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Bird bites my wife!

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Bird bites my wife!

Postby Creative » Thu Jul 28, 2016 3:40 pm

Hey,

I love the youtube videos from this site but the one on biting doesnt apply to my situation and was wondering if anyone can help me?!

All of the advice i have heard to stop a parrot biting says you need to try and ignore the bite and not pull away / scream. However, our conure goes through phases with my wife and at the moment he is really bitey to her. So much so that he draws blood and its very hard for her to not react (she basically has a little scream because its so painful).

He doesnt do it all the time but it is random, and feels like he is a 1 person bird and / or annoyed by her presence a lot of the time. Its a real problem because its getting difficult to carry on (the bird is great with me though).

Is he a 1 person bird? How can we stop him biting her? He does bite me sometimes but not as hard and he tends to apologise after i say 'gentle!'.

Thanks for any info!
Creative
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Types of Birds Owned: Crimson Bellied Conure
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Postby Curious Diode » Thu Jul 28, 2016 9:15 pm

This post has been overwritten by an open source script.
Last edited by Curious Diode on Fri Dec 30, 2016 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Curious Diode
Cockatiel
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Wolf » Thu Jul 28, 2016 9:59 pm

More information would be helpful in answering your question, especially the age of your bird. Dietary information would also help as certain types of food can increase aggression in parrots. But it basically sounds as if your bird is probably an adult, is bonded to you and is probably being fed too high of a level of protein and most likely on a human light schedule.

Most parrots bond only to one person at a time although they will often accept other humans as a part of their flock. Parrots usually have one or sometimes two breeding seasons in a given year and this is primarily controlled by environmental factors such as the availability of higher protein foods the length of the day as well as some weather conditions. Which is why both diet and light schedules are important. Parrots also tend to be more aggressive when in breeding condition. Bonding is also an important factor in why your bird is biting, based on the information given. When your bird bonds with someone, this is a mate bond, provided the bird is an adult and they are monogamous in nature so they only bond in this manner with one person at a time and they expect that this person also be monogamous in this relationship, they want to spend most of their time with this person and view any physical contact with others as a violation of this bond and so will act to defend their rights to their person. They will bite the intruder as they view them as a rival for the attention of the person they bond with. They will do this to drive them away and if they can't reach the rival they may bite their chosen human in an attempt to get them to move away from their rival. If this is the situation then avoid physical contact with the party that the bird views as a rival while the bird is able to see it.

There are other reasons that a parrot may bite, but I do not ignore these times or try to hide that it hurts. I do not pull away as this only increases the damage of the bite. I do distract the bird from biting and tell it " be gentle" or " no bite" and usually place the bird down for a few minutes while ignoring the bird for those few minutes. If it hurts enough to warrant a reaction to the pain then I respond with a cry of pain as well.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Creative » Fri Jul 29, 2016 3:06 am

Hi,

Thank you very much for your replies. It definitely feels as if he tolerates her but then every now and again will go bite her. And the fact she now hates being around him makes it even worse to repair their relationship. He does go to her for scratches (she has long nails) but will pester her for them and start biting her harder if she doesn't give them!

The bird is 2 - 3 years old and the diet is primarily the below food, with apples, lettuce and some pineapple treats.. with the occasional grapes or peas which he has gone off a bit recently.

https://www.staticmedia.net/images/prod ... 106781.jpg

I think it might be lacking in veggies but he is really picky and wont eat anything else.
Creative
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: Crimson Bellied Conure
Flight: Yes

Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Wolf » Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:17 am

I looked up the Beaphar bird food that you posted a picture of and there was no ingredient list for the food other than to say that it contained 26 varieties of seeds and egg food. So to tell you the truth I do not like this food, but then I want to know what is in the food that I give to my birds.

