I have a difficult time with the biting. I don't think past the pain. I hear this all the time. You have to endure the pain and not show the bird that they hurt you. How does one do that???????
Practice?
Well, I wish I were joking but that's essentially what happened with me. It hurts but you'll survive.
I wince, every single time. I can't not, it's a reflex for me. But I've learned to stay calm once the bite is over, whether it was a quick jab or 60 seconds of latched-on beak grinding. Getting upset doesn't help.
Basically there is a concept called a 'drama reward.' Parrots love drama and by overreacting to a bite you are providing that drama reward... depending on your actions anyway.
What do you do when and after your lovebird bites you? There is nothing wrong with trying to get your bird to let go if it's latched on like a bulldog if you can do that without hurting your bird (I used to rotate my hand upside down as a distraction, sometimes she'd get disoriented and let up.)
If you are able to keep your cool, no drama reward. (If you need to vent or something afterwords I understand! But you do so out of sight/earshot of your bird. However for a shy and frightened bird, if you get up and leave immediately after a bite that may have been exactly what they wanted and you've still reinforced it.)
More important is, what we were doing before we were bit. Why did the bird bite?
...Though maybe less helpful in the baby and teenage testing phases since it's probably harder to avoid bites when your baby is doing it just to see how you react!
I didn't get Peanut to stop biting (... as much) by reacting after she'd already bit me. To stop biting from being reinforced in their minds you have to stop a bite before it happens. If you bird doesn't bite, no bite can be reinforced and they will have less reason (in their minds) to bite again 'next time.'
Find out why your lovebird is biting you and try to change yourself and their environment to prevent that. For example, if they are biting you while you change their food, move them further away, distract them, or just be really dang fast at it. If they are biting you because they were nervous about being handled, take a step back and slow down, try to stop your interaction with your bird before they feel they
need to bite you to make the interaction stop.
If you can't tell why your bird is biting you or can't read their body language enough to tell when their mood has changed and they are getting ready to bite, it does take time to learn their personality and language. I'm not sure if their is a short cut to that.
I'm a very slow learner, it took me like 8 years to figure out I needed to just keep her from biting me in the first place because ignoring her, saying no, nothing else was working well enough. Don't be slow like me.
She was tame and cuddly but would still bite me for territorial reasons pretty often and with all the fury in her tiny body. I made changes and she wasn't given reasons to bite, to the best of my abilities anyway (I still make mistakes.) But when I do make mistakes since biting hasn't been reinforced as much and for longer periods each time she is less likely to choose to bite, if she does it isn't as hard. For the last couple of years we are down to around one bite, nips don't count.
Edit:
As for how long it took Peanut to really be comfortable and tame with me at home, I can't really remember. 15 years is too long ago for my poor memory.
I can say it wasn't immediate but giving her comfort feedings probably helped. I didn't even know it was a thing at the time, just she was afraid of her new cage, bowls, environment, and didn't seem to be eating well. She was just comfortable enough around me to accept food from my hands so I fed her mushy banana and other mushy fruits to make sure she was getting enough while she got settled in. There are better choices for comfort feedings though, formulas and such. I just used what I had around, being 13 myself.
I also remember she was biting me enough by the start of her first hormones my hands looked like I'd been digging through broken glass. It was so worth toughing it out through those harder periods, she is literally my best friend and is very close to my heart today.
No regrets, I love her more than anything.
She got all confused, and looked around to figure out why. Since they get a little surprise they investigate and give up biting (or at least Prim was silly enough to fall for it almost every time).
