Ticklishness...a reason for issues with hand taming?

[Kirsten]

I read somewhere that you can't really train a bird certain tricks unless your parrot doesn't mind being handled. Skittles will snuggle, crawl in my shirt, and tolerate petting unless she's busy looking at something or playing where she'll just run away. I've been working on making her more used to my hands and one thing I've discovered is that she reacts different to where I'm trying to pet her. Behind her head or on her head, she likes that and will even tilt her head so I can scratch her chin (do parrots even technically have a chin?). She doesn't mind if I stroke her back unless I start going under her wings. Now if I pet her tummy or beneath certain parts of her wings, she goes into this fit that makes me think of a toddler being tickled. She makes lots of noise and kicks her legs, squirms around, and uses her beak to grab onto my fingers. At first, I though I was annoying her. After awhile, I realized that she wasn't really biting, just nibbling.

She never has actually purposefully bitten me while doing this. I would think that if she was uncomfortable with this, she would eventually have given me a chomp to show it. So now that I've thought about it, perhaps she's ticklish? I'm beginning to think it's all play behavior. Are there any signals I should be looking for?

[Michael]

I don't think they are ticklish but they don't like being pet in places other than the head and neck. They can preen/scratch any place other than the head better than another bird or person can. So it is perfectly natural that they don't want it and you should respect that.

Now I do believe in handling. I do believe owners should tame their parrot to allow them to open their wings, touch their tail, hold/grab them, and be able to touch anywhere. If the bird is every injured, has a broken feather, something stuck on it, etc... it is important the bird be used to being touched enough to let the owner take care of it. So I avoid petting or putting too much attention on places other than the head but I do make sure they are accustomed to being handled there.

[captwest]

Your bird might be a male, and you are sexually stimulating him. Male are stimulated by the female flicking her wings against his belly and females are stimulated by the males claws on their back.

[Kirsten]

Your bird might be a male, and you are sexually stimulating him. Male are stimulated by the female flicking her wings against his belly and females are stimulated by the males claws on their back.

Huh, well we don't know Skittles' gender actually. Haven't done a blood test. She/He's only like 10 months old. I didn't know you could stimulate them at that age. I've also heard something similar about petting beneath the wings.

Edit: I decided to experiment. Skittles seems to like it when I pet the back versus the stomach. I still don't know for sure if Skittles is a he or she but I think I might start calling him a boy anyway.