Teach your bird *Biting* is not OK

[ParrotsForLife]

Well, if you had read postings here, you would have seen it said many times. But this goes to prove something else both Wolf and I have been saying for a long time: you can't take anything that you read or is said to you about parrots as gospel! You need to do research on your own and reach your own conclusions because there are too many outdated/wrong concepts out there... First you go to Nature (where you will find most of your answers), then, if it's a medical or physiological issue, you go to scientific studies and last you use common sense. The reason why I put common sense last is that this most uncommon of senses, is nothing but the ability to correctly judge and evaluate a situation BUT, because we know so little about parrots and our 'experience' is geared toward similar species (mammals), common sense doesn't always work well with them.

I've only seen here to ignore biting lol.And I wouldn't even have thought to search it because I didn't really have to deal with biting.

[ParrotsForLife]

You folks are presuming the bird even cares that it is hurting you. Maybe yours does. So many people don't have any relationship with the bird and the bird intends to hurt the person by biting (in self defense). And if you let the bird know it hurts then it will especially choose to bite just like that next time to be left alone. You're forgetting that 90%+ of birds that bite people are doing it intentionally to be left alone and people just aren't listening to what the bird is saying. Showing that the bite hurts solves nothing. Training and building a relationship does.

And I just said that on my own forum because a member mentioned that and I said she was right about that because a bird that is not bonded to you will intend to hurt you but a bird that does have a relationship with you would less likely be meaning to hurt you.

[Wolf]

I do agree with you Michael, in that a bird that is biting you out of fear or while defending itself does intend to cause you pain. This is natural and if I attack in self defense, I too intend to hurt or worse, but if it is not due to needing to defend myself then if I or the bird hurts you it is not intentional. My birds have bitten me even though they want to be with me but I do not see that there is any intent to actually hurt me and they do respond to my letting them know that they hurt me, and yes it is due to both the training and the relationship that we have with each other.

The act of vocally responding to the birds bite combined with putting the bird down and ignoring it or walking away or even turning my back on the bird is training, While I may use the word teach instead of train, they are still the same thing. So you are 100% correct in your statement that it is due to training and the relationship that you have with the bird. The only real difference in what we do is the way that we choose to teach them what they need to know or what we want them to know and that is due to our perceptions. For me it is quicker and easier to use the same body language and types of sounds that the bird itself uses and understands, than any other way.

[Bird woman]

Michael how long have you had your macaw??? I saw you get bitten not once but twice . But you didn't react. With my birds it really depends which reaction I give to the situation and which birds is doing the biting. Example ) Lilly will chase me everywhere if I'm just 1/2 late getting home. Everytime! And if she doesn't connect with one bite to get even it will go on all day long. She carries a grudge longer than any bird I've ever seen. Delilah only bites when I go to put her to bed and she will keep putting pressure on until I scream , then she yells back and says ouch don't bite and laughs . This is every night and I think it's become a game. Most of the fids play by chasing my husband around the house trying to get him . Aggressive biting such as in Huey's case ,gets met with sternness from me and being put in an avairy by himself. The point I'm trying to make is every bird is different and requires different solutions. I don't really think one teqnique is a fix all for every bird or situation. BW

[Michael]

I just don't get bit. Not by other birds and especially not by my birds. I choose my battles wisely. I don't pick up other people's birds that I'm not confident won't bite. I don't make birds do things they don't want to do. And if I want/need them to do something they don't want, I'll use training to get them to want it and then there's no reason for them to bite. It's really that simple. That's the secret to not ever getting bit.

[ParrotsForLife]

I never get bitten by my birds either I was bitten once by Mango but he was just defending himself because I literally put my finger right in front of his beak when he was not tame and now he never bites though I wish he wouldn't just let strangers pick him up.Rocko and Loki have never ever bitten at all though Rocko has bitten other people.Loki is so gentle you could do anything to her and she wouldn't bite even if she hates getting her nails trimmed.Its rare that I get bitten by Tiko but you never know what to expect from an African grey lol.

[Pajarita]

You folks are presuming the bird even cares that it is hurting you. Maybe yours does. So many people don't have any relationship with the bird and the bird intends to hurt the person by biting (in self defense). And if you let the bird know it hurts then it will especially choose to bite just like that next time to be left alone. You're forgetting that 90%+ of birds that bite people are doing it intentionally to be left alone and people just aren't listening to what the bird is saying. Showing that the bite hurts solves nothing. Training and building a relationship does.

