Proper response to lovebird bite?

[skeetersunconure]

haha sorry but thats sorta funny whenever skeeter bites i dont think its normally out of aggressiveness i think its because of boredom sometimes and territorial and sometimes when hes climbing around my arm he sortof bites to climb up which does not bother me skeeter really is not that big of a biter but he does it several times a day whenever he bites mildly i ignore it sometimes he bites my neck and then i pry his beak off and he normally stops after that when he bites because he doesent want to get off say my head i push into it and ball up my fist and never back down from him and he eventually steps up sometimes he bites my fingers ya know in the joints and its like ouch! and i pry his beak off when he does that too. also he likes to get in my shirt and cuddle he really likes it but sometimes i can see his head poking out and he gets a little evil birdie look and lunges toward my face and i block him with my hand and take him out of the shirt its hard to believe that the sweet little bird preening on my arm right now is the same devil bird sometimes he transforms into parrots

[penelope's person]

Yeah Penelope really doesn't bite hard...I don't think she fully knows she can do it to inflict pain!

She definitely lunges though, which indicates that she's not just exploring/testing the waters

I'm going to try my hardest to keep still and not back down!

Michael, do you have a psychology degree or something? You're totally jogging my memory from the learning psych course I took in college! I'm not usually a fan of Skinnerian explanations of human behaviour but he sure has it bang on for animals!

What an adventure this has turned out to be! The only other pet I've owned besides fish was a guinea pig, and she basically did nothing for 8 years (well, she did run away into the woods once). Having to get all "battle of wits" on this bird is certainly a departure!

[lzver]

One of the hardest things is to not react to a parrot bite. Try to observe her body language and try to avoid the bite. I find that if I get bitten now by Lucy or Jessie, its because I was careless and ignored the warning signs.

When Lucy (Red-Bellied) was around 2 years old (terrible twos!) she turned into a nasty little bird. For the first year that we had her both my husband and I handled her every day and she spent time with us on the couch every single day. Then doing nothing differently, she nailed my husband with a really bad bite and she followed that up with biting me a couple days later. She even bit my brother-in-law and drew blood after he put his finger in her cage to give her scratches. After quite a few bites, we didn't trust Lucy any more.

She is almost 5 years old now and she has definitely calmed down and is a sweet bird again. She always had her time out of her cage, but she never tolerated being handled very well - I think because she sensed our hesitation. Over the last several months I have worked hard with her and I'm finally rebuilding the bond and trust with her. I have to be very careful and read her body language and she definitely lets me know when she's not in the mood. I usually wait 15 - 20 minutes and when I try again, she's fine.

[Kim S]

I understand the idea that no reaction means no reinforcement of behavior. But how can you make your bird understand that she is hurting you?
Kika will be sitting on my shoulder enjoying a scratch. Then she will return the favour and start preening my ear. Just very gently. But every now and then, she nips a bit too hard. I'm pretty sure she doesnt do this on purpose, but I would like to make it clear to her that this is a bit too much of a good thing, you know. Giving no reaction to this behavior would be futile since its self rewarding.

Right now I pull my ear away and give her a stern 'No'. If she does it again I pick her up and put her on her perch. I was wondering wether you would think this a good idea.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I think it depends on why the bird is biting. Anymore, the only times Scooter bites (nips, really, but where is the dividing line?) is either when he is over-excited and just essentially misfires (as when playing with a ball, I'm returning it, and he gets me instead of the ball in his generalized excitement) or at night if I take him out before his bedtime and he's already sort of grumpy... then he often bites when I ask him to go back, even if he's obviously sleepy. It's possible with the paper it's like Scooter's overexcitement -- I can usually prevent that by just moving more slowly and making sure I offer the toy clearly to his beak.

When we first got Scooter, he bit fairly often. Some of it was over-enthusiastic grooming, not technically biting, and we did use "Be Gentle!" combined with gentle blowing, finger wobbling or putting the bird away to discourage (or at least clearly communicate a lack of our enjoyment) that. The other circumstance in which he would bite was in putting him back into his cage. We tackled that in several different ways, some of them prompted by Michael's question "Why would he not want to go there?" Well some of it was simply that he'd rather be out, so once we determined it was time to go back, we'd warn him "time to go home" verbally and then ignore the biting until he stepped down into the cage. This was at times painful and occasionally drew blood, so I'm not sure what we'd have been able to do with a bigger bid... Then we'd make a big fuss telling him how good he was and giving him lots of verbal attention inside the cage. We also worked to make the cage environment as fun as possible. And finally, we made sure he realized that once he went in, he wasn't going to be stuck there for days... so we would put him back for short periods and then take him out again. Now he rarely bites when we ask him to go home (except when he has overtired bird syndrome.)

[penelope's person]

Ahhh guys, I am really at a loss here!

I've been trying to just ignore her bites, but it's getting worse, and she catches me off guard so often!

She has been actually seeking out my hands to lunge and bite at them, not just in a sort of overexcited way, but really aggressive like a cobra striking. When your not looking and she bites, you kind of just react.

Just now I was typing on the computer with her biting at me, I slowly removed my hands, and she started looking over the computer for them. Right now shes comtemplating chomping on my toes so she can get at the computer.
I've even gone so far as to stop the stick training and offer her my hands so I can show no emotion. I've tried saying no and going away for a while...

She's definitely not understimulated or bored. She's outside in her cage talking to her friends all the time, I change her toys on a regular basis...

I'm getting really frustrated because I want a tame bird so bad!

[issy]

You should try distracting her with food or a toy when she bites, aren't lovebirds known for bottling up there excitement and then letting out?

Sheldon does this nearly every day and I find it best to distract him or remove my hands until he calms down. Does she attack her toys in the same manner?