Sweet Cockatoo - Vicious nightmare

[Nir]

well when i get bit i dont make a scene of it but i will give a firm NO! i think it works but honestly who knows what works... I have tried both methods and they equally confuse me on what works or not.

i wish we can go 100 years in the future and see what they find out about birds.

[cml]

Just a word of warning to you KimberlyAnn, and to you Nir, saying no is not going to help, it will serve as a reinforcer for the bite.

I did exactly what you did KimberlyAnn, only I said "no" as Nir rather than "soft":

I'm also thankful to hear someone else saying to not ignore bites. In the wild, I don't think other birds would ignore a bite! I tried the ignoring thing and it did not seem to do a bit of good. Saying "Soft" and putting the bird down has worked wonders. But we didn't have a big biting issue.

This resulted in the biting being reinforced and it evolved to a biting problem, that took months of blood and pain to overcome. Also, because I grabbed Stitch and put him down, he started to associate being grabbed as something negative and started biting when I tried picking him up.
This took even longer to fix, as it was heavily reinforced.

We did get there in the end, Stitch almost never bites and is fine with being picked up again, but it has taken lots and lots of time. So please, think your methods through.

I realise, and totally sympathise with the fact that you cant show no reaction at all when being bit by a big bird. But, there's a world of difference in removing your hand, and reinforcing it with sound, sudden moves, and grabbing (which can lead to the above described problems). Just remove your hand if a bite happens, but rather than letting them bite you, work with PREVENTION, dont put yourselvs in situations in which the biting will happen.

I think Pajaritas method of making a big ruckus and screaming CAW CAW CAW is better than saying no (as there is a clear difference in whats intended with the screaming, pajarita wants to establish herself as a bigger bird, whereas a regular no is you trying to teach your bird manners like you would a human child), but I am not sure its a method I would personally use myself.

Also, keeping the birds on a regular schedule is great, just as pajarita wrote. It doesnt have to be a SOLAR schedule though, you can keep your birds up later by modifying their environment.
Our parrot room's windows are covered with light proof blinds, and all lights are running on electrical timers.
Lights go on at 11am, and go out at 10pm - which is the time our parrots are awake. This allows for a constant day rhythm for the parrots, they have more time with us as they can stay up later, and they get 13 solid hours of sleep. Very easy to achieve with just a little work.

[KimberlyAnn]

I guess it depends on what kind of biting problem you have. Ours was baby nibbling that got out of hand and sometimes trying to bully us. Lol Our vet told us to pick one word and put the bird down when a bite was painful. It worked wonders! It's a non issue now.

Other bites towards strangers are prevented and not fixed after the fact. We go into a room that Emmi is not used to and have her step up after we see she has had time to feel comfortable around the new person. Stranger bites, I do not view as a biting problem. How else does she tell us she's not comfortable? She's not a toy so she does have some say on who's finger she perches on. With prevention, this has become a non issue too because I read my bird. I know when she's more then ready. This way bites simply don't happen.

I don't ever grab my bird. I have removed her beak from my finger, but I don't grab her. I don't chase her either. That leads to mistrust from any animal. I just tip her off my finger close to the floor. She slides right off because I've already said soft and shocked her a bit by moving her close to the floor. If she won't get off, I twist my hand so she has no choice. Then I ignore her and she has to come to me. This means climbing up her latter to the couch...the walk of shame. Lol She quietly peeps and just watches me. Then I will pick her up. But now I can just say soft and all biting comes to an end. The need to say soft has been fewer and fewer. Her main goal in life is to be attached to me so biting leads to being lonely on the floor. Lol

Bites will happen. The worst bite Emmi has given me, was when I static shocked her for the first time on accedent. She attacked my hand like I've never seen her attack anything ever before! I handled that differently. I held her and calmed her down. She was so scared and I would be too! Thankfully she's never made anyone bleed.

