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Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Discuss the methods and techniques of clicker training, target training and bonding. These are usually the first steps in training a young parrot.

Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby Julianajara » Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:46 am

Hi guys!! I dont know what else to do!!
Ive been posting thinks like training videos and homemade toys, but recently, all this passed week my IRN who was leaning lots of stuff and liked scratches now BITES me all the time!! I hve NO idea whts going on. I tried ignoring it but its impossible!!! It hurts and bleeds. My irn is almost 5 months this is that rebel age?? I thiight it was too soon for that. He bites all day except for the morning because I take him out let him play a bit than we have training time and then I put his food. After that he bites me whenever i get close. Since he is kinde of trained and knows how to set up when i put my hand in front of him he steps up but in less than 1 second he starts to bite my hand for NO REASON line he never did!!!!!
Please what should I do??? It is only getting WORSE. I cry all the time he bites me because I have no idea why he is doing it.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby cml » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:04 am

In some way, probably not meaning to, you have taught him that biting workds to either get attention or to get you to stop bugging him. Have you shown fear when he bites, like when he lunges for your hand, do you snap it out of the way?

Alot of people suggest ignoring the bites, but as you say, its very hard and sometimes impossible.
What you should do is to work to identifying situations when he bites, and ignore them. Also try and replace the biting with something else.

What I do when Stitch bites is this (ignoring an amazon bite is impossible): I grab him around the neck, lift him up, tell him no and then place him on the floor. He then stays there till I say its okay to come back up (he's learned that its no use flying away).

I know this isnt what is optimal, but tbh, you cant just ignore bites, people telling you that havnt really gotten bitten by a parrot I think. You have to find a way which works for you.

But the most important thing is to avoid all situations where he bites as much as possible!
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby pennyandrocky » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:34 am

actually i was bit to the bone in my finger by my cockatoo,i cleaned it put bandage and went right back to petting her.now she'll just pinch me and hasn't broken skin sense.if you scream it will encourage him to bite more.i was also bitten by my amazon in the beginning and i was able to ignore that too.the only time i grabbed my birds neck was to give him medication after the vet showed me how,i couldn't do it if i was upset by a bite.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby Polarn » Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:04 am

my amazon has only bitten me once, however if he ever shows some moodiness or unwillingness to interact, like if he doesnt jump on to my finger when i hold it infront of him and asks him to step up, I just wont get him too, i would never push his belly to "force" him to step up when he doesn't want too. and if i need to get him into the cage or somethign and he doesn't want to step up, i either fiddle with his toys and he comes in or i target him, usually he responds teriffic to targeting, like this morning he was moody. I then spent about 5 minutes targeting with him and he turned into a whole different bird, he stepped up as soon as i got my hand close and flew to me etc as usual. I think ignoring the bird when moody is easier than to ignore the bites. and usually when he is moody as I sed I can start out with targeting then proceed to whatever I want.

However I do beleive clipped birds easier resort to biting than flighted birds, becouse I think flighted birds first reaction if they want to be left alone is to jump off and fly away rather than biting, while a clipped bird, if you ignore him telling you to leave him alone, kind of is like a cornered bird. it has no way to go but biting to get you to move away.

And as mentioned before it is wery easy to teach the bird that the biting is a possitive behavior, even if you doesnt mean to teach it so, but seeing your videos you speak with quite a highpitch voice to your bird, and it seems to respond well, however heres the problem... if you give away a highpitch sound when you are bit becouse it hurts, this essantially praises the bird for biting teaching it that biting is good. same if you are bit and it happens to like the sound of your ouch, the movement of your hand or whatever, this teaches him to like biting becouse it likes the reaction.

Polarn has bit in the air towards me a couple of times when i disturb him, both times he has done this ive moved my hand closer first witch seemed to throw him off, and then i did what I was doing (both times taking out the foodbowl to wash it) then left him too it. and non of these times he bit me, Ionly got bit when i got him out of the aviary where I bought him, wich i think is understandable since I had to grab him over his back to get him out and be on my way. but yeah it did hurt alot being bit and have him clinging on to my finger while i was walking out the aviary and then placed him in the transportcage.

To sum it up, try avoid situations where he bites as much as possible, to avoid getting into the situation where you have to squeek or think of something to do once it bites.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby GlassOnion » Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:34 am

The ignoring thing doesn't work for a lot of people. If a bird gets pecked by another bird in the wild, it doesn't just ignore being attacked. It'll peck back to show that it's unacceptable. When my budgie pecks my cockatiel, my tiel doesn't ever ignore it, he'll peck back until she moves away.

