My African Grey bites my hand instead of food

[seye]

I have had my African Grey for about 2 years now. The only training he's had so far has been target training. He doesn't like anyone coming near him except me. He still gets a little scared of me. He accepts treats from my hand when I feed it directly to him. But when I have my hands spread out with treats on them, he comes close to bite me. What do I do?

[Wolf]

Don't offer him food spread out on your hand.
You might also consider teaching him ' Step Up".
How much time out of the cage does your bird get per day? Does he have any toys to play with? Does he get to spend much time with you either in or out of his cage? Is he clipped or can he fly? Do you have pictures that you could share? We love pictures of peoples birds. How old is he and what is his name? Is he a Congo or a Timneh?
Sorry about being so nosey, but I also have a Grey, she is 14 yrs. old and she is a Congo African Grey. She Came to me because she needed a home. She had plucked nearly all of her feathers out except on her tail, wings and those that she couldn't reach on her head. She is doing a fine job of growing them back, it is a slow process as she has good and bad days with her plucking.

[seye]

Thanks for the reply. His name is Zizu. He has about 2 hours out of cage time. He was bought as wild-caught and has been with me for about 2 years. His age is unknown right now but I suspect he would be about 5 years old. He has toys and he speaks a few words and whistles I have taught him. Training him to step up right now seems like a hard task because he would bite my hands when I spread them out to feed. The biting doesn't look like 'fear'. It looks more like 'hey! you're in my spot, back off.' And he does this with his feathers puffed up.
And yes, he's African Grey.

So what do you say?

[Wolf]

Thanks for the picture of him, he is a Congo African grey. There are two types of African Grey Parrots, Congo and Timneh. He looks great!
He may be a bit territorial about his cage and/or things that he has claimed as his. Don't offer him food all spread out on your hand, use a dish to offer food that way, or even on a piece of cardboard. hold food between thumb and finger with fingers aligned so that when his beak closes on food it would close between thumb and finger so that you don't accidently get bit' It is always better to avoid bites than to try to train biting out of him.
Read this, try it out and let me know how it goes, ok?
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227
It is about training your bird to Step Up and Targeting. Hope you like it.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is right but birds that were caught in the wild as adults never bond with humans. They know they are birds and that you are not. So, although he can learn to trust you given enough time and as long as you treat him with respect, love and have A LOT of patience, I doubt he will ever come to bond with you. I have one question, though, why is he drinking water from a bottle held by you? Doesn't he have a bowl with water in his cage? Because he needs it for bathing as well as drinking...

[Wolf]

I was looking at the picture of Zizu and noticed that the perch looks like a dowel rod, if it is you should change it out with a tree branch because the dowel is not good for his feet, it may cause foot deformities.

[seye]

@Pajarita and @wolf, He has a lot of tree branches in the cage apart from that. He also has his water bowl. I just took the picture to show someone else that he could drink from a bottle.

I know quite a number of wild caughts that have really bonded with their owners and can do awesome tricks.

Thanks for the link. I have read it several times though.

[Wolf]

I didn't see any other perches so I thought you might want to know, if you didn't already. I thought it was cute for him to drink from the bottle. Again thanks for sharing with us.

[Pajarita]

I am sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful but parrots don't drink that much water to begin with so, in order for a wild-caught to learn how to drink from a bottle, he must have been VERY thirsty and that's not good for them.

Wild caughts can bond with people if they were taken when babies from the nest but, if they lived as adults in the wild with a flock and were trapped, they never bond. It's impossible, you need imprinting for it and that only happens when they are babies.