Over the years Alfie has been known to lunge and bite if he didn't want to step up. We went through a time when our trust broke down a bit and I had to re-evaluate if I was the best owner/home for Alfie. Long story short, I was able to make some changes to my life and living arrangements to improve things for us both.

I am still sometimes a bit wary of Alfie lunging/biting. Although he doesn't normally break the skin it still hurts and I feel it sets us back. So I always try and read his cues and avoid the possibility of a bite. It's been working well.

One of the things I did during this time when we were rebuilding our trust was use a wooden dowel perch for him to step up on if I needed to transfer him somewhere else or get him back in his cage. That meant if I read it wrong and he decided to lunge, it would be the stick that would get the damage and not me. When I was more confident about things I would use my arm (he doesn't step up for a hand, only my wrist - always has). This was generally fine. Alfie gradually learned that he didn't need to lunge to tell me "no" - he could just turn away and I would respect that and back off.

I've now noticed though that more often than not, he will refuse to step up on my arm but will willingly step up for the perch. So I'll offer an arm and say 'step up' and he'll back off/turn away. I back off (because otherwise I know I'll get bitten). I go and fetch the wooden dowel and he hops straight on it before I've even said "step up"

Very occasionally he will step up on my arm and I will heavily praise this and offer a treat. When he steps up on the wooden dowel he gets a treat and a 'good boy'. 

It's not a major problem - but I would like to try and swing it back so he's more reliably stepping up on my arm- as this helps if we're visiting my parents or elsewhere where I don't have a wooden dowel handy. However, I know that if he refuses the arm and I go back and ask a second time, he's probably going to lunge... especially if I'm not confident in my movements and ask. (He seems to be able to read me SO well!) Any advice for trying to improve this?

Every day I train her for about a 30 minutes.  One of the tricks we work on is step-up.  We've been doing this trick for months, but the other day she bit the crud out of me after she stepped up nicely.  I think she was kind of demanding a treat.  A few days later, I was scratching her head at night, which she loves, and she bit me again!  I think I touched a sore quill feather.  And one more time a few days later, she got spooked on my shoulder or something and bit me on the nose.  It doesn't seem like she's been angry with me on any of these occasions, more like an instinctual, in-the-moment bite.

This is my third parrot, and while I'm not expert in bird behavior, I do have some bird-brain understanding.  Vim's never been forced to step up: I always ask her and respect her when she doesn't want to be held.  She's never been disciplined or had any sort of demonstration of aggressive behavior.  I generally just ignore behavior I don't like, and promote behavior I do with kind words, scratches, or a treat.  That's worked well so far because she's very well behaved, sweet, quiet (compared to our resident conure), potty trained...  But now this biting out of the blue!  No eye pinning, no ruffled feathers, no hissing, just wham!

My response so far has been to remain calm and say, "Ow, I bite!" with a sad tone.  When I tell her that, she looks like she understands (maybe that sounds strange).  When she bit my nose, I calmly put her back in her cage and walked away.  Does that seem like the right strategy?

She really is a great bird, but I'm used to conures.  I can grab them by the body, flip them over, ruffle their feathers, and it's all play to them.  Vim's very body shy, proud, and she spooks easily, and I'm constantly working on trust accordingly.

Thanks again, and I'll leave you with this picture.

Did a bit of training with Alfie this evening as admittedly I've been slacking on that side of things recently. We worked on "touch", "wave" and "spin". For the touch command, he just needs to touch the chopstick with his beak. He tends to grab it- but so long as it's gentle then I'll accept it. For wave he just needs to lift his foot up. I would normally cue this with a hand gesture as well but I had my hands full with the clicker and the phone, so I think that's why he was more hesitant on this occasion. And for the spin I just want him to rotate round on the spot. I'd normally do this one on a perch, but he seemed to get the hang of it just fine on the flat surface.

I need to start adding recall training back into the mix as I haven't been doing this in a structured way recently. Alfie tends to pick and choose when he's going to recall and when he's going to stay put. Sometimes he opts to fly to me then go over my head or round me at the last minute. I'm hoping I'll get better results if I start doing more structured training sessions with him again.

