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rainbow lorikeet biting and non stop trying to lick gross places???

minkylory

Sprinting down the street
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9/14/21
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Nel
okay first off. I really really do not mind if he bites me forever but sometimes he does it really hard. I'll be playing a game on my phone and he'll fly over to the finger im touching the screen with and start attacking it full on and it genuinely really hurts. I'm not sure if he's just really mad because he's going through a moult/molt(not sure how to spell) or if its a phase because he's still very young (abt 5 months old now). secondly the licking thing.. im not sure if he's trying to find nectar or what but he will non-stop, no matter what, try to lick INSIDE of my nose??? obviously I really do not want him to do this so I take his beak away from my nose and put him down and he just keeps persistently doing it. when he was younger I did go on holiday for 2 weeks and it could've been something that my parents just let him do and now he wants to keep doing it, but I honestly have no clue. he licks ears too but very rarely tries to dig into your ears or anything. sorry if this makes little sense, its very early in the morning right now and im sleep deprived haha. I feel like I post a lot of threads too, so sorry abt that, I just wanna make sure I'm not doing anything wrong.
 

Donna turner

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Cheeky would like nothing more than to possess my iPad and iPhone. She tries to tear up my phone if she gets too it and if I'm holding it she wants it more and will bite to try and get me out of her way. If I'm using the iPad she wants to dance around on it and will bite when I try to get her off. I think it's a bird thing to want most what we find interesting and to try and get it. She also will sometimes attack me for using the tv remote then attack it when I put it down. I think she sees it as a rival. If I don't want her to bother me when I'm using them I can put a towel around them and she won't mess with the dreaded towel
 

Kassiani

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I saw an interview once with a woman who runs a parrot rescue in Australia. Primarily lorikeets. I remember her saying that they are lickers. She found that they would run their tongues along your arms, faces, etc. I got the impression it was a lorikeet thing.
 

tka

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Well, you're paying attention to your phone so it must be the most interesting thing in the room! Bear in mind that parrot tongues can operate touchscreens - Leia almost bought my mum a load of in-game credits before my mum noticed! It's probably best to put your phone away when your bird is out. You don't want to encourage him to roughly play with your finger, and the best way to do this is not give him the opportunity at all.

Parrots use their tongues like we use our fingers - to investigate, explore textures and so on. Letting him explore your nose is not a good idea though!

What do you do when he is out of the cage? How do you interact? What toys and other activities are them to play with and interact with?
 

minkylory

Sprinting down the street
Joined
9/14/21
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Queensland, Australia
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Nel
Cheeky would like nothing more than to possess my iPad and iPhone. She tries to tear up my phone if she gets too it and if I'm holding it she wants it more and will bite to try and get me out of her way. If I'm using the iPad she wants to dance around on it and will bite when I try to get her off. I think it's a bird thing to want most what we find interesting and to try and get it. She also will sometimes attack me for using the tv remote then attack it when I put it down. I think she sees it as a rival. If I don't want her to bother me when I'm using them I can put a towel around them and she won't mess with the dreaded towel
hehe yeah sounds like a bird thing :p my phone case is absolutely shredded from him attacking it hahaha :D sometimes he's out for many hours at a time and he's doing his own thing but as soon as I touch my phone? "oh my gosh what are you doing!!!" and he flies right over
 

minkylory

Sprinting down the street
Joined
9/14/21
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306
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Queensland, Australia
Real Name
Nel
I saw an interview once with a woman who runs a parrot rescue in Australia. Primarily lorikeets. I remember her saying that they are lickers. She found that they would run their tongues along your arms, faces, etc. I got the impression it was a lorikeet thing.
they certainly are hahaha he just always tries so hard to lick the insides of my nose and its like whyyyy.. when he was younger he would lick my eyelashes and it was very cute because he was always super gentle
 

minkylory

Sprinting down the street
Joined
9/14/21
Messages
306
Location
Queensland, Australia
Real Name
Nel
Well, you're paying attention to your phone so it must be the most interesting thing in the room! Bear in mind that parrot tongues can operate touchscreens - Leia almost bought my mum a load of in-game credits before my mum noticed! It's probably best to put your phone away when your bird is out. You don't want to encourage him to roughly play with your finger, and the best way to do this is not give him the opportunity at all.

Parrots use their tongues like we use our fingers - to investigate, explore textures and so on. Letting him explore your nose is not a good idea though!

What do you do when he is out of the cage? How do you interact? What toys and other activities are them to play with and interact with?
oh gosh hahaha :laugh: silly Leia trying to make you bankrupt! I really couldn't afford a hundred dollar purchase on a mobile game :cry: I'll try to avoid using my phone while he's out
I give him small foot toys he can play with and throw around and stuff like scrunched up paper balls, as well as making some little shredding toys that have treats inside he can rip at and play with. any small toys that aren't toxic for human kids as well he'll play with so I give him those. most of the time when he's out I pay full attention to him, talk to him and all. he likes grabbing onto my fingers with his feet and being lifted up, he'll also chase my hand around hehe its very cute :laugh:

I don't want him to get ill from trying to lick at my nose or anything so I never let him but for some reason he's so adamant. I suppose I could try find something as an alternative to lick at instead but I'm just not sure what I'd use.
 

Momof3litt

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7/22/21
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514
Not sure I have any advice, but the image of the nose-licking thing is hilarious :laugh:

I think I'd prefer if my green cheek was a licker (instead of a biter) but not sure I want to trade ear nibbles for nose licking, lol!

Commiserate about the phone though, mine has learned to turn on videos, which o learned yesterday when I paused a video to talk to my partner and Argo came back 3 separate times to turn it back on! I've taken to just keeping mine face down so that he can't get to the screen. Doesn't help if you actually want to use it though....
 
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