Michael wrote: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!