Thanks a bunch! 

Her roaming destructiveness was alleviated completely by placing brown corrugated boxes on her cage playtop, which she immediately took to in joyous fashion.  Initially I used whatever medium size boxes I had, but this seemed to trigger, to my astonishment, a hormonal or breeding response and she ended up laying a couple of "soft shell" eggs.  

I'd been reassured this would pass, and it did seem to, to the point I ordered some small 4x4 boxes from a supply house and would assemble one or two a week, replacing them as they became destroyed.  She seemed overjoyed when I put a fresh one in play.

She had previously and even now, almost completely ignores any commercial "toys" I hang in her cage, only occasionally attacking some wooden dowel rods i put in there, despite her great willingness to attack pencils she may encounter.

Now, however, she has lessened interest in her playtop boxes and has take to leaving her cage area and attacking any storage box or the like that may happen to be around.  I tried many times to catch her in the act, admonish her and return her to her cage.  When that failed, I began putting her in the cage and latching the door, at first for brief periods and latter for longer.  But, that has only seemed to reinforce her tendency to leave the cage and begin tearing up.   I see now, this may have developed into a game as she never displays aggression when I return her to the cage, but does show reluctance to leave my hand.  She does "beak" my fingers or hand at those times, but does not "bite".  So far.

She seems to desire more attention as well lately and more often now tugs at my fingers with her head up and body lowered, which I gather is a "food sharing" or requesting behavior.   I'm beginning to doubt I am the right person or home for her, despite the apparent bond.

The only thing that has really changed is that I introduced Harrison Bird Bread (original mix) a few weeks back,  She loves it, and would eat it to the exclusion of anything else.  I am almost out of the first batch and reordered.  I can hold off for a week or so, to see it seems to be related.

Once again, unsure how to proceed to keep her happy and healthy and me sane.  ish. She really is a sweet bird otherwise.

After some weeks, she has become more confident and started to explore. There is the problem.  Caught here nibbling, destroying, wood trim around doors, cabinets, etc.   That HAS to stop.   So far my only "solution" has been to admonish, sternly, have her step up, which she does, more or less readily, and I return her to cage.  At first, just to the cage, but, as she showed how stubborn she can be, repeating the behavior, I started putting her in the cage and latching the doors.   Spends most of her time pacing and sometimes at food cup, taking a nibble or two.  Sometimes just perches on the food bowl for long periods.  That may indicate hunger or just a comfort zone?

Suggestions?

Any advice for resources. I just finished reading "The Parrot Problem Solver" by Barbara Heindenreich and I was really hoping she had a course for it. She speaks of the free flight work she's been involved in quite frequently throughout the book.

Any tips would be great! Again I do have time as Gandalf isn't even layer let alone hatched but as with all training, I'd prefer to lay the ground work from the beginning instead of straightening out things later.

I've had some 'issues' with Alfie - he took a dislike to me a while back and favoured my housemate who recently moved out. Whilst Alfie will interact with me he no longer wanted to sit with/on me and no longer asked for head scritches. If my housemate was in the room Alfie would follow him and want to sit with him. He also went through a short period of flying to the back of my neck/head and biting me... but thankfully that was relatively short lived. However, things still haven't got back to how they used to be.

I've been working hard to regain Alfie's trust and build our friendship back up again... especially now my housemate is no longer living here (he does visit though). I have been trying to start clicker training with a target stick for a while but Alfie usually ignores the stick completely or gets aggressive with it. I've only tried this when he's been in the cage so far. I also have to watch my fingers/hands when offering treats as sometimes he opts to lunge at my hands/fingers instead of taking the treat. This has knocked my confidence with Alfie somewhat, which I know is a problem in itself. So I'm working hard to find ways to improve things for us both.

