Pictures Bites (increasing in frequency)

[Aubrey]

The way to take the emotions out of it is to start learning about the A-B-C's of behaviour (Antecedent. Behaviour. Consequence). Once you start to understand it and see how a simple change in "antecedent" can prevent an entire situation, things start to click because now you are in control of the situation just because of the way you set it up.

This article is not very long and tries to explain things in a down to earth matter to start you in the right direction. You really should give it a once over.

ABC's of behavior.

Thank you for the link!

 

[SueA555]

It is probably hormonal, and your bird doesn't hate you. Joey sometimes bites for no reason at all, but we still love each other.

 

[Monkey & Izzy]

I am currently healing from a broken bone in my ring finger and a black eye for my failure to read a very hormonal Too. I know how hard it is to take a bite without responding. Please don't feel like your bird hates you. There is a lot of good advice so I'll just say hang in there.

 

[Doris M]

I definitively respond to a bite. I mean I'm important, too, not just the parrot or anyone else. It's natural for me to have a reaction like it's natural for them to do what they do

 

[Aubrey]

I am currently healing from a broken bone in my ring finger and a black eye for my failure to read a very hormonal Too. I know how hard it is to take a bite without responding. Please don't feel like your bird hates you. There is a lot of good advice so I'll just say hang in there.

Thank you very much!

 

[Aubrey]

I definitively respond to a bite. I mean I'm important, too, not just the parrot or anyone else. It's natural for me to have a reaction like it's natural for them to do what they do

This made me

 

[msplantladi]

Somebody on a different forum suggested tapping the birds beaks when they're being beaky or biting. From what I've learn this is not a nice thing to do to the bird. Would you agree or is it ok?

One of my goals when trying to bond & form a trust is to be able to gently hold the beak and kiss it-if I were to show anything but love to that beak you can bet I am going to get bit. (p.s. I don't even start this process until way later into the relationship)

 

[JLcribber]

When a cockatoo starts sinking his beak into your arm and you can feel it touching the bone, there isn't any body that won't react unless they have a wooden arm.

When we say show no reaction, what is meant by that is don't introduce any "drama" into the situation. Of course you're going to react to a bite. The difference is you're just going to get the bird off and walk away.

No jumping up and down yelling ouch ouch ouch. No scolding the bird or yelling at them. Those things are drama and WILL reinforce what just happened.

 

[Wolf]

I react to my birds biting, they react to another bird biting them, what's the difference? I think that many of the bites that we receive would be view much differently if we had a layer of feathers to protect our skin like they do. since we don't, we are defective birds to this point and the bites not only hurt more they do more damage. Most of the time a foot raised out in front of a bird is not a request to be picked up, it is a warning to back off and leave the bird be. There are still the hormonal bites which sometimes seem to come right out of the blue and we all get them from time to time. The proper understanding of their body language will prevent the majority of bites, but I have yet to meet the person who has not experienced the sudden hormonal bite. My Grey almost seems to apologise after delivering one of those bites, while my Senegal seems to think that even if I did not earn that bite that sooner or later I will earn it so its all good. And both of these are bonded to me and love me.

 

[Dartman]

Lurch will bite when I'm scritching him if I hit a pin feather, though now that we've mostly bonded and come to terms with each other he mostly just growls and I say sorry and we continue. I do try to watch him a bit as I think they can get overstimulated or tired of it and get nippy too.
Also he may have seen something that alarmed him so he reacted and you got a bite, or he just had a scary thought who knows. Lurch has many triggers that will make him go crazy and try to attack, like a hat on me he doesn't know, no glasses on my face, doing something that I don't normally do, plus the hormonal times too.
He pretty much loves us now but he's a grumpy fellow who sometimes just decides he doesn't want to be messed with and we try and respect that. And I react too most times, he has punched holes in my earlobes before when I got him triggered and he suddenly decided I looked wrong or didn't offer my breakfast fast enough.
He was very quick about biting when he first got here over 5 years ago, I slowly worked with him and he slowly decided I didn't need immediate correction bites as I think he now knows we respect his warnings and he does care for us now so he doesn't always try as fast or hard as he used too.
You'll have to learn his triggers and work with him, it's a mutual thing, he's learning you, and your learning him and eventually you'll reach a mutual understanding where he wont bite most times without a reason you both understand but it'll take a bit to get there.
I don't react as much to small nips and pokes with the side of his beak as I see it as more of a warning then a actual bite, and usually tell him to be a good boy and let him stay, if he does a real bad bite we have a talk and he gets shooed away till he decides to be nice again, he hates being away from us.
Good luck and remember he's a jungle creature and has his own rules, you'll get there, just take the long term approach.