Many years ago, everyone fed their birds a seed based diet and because we did not know better their shortened life span was just accepted as part of having them. Then some vets got to doing a bit of research and came up with pellets which at the time were not much better as the birds were still dying from liver and heart disease at way too young of an age. After more research pellets were improved and then were touted as being a complete food and all you had to do was to feed their pellets. This also has proven to be wrong. Today, we know a lot more about the dietary requirements of our birds and todays pellets are much improved but we still have a long way to go. I don't care for all of the artificial ingredients, sweeteners, dyes and preservatives that are in most of the commercial foods both seed mixes and pellets, so I shop for my birds foods by the list of ingredients and not price.

It is best to do some research to find out what your species of parrot eats in its natural environment and since there is no way that we can duplicate this, it gives us a place to start in providing them with substitute foods that contain the same types of nutrients. There are parrots that are ground feeders and these parrots eat mostly seeds, other parrots are canopy feeders and many of them eat mostly fruits, their are parrots that eat a primarily liquid diet. This is why finding out what they eat in the wild provides just the starting point for proper nutrition for our birds, different species need different foods to remain happy, and healthy and to live a long life. Please take some time to read in the health, diet and nutrition section of the forum. There is a wealth of information there concerning proper diets and nutrition as well as a listing of foods that you can and should feed your bird and foods that you should not feed to them.

Although your bird will have foods that it likes and dislikes the primary reason why your bird is such a picky eater is that it was not taught that these other foods are indeed food. This is something that you have to teach it. While it is time consuming and can even be somewhat frustrating, it is really not that difficult to teach a bird to accept new foods as part of its diet.

With your latest post it does not appear that your bird is biting your Lady over being bonded and protective of you as it really sounds like it wants to spend time with her and wants her attention and is biting in an attempt to tell her to quit ignoring it. It appears that she has plenty of time to teach the bird to not bite her. My Senegal parrot, Kiki, is a very hands on bird and she likes a lot of personal attention in the form of head scratches and beak rubs. I did have to teach her to be gentle with her beaking and attempts to preen me. It was not that difficult to do, but it did take a little bit of time. I would reach over to her and scratch her head or rub her beak for a while when she asked. But sometimes she would bite me too hard if I quit doing this. When she did I would push her beak away and tell her " Be Gentle". It took s while for her to understand that the problem was that she was biting too hard and that it hurt, but once she understood this, she rarely bits me hard enough to hurt.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Flight: Yes

Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Pajarita » Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:23 am

I also could not find the nutritional values anywhere (and I did look and look for them!) but, going by the ingredients, it's bound to be much higher in protein and fat than your bird would need. These birds are mostly fruit eaters in the wild and that means low protein, low fat, high moisture and high fiber so, as you can see, free-feeding this food could not possibly be good for it - and it's showing in the aggressive behavior.

I don't have all the information I need to give an informed opinion but it sounds to me a if your bird is overly hormonal from an inadequate diet and, most likely, a human light schedule. These little guys are actually super sweet and, when they are kept on the right diet, light schedule and given the right amount of attention (they require more hours of out-of-cage and one-on-one than other species) and have never been abused or neglected they never, ever bite.

Now, I do not believe in the very common advice given of not showing pain when bit. It makes no sense whatsoever! Birds would react to pain just like we do and parrots -been extremely empathetic animals- do NOT like to cause pain so, when you don't react, you are, in fact, telling the bird it doesn't hurt thereby preventing the bird from realizing that his action is wrong and, indirectly, becoming an enabler of such action. I respond with a cry of pain and immediately tell them they are bad birds - and they know exactly what I mean! And not only the culprit but all the other birds as well!
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Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Creative » Sat Jul 30, 2016 5:19 am

Would you be able to recommend a bird food that would be better for a conure? I have tried some pellets in the past but he has had trouble eating them and some are too hard/big.

What food do you use? Pellets? Which brand?
Creative
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Types of Birds Owned: Crimson Bellied Conure
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Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Wolf » Sat Jul 30, 2016 8:02 am

Once again, I find my self asking what is the age of this bird. It is very possible that your bird is very young and does not yet have the strength in its jaws to eat such a hard and dry food as pellets. It is also possible that your bird is young enough that it needs additional feedings of soft foods. I am assuming a few things based on your posts, so please correct me where I am wrong as I do not want to give you the wrong information.