Yesterday I managed to get Alfie to touch the target stick a good few times whilst he was out of his cage. I put the stick close to him, used the command 'touch' then clicked the clicker as soon as any part of his beak touched the stick. I then put a treat down for him on the window sill so he could get it. I didn't quite trust him enough to offer him the treat directly, but putting it down nearby seemed to work. I kept the 'training session' really short and asked him to repeat the behaviour about 5 or 6 times at most. I also managed to get a couple of clips of our attempts which I uploaded to the forums just now. Hopefully these should be available below, assuming I did everything correctly!
 

...that he tosses peanuts that are still in the shell to the floor. 

He refuses (after 22 years) to crack open his own peanut.  I gave up years ago, and just buy him the unsalted roasted peanuts in a jar (ready to eat kind).  My other parrots never minded cracking open a peanut.  My grey won't even crack open a small almond or ANY kind of nut!  I get that some nuts are difficult to open and perhaps are more appropriate for a macaw -- but c'mon -- peanuts??? 

How lazy is your parrot???

I don't know why he does this! I'm so good to him! We were eating breakfast together. We were done. Timmy was walking on the table for a minute or two. I let him. He walks, he chews up paper, he throws stuff on the floor. It's cute. He has fun. But I was finished, so I picked up Timmy to put him in his cage. And like usual, he doesn't want to let go of my hand. And that turns to biting. HARD. He bit me so hard that I bled profusely, and my finger went numb.

Why? I give him so much time outside of his cage. I feed him delicious food. I pet him. I love him! He doesn't bite my mom. Never. She doesn't know why he does this either.

FR:

Je ne sais pourquoi il ça fait ! Je suis tellement gentil avec lui ! On a eu le petit déjeuner ensemble. C'était terminé. Timmy a marché sur le table pour un minute ou deux. Je laisse le passe. Il marche, mâche des papiers, lance des trucs au étage. C'est mignon. Il s'amuse. Mais j'étais fini, donc j'ai relevée Timmy pour retourner dans sa cage. Et comme normal, il ne veux à lâcher de mon main. Et ça tour à la morsure. FORT. Il a me mordu si fort que j'ai saignée abondamment, et mon doigt a venu engourdi.

Pourquoi ? Je le donne des bonheurs devant sa cage. Je le donne à manger la bonne nourriture. Je le caresse. Je l'aime ! Il mord pas maman. Ne jamais pas. Elle ne sais pas pourquoi, non plus.

I am a 34 year old male I have a good amount of experience with other birds but i am trying to get some advice from someone that has more expertise with African greys. 

I have had him for 2 weeks. He came with his own cage which is very spacious and has his original toys and perches. I have a large variety of zupreme food and fresh fruits and veggies i give him daily.

So he is absolutely terrified of me. He shakes in fear when i put food in his bowls. Occasionally he will take a treat from me through the bars but if I move too close he falls to the bottom of the cage and does a human scream like ahh ahhh ahh ahh. I leave the door open on his cage so he can go to the top and have free range but he always stays in his cage and never comes out even when i'm not home.

I have tried to very slowly and gently place my hand under him to pick him up from the bottom of the cage a couple times but he screams and has bitten me hard enough to draw blood on 2 occasions.  I have him in a medium travel location near my kitchen so when i prepare food and watch tv he is near me.    

What I want to know is, should I just go very very slow and just feed him and give him his space or should i press the issue and hold him. I am not really afraid of the bites i just want to know the best way to help him get over his fear.   

Setup: Nighttime/bedtime.  You're are riding your Mum's hand to your cage and decide you aren't ready for bed.

Simply put one foot on one human finger, swing downwards and just "go limp" and hang upside down by one foot.  Your upside down body sways gently as she walks you to your cage. 

"Now let 'em try to put you back in your cage!!!" Bwu ha ha.  "I'm upside down here!  I can't possibly stand, I am too weak, I can't possibly step onto my perch while hanging upside down!!!"

Adorably cute.  And, if you're in a hurry, a huge drag.   I have tried just laying him on his back on bottom of cage but lemme tell ya -- that foot NEVER lets go of your hand.  The harder you try to dislodge the foot -- the tighter the hold becomes!  A second hand used to forced an upright position is wasted, does absolutely nothing to force my CAG to stand up again!!! This 'limp body" can waste an additional 10 minutes each evening when his ingenious 'I'm too weak to stand upright/my body is completely limp" trick is played.    Gotta love a grey -- they're just too smart!!!!  

