Am I on the right track?

[Fisheyy]

Hey feathered friends! I have a behavior question for you all.

I have a 6 month old green cheek. She's super inquisitive and has been with me for a few weeks now. I generally pay attention to see what she picks first out of the bird food to see what her favorite bits are. After cruising through the diet threads I decided on Hagen's Tropimix. I am also offering fresh fruits and veggies daily and paying attention to what her likes are there as well.

I've realized she loves the dried fruits, so when I replace her food I will take a few out of the mix and put them aside for bribery I have been successful in getting her to take these treats through the cage, and over the past day or so moved on to putting a few in the palm of my hand and putting my hand just inside the cage. She'll come over, take them out of my hand and sit next to it on the perch munching, which is the cutest thing! A few times now she has felt/nibbled my hand and fingers a bit with her beak and I just go on like normal talking sweetly to her and telling her what a good girls she is. The thing is, some of these testing out nibbles have gotten pretty hard like she's trying to pop my finger open, or pull a chunk of skin off. She has been successful in drawing the tiniest bit of blood once. I read through a ton of the behavior articles before finding this girl so I had already decided I wasn't going to react, and stuck to my guns pretty well aside from moving a tiny bit away from her once or twice.

It seems like she's testing me to see what I'm going to do, or to see if I'm sturdy enough to stand on or something? She is 100% calm when she nibbles, no fluffed feathers, no movements away from my hand or anything. And I'm never moving toward her with my hand at all, I'm as still as possible and just wait to see if she comes to me.

The last time she got a little too rough I backed my hand up about an inch and she didn't move. I could see her almost thinking how she was going to get the treats out of my hand now. She walked back and forth on the perch for a few seconds and then took a step up onto my open hand with both feet and proceeded to eat out of my hand for a good few minutes. First time ever that she stepped up!

So, is she just testing me? Or should I be doing something different when she bites a bit too hard?

Also I'm going to post a pic of her too. Hopefully some conure people can tell me what color they think she is I can put this in the conure forum though.

 

[Char.bird]

You sound like your really on the right track and being patient! I think shes just a little unsure and not relly testing you but it seems like she opening up more to you which is good.

 

[BirdLady13]

Young birds will nibble and use their beak to steady themselves; sometimes they don't understand how hard they're biting and other times they're testing the waters. It's great that you don't make a big deal out of it because she may be looking for a reaction, but also make sure you're not rewarding her when she does actually bite; you don't want to reinforce negative behavior.

 

[Fisheyy]

Young birds will nibble and use their beak to steady themselves; sometimes they don't understand how hard they're biting and other times they're testing the waters. It's great that you don't make a big deal out of it because she may be looking for a reaction, but also make sure you're not rewarding her when she does actually bite; you don't want to reinforce negative behavior.

Okay this is a worry for me. I don't want to be accidentally reinforcing bad behavior. She got me again this morning (I'm missing a tiny dot of skin this time ), so I pulled my hand back out of her reach for a bit. She had one foot on my hand and the other on the perch so it unsteadied her a bit. As soon as I offered the treats again she put one little foot back on my hand and went on eating as if nothing happened.