Yes, I do firmly believe that a parrot does care if it's hurting me. And I also believe that parrots never hurt anybody intentionally. There are birds that having been mistreated by humans do bite before they take the time to judge the new person in their life but I don't consider that to be done intentionally, it's just the old 'offense is the best defense' technique - having no reason to trust humans and having been proven over and over that humans cannot be trusted, the bird is using a pre-emptive solution to its problem, a very smart thing to do, if you ask me! I also don't think that they actually need to see or hear a reaction to know for a fact that they are hurting us when they bite us. They already know. As to people who get bit because they do the wrong thing, yes, you are 100% correct, this is almost always the case but when people ask what to do about their pet parrot biting we are not talking about people who don't care to have any type of relationship with the bird - if they are asking is because they do care, right? And, of course that the solution is, as you noted, to build a good relationship with the bird but that is not only implicitly understood, it's also very explicitly explained by us when we answer this type of questions. Good husbandry and understanding where a parrot is 'coming from' is essential! But, precisely because of the need for a good relationship is that I think that showing pain helps. Because as the relationship deepens and the parrot learns to trust and love the human, it will not want to cause it pain in any way and if the human never reacted to the bite, you might as well be telling the parrot that it's OK to do it because, after all, it doesn't really hurt! It might not help immediately but it certainly helps in the long run and, as we all know, human/parrot relationships need always to be considered in terms of long term goals and commitment.

I have had to deal with abused pet parrots as well as ex-breeders (which are never treated right) and this method has worked, Michael. One of the parrots I have is a male amazon that was punched by his previous owner every time he bit and this is not something I guessed from the bird's behavior, it was told to me by the previous owner (he called it 'taking a fist to him'). Needless to say, this only made the parrot bite him more and, when he came here and was free from his cage, he proceeded to attack me every time I went into the birdroom - and who could blame him?! But he no longer does and all I did was show him that he had hurt me without retaliating by hurting him. The last time he bit me was because I got too close to their nest and was not paying attention to him - entirely my fault!

In my personal experience, parrots do not like to cause pain and would only bite when pushed to do it. Quite the contrary, they are very empathetic and actually worry when somebody, human or bird, is hurt - and this particular trait has been noted in many different parrot species in the wild (it is the trait that made it so easy for people to kill entire species of parrots like the Carolina Parakeet, for example). I have seen this many times when I get bit but I will give you an example that is going on right now: I've had to take Pookey TAG out of the birdroom because something happened in there (my fault, no doubt about it, and I can't hardly live with myself because of my stupidity!) that made her fearful of everything. I now have her in my living room, next to a window and the cardinals cage and, although she has gotten much better, every now and then, she still gets all bent out of shape by another bird climbing on the outside of her cage and every single time she screams in fear, both Mami YFA and Naida BFA (which are in the dining room) start screaming themselves in a clearly very upset tone - and Mami, which only ventures away from her cage when Naida has gone exploring and does not come back right away, immediately flies down to the floor and starts walking real fast toward her cage while screaming: ALABATEA ALABATEA ALABATEA which I think of as her flock call. Is she trying to see what is going on? Is she trying to protect/defend Pookey? I don't know for sure, of course, but it seems to me that she is doing both. She has no other reason to do this except the fact that she has known Pookey for years and, I assume, considers her a 'weird looking' amazon and part of her flock.... empathy!

[seagoatdeb]

You folks are presuming the bird even cares that it is hurting you. Maybe yours does. So many people don't have any relationship with the bird and the bird intends to hurt the person by biting (in self defense). And if you let the bird know it hurts then it will especially choose to bite just like that next time to be left alone. You're forgetting that 90%+ of birds that bite people are doing it intentionally to be left alone and people just aren't listening to what the bird is saying. Showing that the bite hurts solves nothing. Training and building a relationship does.

Agree with you on this Michael, Another important point of consideration here is that a parrot will learn about pressure and know just how much hurt to give you from a hard bleeding bite to a tiny pinch, as a form of communication. They do a lot of communicating with their beak. For that reason, I use beak touching a lot in my training. Showing them it hurts is just one of the steps. It is the most important step for a human, since it helps the human to not be as scared of the parrot....lol