greencheeck parrot biting hard!!!

[bird-lover]

Hi
I have a 1 year greencheek parrot she is so domestic and enjoys being out of cage with us.
formerly she rarely pecked us, but nowadays whenever I want to blow her down from my shoulder she starts biting my hand without releasing, at last I am forced to drop her in cage in order to getting rid of her bit
I'm so dissatisfied with this condition. how should I behave her so that she leave off this habit?

[Wolf]

Pecking, to me would imply tapping you with their beak, beaking is where they grab you with the beak and sometimes use too much pressure and then their is biting and this hurts whether it breaks the skin or not.
I am confused as to what is happening here.

[bird-lover]

I mean biting.

Pecking, to me would imply tapping you with their beak, beaking is where they grab you with the beak and sometimes use too much pressure and then their is biting and this hurts whether it breaks the skin or not.
I am confused as to what is happening here.

[Pajarita]

Well, she is going to go into puberty soon and, if you have been free-feeding protein (especially pellets which have soy in them) and keeping her to a human light schedule, she is, most likely, already going through it and they always get a bit more aggressive during this time so I suggest you re-evaluate your husbandry and see if the diet and light schedule could be part of the problem. And I say 'part of the problem' because, usually, a bird that only bites when you try to make it step up from your shoulder it's a bird that needs to spend more time on its chosen human and is, basically, telling you that when it bites. Do you, by any chance, do this when you are going to put her in cage? GCCs that live by themselves (meaning no mate) need to spend many, many hours on their human. Much more so than other species...

Now, if you could tell us a bit more about her living conditions, we would be able to give you more specific pointers. So, tell us, what does she eat? At what time does she wake up and go to bed? Where is her cage located? Is it covered at night? Is she clipped or fully flighted? How many out-of-cage time does she spend and how many hours on her chosen human?

[bird-lover]

Tnx Pajarita
well I'm neither sure about her age nor her/his gender!
The following urls are a couple of photos from her. Is it possible to detect her age?
http://i59.tinypic.com/idw104.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/a2z5k.jpg
I don't feed her from pellet cause I couldn't find it in my city. I free-feed her sunflower seed. also feed her other seeds,bean,fruits,vegetables and cooked rice. It seems like she doesn't eat too much. mostly she plays with her food.
also she sleeps from 10 pm to almost 7 am (I'm not sure because she doesn't make even a sound when we are sleeping!)
her cage is located on the coffee table in the middle of living room her sleep place however is in another room, far from noise (but without cover).
she is often out of cage (about 6 hours) over the cage and we are around her talking to her. when we leave the room she calls us & flies to find us. but it is rarely with us in our shoulder(less than 1 hour).
we've cut her wings but she can still fly some how.
she is good with all of family and doesn't have only one chosen human!
Another point that may be important: she started biting from last week when we went to a 2 day trip and took her to my uncle's house. after that when she first saw us, started biting any of us around her!

Well, she is going to go into puberty soon and, if you have been free-feeding protein (especially pellets which have soy in them) and keeping her to a human light schedule, she is, most likely, already going through it and they always get a bit more aggressive during this time so I suggest you re-evaluate your husbandry and see if the diet and light schedule could be part of the problem. And I say 'part of the problem' because, usually, a bird that only bites when you try to make it step up from your shoulder it's a bird that needs to spend more time on its chosen human and is, basically, telling you that when it bites. Do you, by any chance, do this when you are going to put her in cage? GCCs that live by themselves (meaning no mate) need to spend many, many hours on their human. Much more so than other species...

Now, if you could tell us a bit more about her living conditions, we would be able to give you more specific pointers. So, tell us, what does she eat? At what time does she wake up and go to bed? Where is her cage located? Is it covered at night? Is she clipped or fully flighted? How many out-of-cage time does she spend and how many hours on her chosen human?

[Wolf]

What city do you live in that you can't find pellets, not that I like pellets? Free feeding seeds is not good either and in fact the old all seed diet that caused birds to develop liver disease is the reason that pellets were developed in the first place. But pellets also came with their own problems although they did stop the birds from picking out only their favorite seeds to eat. I feed my birds first thing in the morning a fresh raw vegetable, a fresh raw leafy green and a fresh fruit enough for all day. This is followed by a home made cooked food to complete their breakfast and also enough for all day, here is a link to this food which we call gloop viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13666 Then for their dinner I feed a good quality seed mix and remove that from the cage after the bird goes to sleep.
Your bird cage needs to be placed near a window but not directly in front of it and one side should be placed at a wall so the bird feels more secure and protected from that side and should be placed so that the highest perch is about eye level.
I would think that your bird is starting to go through puberty which tends to increase their aggressiveness and should pass before too long if you will start feeding a diet similar to that which I just described and put the bird on a solar light schedule instead of the human one that it is on. A solar light schedule is the same as the outside birds get which begins with receiving the light from the twilight periods of dawn and dusk and they normally get up around sunrise and go to sleep by dark.
Also you can't tell either the sex or age of a Green cheek conure by looking at it. If it has a solid band on its leg you may be able to figure out its age but it takes DNA sex test to tell if it is male or female.

[Pajarita]

And what a pretty thing she is, too! But in your reply to my posting is the answer to your question: you are feeding her wrong and you are keeping her at a wrong light schedule (hormones), her cage is too low (stress) and she is clipped (cannot dissipate stress or sexual hormones without flight). You need to re-evaluate your whole husbandry, my dear.

[Wolf]

You are a predator species, just like dogs, cats ferrets and many other mammals and so you have an inherent understanding of them and what to expect. Birds are a whole different thing in that they are not mammals, nor are they predators, we are only speaking of parrots, because there are certainly predatory birds. They are so different that it takes an effort to see how they perceive things as well as the differences in how things affect them. For example light affects all animals and even wolves, bears, ferrets and such know when to have their young and the light they receive plays a role in this, but they don't have the issues that birds have when they are deprived of their natural lighting. Birds are affected much more than any mammal is and many of their natural bodily functions are affected by the type and amount of light that they receive. And this is just one area of the differences. The things that you are currently doing make sense to you and work with things like cats and dogs but wreak havoc with birds so they don't work and you need to learn a new way of relating to them.

[bird-lover]

tnx guys
I changed her feeding schedule as "wolf" said, now I think she has abnormal excretion (fewer times but too much each time).
when she goes into puberty should I buy her a pair? if I buy an opposite sex GCC, do they definitely mate?

[Wolf]

Did you change the diet or the feeding schedule or both? The diet that I suggested is the same as I feed my birds and the only difference that I really ever noticed was an increase in the moisture content of their poops. That would possibly make it seem like a bigger poop as it is not dehydrated at all. You could post some pictures of your birds poops from various times during the day so we can see if there is anything abnormal about them. Now it is also normal for there to be some differences in an animals poops when you first change their diet. Even mine changes in accord with what I eat.
As for getting a mate for your GCC, you should get one of the opposite sex and close to the same age. A juvenile and an adult will not always get along until the younger bird also goes through puberty. It is very likely that two adult birds of the opposite sex will mate and may even produce eggs, there is no way of knowing if they are fertile except by candling them or waiting to see if they hatch, but this does not have to be a problem as you can replace the birds real eggs with fake ones to insure that there will be no baby birds. This year my female budgie laid eggs and I just waited until she laid the second egg then stole an egg and froze it, then exchanged it for the other one and froze it as well. I marked the eggs that I froze and did the same with the rest of them. No babies and tossed the eggs when she lost interest in them.