I tried the ignoring thing for a day or so. It just made no sense and didn't seem to phase her at all. She was happy just to keep chewing, or trying to...like nothing was wrong! Which is what I'm teaching her. I'm not going to react so you can keep doing what you're doing. No thanks! Lol I know Emmi will become hormonal and may start to bite really bad. When those days come...I will turn into that huge bird. Lol But for now, what we are doing is working. Now we just need to remember to touch metal before we touch the bird. No more static shock attacks! Lol

[cml]

I guess it depends on what kind of biting problem you have. Ours was baby nibbling that got out of hand and sometimes trying to bully us. Lol Our vet told us to pick one word and put the bird down when a bite was painful. It worked wonders! It's a non issue now.

So I thought for a couple of months, until it progressively started to get worse. Saying no just doesnt work, they dont understand it like that (yes they can learn what stuff means, or at least learn to associate different sounds [like words] with different things or situations, but thats a completely different discussion). The parrot hears a noise, and that may reinforce the biting.

I am not saying that it WILL happen, but I know from experience that it COULD. I personally believe saying no is nothing but a possible way to unknowingly reinforcing bad behaviour.

Just as with your bird, our guy's biting was baby nibbling, but through the method you have described above it evolved to a big biting problem. It took a lot of time to train away so he would unlearn a bad behaviour.

Trying something for a day isnt enough, things work on a much slower and hugely bigger timeframe with birds. A day or two isnt enough to evalute if a method is working or not.

By all means, do what you feel is right, but I wanted to share my experience with this situation with you.

[KimberlyAnn]

Thanks

If it becomes an issue again, I will change things up. But I can't change anything now if it's not really happening anyway. I just hope that we go through puberty with no issues! If I could be so lucky. Lol

[Michael]

So I thought for a couple of months, until it progressively started to get worse. Saying no just doesnt work, they dont understand it like that (yes they can learn what stuff means, or at least learn to associate different sounds [like words] with different things or situations, but thats a completely different discussion). The parrot hears a noise, and that may reinforce the biting.

Exactly. Assume that any word you say is just a noise to the bird until a specific consequence is attached to it in context. If you say "no" and then hit your bird, your bird WILL learn what "no" means. However, this is abuse AND the bird will hate you all around, not just when you say it. Not only won't you have to say "no," the bird will preemptively fly away. On the other hand, if it is clipped, it will bite even MORE in self defense to avoid getting to the point where you can say "no" and strike.

But without a consequence, saying "no" is as good as saying "yes, do it again!" Think about it. Why shouldn't the bird bite you when you say "no"??? It has no reason to think that it shouldn't just cause you said that. That is unless of course you apply punishment but that is ineffective and problematic.

I know for a fact that saying "no" doesn't work and that saying nothing does. Wanna know how I know? Cause people who suggest saying "no" have birds that bite them. They wouldn't need to ever say it if their bird knew not to bite. So by the nature of using it and suggesting it, it already implies that the person's bird bites and that saying "no" doesn't effectively discourage it. I don't say no in the absurdly rare circumstance that my parrots bite, nip, or play too hard. Neither do I give in and do what they would like. Thus there is no reinforcement or motive to do it again so they don't. When they do it is always by chance, accident, or strange circumstance. So by letting it go, it doesn't repeat.

I take my parrots to the park and dozens of kids will surround me and hold, pet, and even grab my parrots and they haven't bitten anyone ever! I'll have a video of this in a few weeks when I get some planned articles out.

[KimberlyAnn]

Oh believe me. Putting Emmi on the floor is a very effective punishment. She would rather be with me. Saying "Soft" is a reminder, my avian vet said. It's worked great. But I don't really need to say it anymore.

Babies mouth things. It's how they learn. Birds beak things, I've read that's how they learn too. But mouthing or beaking things turn into biting to test limits. So I guess you can say that everyone's bird starts out as a biter right? Not just the people who say, "No." So time for prevention so the beaking won't turn into a real biting problem. That's what I learned from my vet anyway. So in watching Emmi's body language and doing what we did...things are well. I'm sure this does not work for everyone and like human children, everyone has a theory on behavior modification. I'm just glad to see someone else have a reaction to biting. I'm not ruling out that ignoring bites can work. It's just not something I'm interested in doing at this time. What I did, worked for me. I've maybe told her soft once this week? Last weekend? So I'm happy with the outcome.