I am assuming that you are fairly new to the keeping of birds and I assume that you got the bird from either a pet shop or from the breeder. I am assuming that you know very little about a parrots life cycles or what to expect when the bird goes through the changes that occurs during these different stages of its life. And I am assuming that the person at the pet shop or the breeder di not give you any of this information.

I am aware that sometimes the questions that we ask do not seem to you to have anything to do with the questions that you are asking, but I assure you that these question have everything to do with your questions concerning your birds behaviors and what to do about them.

A very brief rundown would run something like this. A parrot is born into the world totally helpless, blind and totally dependent upon its parents to survive. This parrot does not even know how to eat or drink and the parent birds must teach it not only to eat and drink but how to do these things. This also accounts for the first bond with humans that a young bird has, it is the dependency bond that it would normally have with its parents and in fact when you get these young birds they see you as their parent and count on you to teach them everything that they will need to know to survive in the human environment. I will bet that the breeder did not tell you that although they have started the bird on adult foods that it would still need softer baby bird type of foods or that you would have to teach your new bird to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables and any other foods that are good for it. Nor did they tell you how to do this.
the young bird then fledges and many breeders and pet stores clip the young birds wings to make it appear to be more tame than it is, but they don't tell you this or that this early wing clipping is very bad for your birds development. This bird looks like an adult bird in many ways but it is not and in time depending on the species as to when the bird goes through puberty and becomes an adult and that it releases the dependency bond and looks for someone to mate bond with. The time of puberty is as stressful for the bird as it is for humans and it causes changes in the birds body as well as in its personality. This is a very basic and limited version of what happened during the major life cycles of your bird. And I am doubtful that anyone explained any of this to you. There is a lot to learn about these birds, they are not easy to keep healthy or happy and in good health.

I suggested that you start reading some of the postings about diets and foods in the health, diet and nutrition section. I wanted to expose you to the large variety of foods that are available to your bird to eat as well as to the ones that should be avoided. I wanted you to see the different ways of providing good foods to your bird and to learn about the benefits and disadvantages of the various types of diets both homemade and commercial.

I do not feed my birds pellets at all as I can't find one that I think is good enough for their needs. I feed my birds fresh fruits and vegetables, a homemade cooked food containing whole grains, vegetables and legumes. and finally I feed my birds a quality seed mix and just a few tree nuts.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 8679
Location: Lansing, NC
Number of Birds Owned: 6
Types of Birds Owned: Senegal
African Grey (CAG)
Yellow Naped Amazon
2Celestial Parrotlet
Budgie
Flight: Yes

Re: Bird bites my wife!

Postby Pajarita » Sat Jul 30, 2016 11:21 am

I have one GCC right now. A female called Codee (her name was Codey originally because they thought she was a boy), she is bonded to a male, wild-caught, severely handicapped peachfront conure (peachfronts are aratingas and not pyrrhuras like GCCs but they are little like they are and eat the same kind of diet). But I had a total of four GCC (GCCs are VERY similar -almost identical- to crimson bellies) and all of them were given up because of aggression but, of all the four, the only one that was hard to 'bring back' was the male which had been badly neglected (to the point of abuse, one could say) by his first owner (I got him from the second owner who was the first owner's sister). All of them did great on what I use to feed all my birds: gloop. Gloop is a dish made out of lightly cooked whole grains mixed with pulses and chopped veggies. The only different thing I did (and still do) for them is to give them a larger piece of fruit and veggie than what their size would warrant (they LOVE fruits!) and, for dinner, a budgie seed mix during the resting season and a cockatiel one from breeding to half-way during molt season.

I don't like to free-feed any food that is a source of protein because birds are hardwired to gorge on it when they find it and they always end up eating too much protein and fat and not enough produce.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Flight: Yes


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