AND, of course, Snickers earns an additional treat reward (mostly just so he'll let go) -- so a double win with this self-taught trick!

C'mon guys -- what 'tricks' has your Grey learned by him/herself??? 

His nighttime routine, after caging, is to go immediately to the bottom of his cage and take his rage out on a flattened paper towel roll.  He basically stands on the flattened roll and pulls bits of cardboard off each roll quite aggressively.  Tonight I noticed he was down to his last roll, already a bit chewed, so I decided to give him another one.  (Yeah yeah, he has other toys hanging in his cage, but the flattened paper towel roll is just his choice for his evening "I don't want to go to bed yet so let me destroy something" routine. 

I flatten a new paper towel roll and am slipping it between the bars so it will fall to the bottom.  Well, he grabs it from me so it can't drop.  The problem is, I didn't fold up the roll, only flattened it -- so he can't get a good grip on it and he keeps letting it go a second for a retry - basically just trying to re-arrange a too-large object in his beak.  Why I didn't just open the door and toss it in is beyond me.  Temporary insanity?

So, between the bars, I foolishly stuck my finger in, with the intention of pushing the flattened PT roll out of his beak when he let go to re-position his grip on it.  I lost.

I don't know if he accidentally bit me or if I scraped my finger myself on his beak.  I know I am missing a small (but thick) piece of epidermis just above my fingernail and it bled a lot (not on the PT roll itself, just bled on ME).  My effort did have the desired effect, the flattened roll fell to the bottom and Snickers is happily standing on his new roll and destroying it as we speak.  I am on my second plaster/band-aid and bleeding has finally stopped.  I do have missing flesh though, small 2mm strip of top skin gone and red meat showing (sorry, that was a gross but accurate description).  I think this will take at least a few days to heal over.  It hurts. (whining).  I don't think he meant to bite me (if that's what happened) or if he did bite me he probably doesn't realize it -- or perhaps he deliberately bit me on purpose as part of the 'dropping a flattened paper towel roll game'.  I do imagine he thought I was playing a paper towel tube game:  Goal: him to hold it, me to fail dropping it to bottom of cage.  Who knows really? -- they're so smart!  I've just never been bitten by him before like this! (Another story one day of the only bite I ever received from him and it was a complete accident on his part -- he thought my hands belonged to someone else).

Snickers isn't a biter -- well, correction, he never bites me.  Maybe he thought I was playing a game with him, maybe he was just angry it was cage-time/bed-time.  I just can't imagine he thought this one through.  I often push flattened paper towel rolls through the bars for him at night for him to chew on.  I also often just open his door and toss a flattened roll in. (Wish I'd done this tonight!)

My feelings aren't hurt.  Snickers is a good bird -- cuddly, sweet -- he just hates bedtime or cage-time.  If I was a CAG, I'd hate bedtime too!  But man, now the next few days will mean a sore index finger for me.  I think, with the missing skin chunk, it has to heal from the inside out.   Could take a week or more.  

But that's it for his so-called "training".  I find myself repeating what HE says.  I find myself answering his "whatcha doing" with an actual answer (I'm reading" I'm watching a movie") as if he really understands what he's asking or even cares a whit about what I'm doing anyway! 

I find his loud squeaking sends ME rushing to find him his desired treat/food/toy/chewing object or to retrieve some dropped item (I am the maid here).

My grey (had him 22 years) runs this house and he knows it.  *I* flunked Training 101, not him.

As long as he's out of his cage with toys and food available: he's happy.  Me?  Well... I deal.

I am only thankful he doesn't bite me (because I swear if he was human, he'd probably be an abusive spouse).

Sorry for chuckling, but training???  My CAG is already too smart for his own good. 

I think my CAG is the trainer and *I* am the trainee.

[no offense for a seeming rant -- I am as sane as possible given 22 years with my CAG -- lol]

My African grey is my first parrot and proxied son whom I love to death and would do anything for. He is one year and almost three months old.

