Proper response to lovebird bite?

[penelope's person]

Hi there!

My sweet, darling, psycho little lovebird just learned to bite today! She hasn't been cage aggressive since I got her (about 3 weeks ago) and would only give gentle nibbles. She was in a playful mood today, so I stuck my hand in her cage to give her a strip of paper (which she loves) and she went for my finger instead of the paper! I tried it again, same thing.

How should I react to this? Should I say 'no bites' and remove my finger? Or should I let her bite and not react? I really want to nip this in the bud before it gets worse.

Thanks!
Heather

[Michael]

Don't do anything.

[penelope's person]

Thanks! Everybody says something different so I'm glad for some consensus

[Michael]

Don't say no bite, don't pull away, don't do anything. Just pretend you don't care about the bites one bit and the bird will learn that it is pointless to do them. On the other side, try to learn what pissed your bird off and avoid doing those things to avoid getting bitten in the first place. Do some basic training to maintain tameness and the ability to hold your bird without getting bitten.

[skeetersunconure]

i agree but also therea are some good tips on birdtricks channel youtube

[penelope's person]

Michael,

It's funny you should mention trying to figure out what is causing the biting.

I just started getting the bird used to biting the target stick yesterday and today, and she picked up on it really quickly. She is only biting me on the tip of my finger, and only when I present it to her closely, like I do the target stick. Is it possible she is getting the two confused?? I am so pale my fingers do bear close resemblance to the stick! She doesn't bite me outside the cage or when I am changing her food, water, etc. so I'm wondering if that's what it is!

Also, is it possible for her to have too much out-of-cage time and could that be related to the biting? She is out most of the day, but always has access to her cage...

I'm definately going to check out those birdchannel videos too!

Thanks guys!

[Michael]

That makes sense. Well guess what? My advice still holds. If you do nothing but keep practicing target training, it will learn to look at the fine subtleties between the target stick and your fingers

[skeetersunconure]

what if it really hurts and they are really hanging on can you take their pick off ofwhat they are biting? once they stop do you reward them? should you when they are biting pick them up and put them on a perch for 10 seconds and ignore them then pick them back up and try again? should you put them back in there cage? thanks its sortof confusing...

[Michael]

It really depends on the relationship. If Kili bites me (almost never, sometimes a nip), I'll just chuck her off of me. But I wouldn't recommend most people do that. Even putting the bird down to ignore it could be a mistake. What if the bird is biting you cause it wants to be left alone? Pretty much anything you do could be used against you so it's best not to do anything.

Of course if the parrot is biting really hard, you have the right to get it off. But you really should have as little reaction or care about the bite as possible. Don't respond and don't do anything differently. By rendering the bite completely useless and unnoticed, it will lead toward extinction. However, if the bite alters your behavior in any way, it is possible that you will reinforce and end up encouraging the biting instead of diminishing.

[Natacha]

The worst bite I've ever suffered was to Petey's (one of my Meyer's) beak.

I can tell you I knew it was going to happen before it did. All happy that I had managed to successfully get Petey to step up onto my finger consistently for a week rewarding the good behavior with some of his favorite treats, that one day...I didn't do anything different, but in his body language I saw one fraction of a second before he nailed me that it was going to happen.

He got my right index finger was was not letting go. You know when people tell you to push into the bite versus pulling out of the bite to get the bird to let go (I think since they are surprised this happens)..yeah well it didn't work with Petey, he just got to dig into deeper. I'm not sure how, but I was quite calm through the whole ordeal, no screaming, to shaking the hand, no nothing but being puzzled as to how I was going to get this bird off of me. I calmly walked around my apartment in search of a small towel to put over him so I could try to pry him off keeping my other fingers intact while he was really going at it on my finger. I finally found a towel, pried him off and gently put him back in his cage (he was still pretty riled up, didn't want more "accidents"). He did calm down after 5 minutes or so.

But man did it hurt. My finger was swollen for a few days (if not a whole week) after that.
I also have a lovebird, have been around a few of them before as well, and trust me, none of their bites can compare to what Petey did. If I remained calm during that, it's quite easy to not overreact with a Lovebird