how do i stop my lovebird from biting?

[liz]

Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dumb came to me without knowledge of history or even what gender they were. Since I never found an egg I guessed they were both male. I did not touch them but Dee did more communicating than Dumb. When Dumbs illness could not be diagnosed Dee took care of him and fed him for a long time before the end.

[vikkirikki]

hi wolf, I hope things are getting better with keeta and rajah.

I do use millet spray when I am training girl (I have started sometimes saying vikki, that is her name).
Rikki (my other girl who I thought was a boy) does not like millet spray but she likes sunflower seeds.

I get vikki out every day now. I wear a jacket and pull the sleeves over my hands and she does not bite me. She jumps onto my arm when I put it into the cage. She loves coming out to me. And whenever I put my arm out to her wherever she is, she jumps or flies onto my arm. I am very happy with how everything is going with her.

I have Rikki in a cage near her. I don't get her out at all. I am concentrating on taming vikki because I want to.

[Wolf]

Come on that is not being fair to Rikki, she also needs to have time out to fly around and get exercise in order to remain healthy. I think that now that they are separated, that they both will bond much more easily with you and if you can work on training each of them separately but within sight of each other, if they will allow it, then they will also learn from each other and your progress may very well be faster than the manner that you are using.

Try looking at this from the perspective that these are self aware, intelligent creatures much like ourselves and that they learn just as much by talking to each other and by watching each other as they do by any other method. They also have a strong sense of what they consider to be right or wrong. If the one sees that you are not giving the other the same level of treatment that you are giving them, it could impact how quickly they begin to trust you and slow down the bonding process. I guess that what I am trying to point out is that if I see that a person is not treating another person fairly, then I do not like or trust that person to not do the same to me and that your birds also experience this. Think about it.

[vikkirikki]

I hadn't got either of then out for months while they were nesting. I only just took the nestbox away from Rikki, she was sitting on eggs. I'm scared of her, she will attack me if I get her out. I am still hoping to find another home for her.

I have been taking vikki out for over a week now

[vikkirikki]

oh and that is exactly why I want to get rid of Rikki, because vikki learns from Rikki to bite me. When vikki is not with rikki, she is much better with me. We are getting on really good. I am starting to understand when she wants her greens or wants to get out.

[Wolf]

Well to be honest with you I don't like it, but if you are afraid of Rikki them it is probably better to find her another home, I still think that you can turn it around if you try hard enough, but you are the one that is getting bitten and are a better judge of what you feel you are up for than I am. So I will drop that part of the conversation after saying that every suggestion that is made to improve your relationship with one love bird will also work with the other one. I will now leave it at that and we can continue with you and Vikki's relationship.

[vikkirikki]

I got Vikki out on my bare arms the last two days yay she wasn't biting me until rikki tweeted loud from her cage near us. Then she gave me a big nip that is sore.

I got them out together yesterday and they played together with lots of happy noises in cubbies I made on the lounge. I kept my fingers out of their way.

[vikkirikki]

hi I have sold rikki it was sad she has gone to a good home tho but..... I have vikki to my self I am working on getting her to trust me like you said to do. It is going well. She comes out of the cage on my arm and she will fly to my arm if I walk away . She still will get a bit aggressive after a while. I still keep my fingers tucked into my jacket. I still do not trust her near my face.

[Wolf]

One of the things that I would suggest is for you to make sure that any movements that you make around vikki are nice and slow. Fast movement are much scarier to her than slow ones. It almost seems paradoxical given how fast they move and react to everything, but slow is better as it will give her more time to think about her own reactions.

While it does not hold true in all cases, it seems that generally speaking the smaller birds tend to be a bit more aggressive. One of the exceptions to this seems to be with budgies, but they still react with the flight part of the fight or flight reaction just as quickly as do love birds and parrotlets. But if you consider the size differences between these tiny parrots and the predators that stalk them both the aggressiveness and the flight response are perfectly understandable and to be expected.

The very first response from my parrotlet, Keeta, is to attack and bite as hard as she can, I think of it as a normal reaction from a bird so small and although I do work with her on her trust issues, mostly I just wait it out and after two or three bites she realizes that I am doing nothing to hurt her and her actions change just as quickly to one where she is begging for a head scratch and what appears in many ways to be an apology for misunderstanding me.

I guess what I am trying to say is that until vikki trusts you totally you should expect to receive a couple of nips right at first when you go to interact with her. Moving slowly will help her to understand that you mean no harm and that will help her to learn to trust you more as well as to cause her to not bite as hard or as much. Giving her the option of making the first move in making any physical contact will also be a big help to you in this area.

Keeta is the closest thing I have to a love bird and tends to be more aggressive than love birds but otherwise they are very similar species of parrots with similar behaviors and it is from working with her and her friend Rajah, also a parrotlet that I use to make suggestions that might help you with your vikki.

[vikkirikki]

thankyou very much . wolf. vikki is getting better with her training. as soon as I open the door she is out straight away on my arm and she never wants to go back into her cage. She comes close to me when I come up really close to her cage, I don't know if that is friendly or aggressive. She bites the wrinkles in my jacket really hard a lot. Maybe she is just exploring. And she is doing really well with the target training - following the chopstick. She is really good at it and I give her millet when she taps the end of the chopstick with her beak. I will make sure I am moving slowly. When I open the cage door she jumps straight onto my arm, so she moves to me first.
She plays on my lap on top of and under a blanket. She makes little cubbies in it on my lap. I always cover my skin with a jacket and pants and socks. If she charges for my face I put her back in the cage straight away. She does sit on my shoulder sometimes but it makes me a bit nervous that she will go and bite my face.
hopefully if I keep working with her it will keep getting better.