Biting As a Normal occurance?

[Pomlover2586]

As i read more and more posts there seems to be a lot of people who have had birds for a long time who continue to bite. I know birds are never fully tame and you have to expect bites- but I am wondering- are these full on bites where blood is drawn? Or rather warning nibbles? Do most birds bite regularly despite training and socialization? Sorry a lot of questions- but I want to be prepared before getting a bird.

[Khaiqha]

Well, my ringneck "bites" often, but they don't injure or even hurt. She does it when she's startled or upset. It's just for show though, as I haven't had a painful bite from her since she was bluffing in September.

Now if for some reason she's losing her balance and bites to hang on, or pulls herself up with her beak, those sometimes hurt.

[spiral]

Hello
Here's my thoughts on this. I think any parrot could bit a little from time to time, but not always from agression. All parrots do beaking, they like to feel you, before they step onto your hand to test weather or not your fingers are strong enough to take its weight.

Its important to try to understand what triggers bites to aviod being bitten, in the fist place so its always good to learn your birds body language so you can understand exactly when it is about to bite. As a general rule of thumb try to always move slowly and calmly round a parrot, as this lessens the likely hood you will be bitten trough fear as parrots dont like sudden unpredictable movements,
My parrot bit me a little recently when i was trying to take her of the back of my wheelchair, so that i could see what she was doing. I had a feeling that she was going to jump on my neck so i decided to encouage her to sit on my arm instead.
It was my own fault i was bitten because i was rushing her i think. She happily got onto my hand for a peice of dried bannana but she did not want to be moved from where she was happly enjoying herself without an incentive. This show's the importance of posstive reinfourcement in courageing the parrot to behave as you need and ask it to.

If i let her sit on my shoulder she will sometimes get bored if i am sitting still and bite my ear, she is drawn to anything red and of course my earlobe is red! That beging said i encourage her to sit on my wrist instead or on my write arm bellow the elbow.

If a parrot feels it is being forced into something, without it's concent it will probably bite, through fustration or maybe even fear. Although, sensitive people always try to aviod anything that may tigger fear and "the fight of flight response in their parrot."

[pennyandrocky]

it depends on the type your looking at.penny has never drawn blood on me but mya has bitten to the bone,my fault for sitting too close to my boyfriend (she thinks he's her mate)we have been working on getting her comfortable with this.you just have to figure out why and except you will get bit before you choose your bird.

[marie83]

Any bird can bite at any time, with alot of warning or no warning.
When Ollie came to me he was fine, he never bit at all, when he hit his birdy puberty he turned into a little monster, I was getting bitten several times an hour, occasionally drawing blood. The crucial bit I think is picking up extremely quickly on how your bird acts before the bite and analyzing exactly what YOU were doing right before, at the time and immediately afterwards. Only with this can you learn exactly what methods to use to reduce biting and when you need to use them. The quicker you get to this point after the biting starts the faster you will get improvements.

Ollie now rarely bites, I know he will never stop completely but 95% of the time I can prevent the bite in the first place. The other 5% of the time I don't, well its usually because I'm not paying attention, caused him pain by catching a pin feather or disrespecting his wishes and doing something unplesant to him like medication so I deserve that bite.

On the other hand my partner has never looked at his behaviour and acts the same way every time he got bitten. He still gets bitten at least once a day and more often than not to draw blood.

How often will you get bitten/how hard and will it be an ongoing problem? I would say that it depends on you mostly. Depends on your confidence level with handling birds, depends on how obervant to your birds behaviour you are and how quick you learn and how fast you act. It does of course depend a bit on the bird, Ollies species have a massive reputation for being bitey. The birds past is also a massive factor, if a bird has already learned to bite its going to be harder to reduce the behaviour than a bird who is learning.