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How to Train your Bird not to bite you

Branch

Meeting neighbors
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7/11/22
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I haven't seen anyone post this subject yet and I feel like this is something a lot of bird trainers deal with so here are some of the tips that I can give.

You have probably seen a lot of videos on YouTube telling you not to react when your bird bites, but it's easier said than done. Humans have a natural instinct to pull away from pain, so now what do we do? Instead of directly punishing your bird by hitting it, yelling at it, or squirting it with water (as they will form a negative relationship with your hands and want to attack them even more), you train your bird to not bite you. How? Simply put him down and ask him to step up and then give him a treat. How this works is that this is a method known as positive reinforcement, where instead of punishing your bird for what they did wrong, reward them for doing the right thing.

Now I know some people that are extremely bonded with their bird but still get bit. For more bonded birds, this process is easier. Although, PLEASE read the rest of this paragraph. What I am going to tell you is suited for birds that love human company and will call after you if you go too far away from them. If you do this to a bird that hates human interaction, it will only encourage biting behavior so PLEASE don't do this with an unbonded bird.

So, basically, this is quite simple. If your bird bites, simply put him/her down and leave the room. They will call after you and after they call 3-6 times, go back in the room, and let them do something that will earn them a treat. Every time your bird bites, just repeat this process and it'll eventually learn that biting means that your parrot's favorite human would go away.

But, then begs another question, what if you own a macaw? Well, this works for birds that you've been with for about a week. If you know what your parrot will do before he bites (such as my bird Branch who typically holds my finger before going in for the chomp), carefully remove your finger in time and then distract them with something they're interested in so they can't get a bite off. Even better, if your bird's target trained, grab your target stick and clicker to direct your bird somewhere else, and is also somewhat a way of positive reinforcement, just minus the getting bitten part.

I hope this works out for you. Some of the things I listed might take days to weeks for your bird to understand, but with enough patience, you can make even the most stubborn of birds stop biting. Out of my personal painful experiences of getting bit.
 

Mizzely

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I do something similar and have suggested it often on the forum, but I also give them a super mean look :lol: Body language (expression, turning back to them, leaving) is harder to misinterpret :)
 

FeatheredM

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I do it with my GCC, and it works pretty well. Make sure to bookmark this thread so that you can just copy and paste it within a few seconds when you see a thread that could use this info.
 
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