That being said, the best thing is to NOT get bitten in the first place. You should try using a stick to get him to step up.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby pennyandrocky » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:29 pm

the stick thing does not work for everyone.i've tried it and it has only upset my bird.sometimes in the beginning a bite is hard to avoid when you don't know it's coming.polarn is right about the flight that helped with mine as well both came to me clipped that's when bites happened. diet can cause bites as well. or it can be they like the sound you make when they bite, that's what i mean by ignore it, sometimes they don't know it hurts and when you make high pitched noise it becomes a game.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby Julianajara » Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:41 pm

(DNA came, and turns ou Hemp is a GIRL!!)
Guys im glad that you are helping me.
But for exemple, most times she is already on my hand, and bites me when im lifting her, how can I ignore the bit on this situation??? Do I have to let her bite me until i get to put her down somewhere??Isnt it what she wants when bites?? I know she is only a ringneck, but you have no idea how she can bite hard, i have 10 bleeding points on my hands by now, because of this stressful week.

Yes I think that I end up encouraging this, because on the first times, I screamed, than cried, because I wasnt expecting since she was such a calm bird. But than I tried ignoring, but it end up on more bleedings because she keeps attacking, if I stay quiet and dont move her of my hand, she keeps biting and I get really hurt.
thats why I came to you because I dont know what to do.

To explain some things for you. I got her with 3months, still handfeeding, so stepping up was the firs thing she learned, and she learned naturally, she jumped on my hand whenever i got near, but she wasnt TRAINED for that, should I spent some time teaching her how to step up with the terget?? I never though that it would be necesary :/

I was doing lots of taming sessions with her because I intended to introduce her the harness, but now, I cant even pick her up without geting a bite, so I think Im in zero point again...
So, when she doesnt want to step up, i simply wont make her, thats ok. If I need to put her on the cage I use target to make her step. BUT if she steps up when asked, and than bites me when on my hand??? what should I do?? should I grab her and say firmly "No" and than ignore her a bit, or should I do something else?? I cant think of what I should do, im so upset with this. Please answer me again, you guys have been really helpful and kind. :irn:
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby marie83 » Mon Feb 13, 2012 5:08 pm

Well I've got no idea how hard a ringneck can bite but if she's drawing blood nearly every time then thats more than enough to test the patience of anyone. I've always ignored bites from all my birds apart from ollie my gcc. 9 times out of 10 he didn't bite hard enough to draw blood but he was persistant to the point it was every time we got him out if not several times. I think how you deal with it really depends on the situation and why your birds biting.

If we felt ollie was biting for attention then we would put him on the floor and turn our backs for a few seconds.
If it was because we were trying to interact with him/forcing him to do something he didn't want then we would just back off a bit.
If he bit and clamped down hard then I would wobble my hands slightly just to get him to loosen his grip. It works but I wouldn't reccommend doing it for a nervous bird, you don't want to make them more fearful.
Sometimes Ollie just seemed to nip for the hell of it and giving a quiet 'no' and an evil look was enough to stop him.

I used a combination of each of these methods and he rarely bites me at all now, it takes a while to read the birds body language and figure out the reason for the bite. My partner doesn't really do anything with Ollie and gets bitten almost every time he handles him.
I have also started training Ollie to target and come to me on command and I really feel focusing his attention on learning new things has settled him down even more.


In your case I wonder if it might be worth trying to get your bird used to a gloved hand to stop you reacting so much to the bites whilst you work out why your birds biting and then how to deal with it? Also it might be worth going right back to the very basics and restarting the whole taming process from the beginning, using plenty of rewards along the way.

Good luck.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby pennyandrocky » Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:27 pm

the only thing i can think of is finding what your bird enjoys in my greencheeks case it was time on my shoulder.when he went through a biting stage i would kick him off let him come back til he bit again it did'nt take long for him to figure out biting meant no shoulder.in your case i might see what his favorite treat is and when i picked the bird up give the treat so he puts getting picked up to equals treat.
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Re: Please help me!! He is BITING everytime!!!

Postby Polarn » Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:38 pm

about vobbling the hand to make them loose balance, I see your bird is clipped and I think this might couse more stress to a clipped bird than a flighted, since a flighted bird "knows" that if it falls off it can catch air and fly down, or back, or wherever, while a clipped bird falls and hit the ground. just adding to that. not much more to add tho :( except I think it might hurt you in the long run to vobble your hand to throw her balance off. as for biting when on your hand, only way i see to avoid it is either by using a handheld perch so that she is on a perch rather than your hand. or if she is biting becouse she wants to be put down (again lack of flight means you have to bring her to where she wants to be (unless it sais "flight:no" by typo, but for now I am assuming she isnt flighted) you might have to pay extra attention to her bodylanguage, if she seems boored sitting on your hand put her down, then if she begs to come back up pick her up, as soon as she seems boored try bring her to her playstand or whatever, trying to find out what she wants and when.
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