AS91379]

Thanks! I'm watching bird training videos on YouTube as we speak.

[Michael]

These should help you get started:

http://TrainedParrot.com/Taming
http://theparrotforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227
http://trainedparrot.com/index.php?bid= ... th+Parrots

Oh and besides training, it is likely that a change in diet and not clipping the wings can greatly improve the situation.

[AS91379]

Thank you so much!

[Cage Cleaner]

That sounds like a typical green cheek. Is she actually making an effort to bite, or is she just nibbling too hard? Have to differentiate the two, because in the former she knows what she's doing, and in the latter she doesn't.

Mine used to attack anyone that tried to touch it, biting/pinching very hard. He would actively say "don't bite" as he was puffed up acting big. He would draw blood routinely, also.

Trick training helped to keep him less bored, as well as negative reinforcement in the form of dropping the finger he sat on very quickly to make him lose focus on biting and have to focus on rebalance. I don't know about beak grabbing. Maybe taking her beak gently and pushing your fingers to the back, where it doesn't hurt and saying "No" firmly (but not yelling) will help as well. I never had the dexterity to do that fast enough with mine decided to bite.