[Michael]

Oh believe me. Putting Emmi on the floor is a very effective punishment. She would rather be with me. Saying "Soft" is a reminder, my avian vet said. It's worked great. But I don't really need to say it anymore.

Not gonna work if the parrot weren't inhibited by clipping...

Babies mouth things. It's how they learn. Birds beak things, I've read that's how they learn too. But mouthing or beaking things turn into biting to test limits.

Yes. It has to happen. If you don't let it happen, they'll just want to do it later. Or they won't know what things are like and their learning will be stunted. It's like a child wants to touch everything with their hands. How would the child develop if he has never touched anything growing up?

To a certain extent (at the particularly young age) they've gotta get it out of their systems. When it goes from feeling things to chewing/playing with them (on your body), that's when you need to focus more on prevention, preemptive distraction, and ignoring while it does occur if you didn't manage to prevent it.

So I guess you can say that everyone's bird starts out as a biter right? Not just the people who say, "No."

That's not biting. The bird is not in an aggressive mindset. Treating it the same as biting is foolish.

So time for prevention so the beaking won't turn into a real biting problem.

Prevention, sure. Allowing it to take its course, yeah. Pretending to punish it by saying meaningless words or actually punishing it though is too much. Preventing it is giving the bird a toy to play with before it can get bored and start tugging on your ears. Prevention is not putting your parrot on your shoulder unless it has something to do or watch. That gets it in the habit of sitting and not beaking. Letting get bored and start excessively beaking for fun and then punishing it is not as good of an approach. The parrot is getting to do the behavior in the first place and you are at risk of either inadvertently reinforcing it or excessively punishing it.

[KimberlyAnn]

I didn't clip my bird's wings. She came that way so it is what it is until they grow out. Once they do and if biting starts, it won't really matter if she's flighted or not. I can walk away. I've had flighted birds before. My mother was very against clipping.

And I'm in no way punishing the normal beaking behavior, but only the times when it was too hard and too painful or she was trying to bully us into giving her something, like I said. That is why we use the word, "Soft." But if it changes, I will evaluate then and adjust what I'm doing. I just don't see a need to ignore a bite that hurts. It's natural to respond to something that hurts for humans and birds. There are other methods that do work and I'm glad I got information on other things from here that my vet does not fully agree with, but I use. This is just one of the things I have to side with my vet. Yes, we only tried it a few days, but I did a lot of reading about it here and other places. It just does not sit right with me. My vet told me to remember that birds do understand cause and effect and to never underestimate my bird's intelligence. I have definitely learned that along the way! Lol

Anyway, much luck to the original poster. You have a huge heart and I hope the advice you got here, helps you and your bird!

[MeanDonnaJean]

That's IT. I've held my tongue long enough.

I've been comin' here on & off for a number of years now, but certainly more off than on...and that's solely on account of this forum's self-proclaimed "bird-expert" and his rude, arrogant, obnoxious, holier-than-thou responses to others. Every damn time I do return, I happen to click on a topic in which he's done it again (as in this post)....and it pisses me the hell off once again.

Dude, I can only assume that your mother never taught you proper manners; never taught you the importance of treating others in the same manner as you would want to be treated. You seem to always spout that "if-you-can't-take-the-heat-get-out-of-the-damn-kitchen" crap as an excuse for your inexcusable behavior....but what you really need is to be knocked down a few pegs. Your head has gotten WAY bigger than your body. Your comments to others are degrading, yet your "followers" stroke your over-sized ego and kiss your ass like your some kind of "avian pope". It's all so damn sickening.

I'm really surprised nobody's beaten the shit outta you yet. I'd pay top dollar to watch that happen.