He does not speak a lick of English or any other human-based language that I have tried to teach him. I understand that some Parrots will simply never talk and while I admit, I did not know that when I purchased him, I have no regrets and I love him no matter what. The question I have is, how do parrots learn pronunciation? 

Here is what he knows:

1. When he is okay, or just saying hello, instead of saying  Heh-low, hey goes "Ooh Ooh", and I to return the same phrase. He is happy to copy me when I do it. The closest I have gotten to hello was "Eeh Ohh" as he seemed to have been struggling with the H and l sounds.

2. While hello was the primary objective, he has in the process, made other sounds that we seem to both recognize as his own form of language, when he wants my attention he makes a sound, when he wants to be pet he makes another sound, when he wants to go somewhere, body language. When he is uncomfortable or anxious he makes a specific sound before the squeeling you may find in really  bad siutations like the vet etc.

** He is happy to copy me, especially when I sing to him, and the "click click click click" sound he makes, when hes not making it, ill do it and he will immediately copy it verbatim. He does not fancy treats but he does enjoy a good head/ neck scratch. 

So how might I get him to use english words or phrases? 

I've had my Timmy for eighteen years. He's my buddy. He's usually well-behaved. Okay, that's a stretch. He's a mischevious sweet-heart! An angel with a deadly weapon on his face.

A few nights ago as I was getting dressed up to go out dancing, my little guy flew upstairs to see what I was up to. And of course I was happy to see him! I was half-dressed and putting on my makeup, and my guy jumped down from the bannister to the floor. I knew what was coming, because he'll do this and say, "I'm gonna get yer piggies!" And he "gets" your piggies.

Anyway, I tried to step back, but my fishnet was caught in a nail for the door sill. And here comes my little buddy and bites my toes! Not playing, not in an I'm-gonna-get-your-piggies way, but aggressively trying to hurt my toes! So I pick him up, and he bites my hand, wrist, and fingers soooooo hard, so many times! It hurt so much that I cried for a solid fifteen minutes. It felt so un-provoked! My heart felt ripped in half. And now my hand is swollen.

This seems so out of character! Timmy is not a mean-spirited bird. He's a real (mischevious) sweet-heart. The only thing I can come up with is that he didn't like what I was wearing. So what's going on? What do I do? I want to be able to spend time with my little Timmy and not get bitten!

So why the heck did I buy a harness?

I'm hoping that if I take it super slow and steady then I might be able to slowly convince him that the harness is a good thing. Then perhaps I'll be able to take him out on walks.

I'm willing to put the time and effort in but I also understand that I may never be able to convince him.

I started training today. I showed him the packaging and acted excited about it. I took the harness out and rolled it around in my hands telling him what it was and how much fun he could have outside if he wants to wear it some day. I then allowed him to take a closer look. I let him 'touch' the harness with his beak (but not bite it). Every time he touched it gently he got a cedar nut. I did this a few times. Then I backed off. This is how I'm planning on starting- just showing it to him and letting him know how fun it will be. I'm also planning on maybe getting some ribbon or other material which I don't mind being destroyed to work on getting closer to him, and resting it on his back and wings (eventually). I can also make loops with it and try and train him to get his head through it without biting it. (thinking of using a similar coloured material to the harness). Obviously this is thinking ahead a lot. I plan to work to Alfie's 'grey time'. One little step at a time. He may reject it and I may have to eventually give up if he is uncomfortable with the idea. But I think it's worth a try. And actually having some focused training time isn't a bad thing either.

I'm planning on posting updates here though they will undoubtedly be few and far between. I don't expect this to be a quick process at all!

Wish us luck!

My husband and I adopted our ~9 y/o TAG, Schooner, about 7 months ago. We got (rescued)  him from a family who I honestly think did not treat him well (they used welding gloves to catch him and literally throw him into his travel carrier when we came to pick him up 😳🤭😭) and I don’t know much about his early life other than he spent most of his time in his cage. 

I’m a marine mammal and dog trainer and am well versed in positive reinforcement, reading body language and building a good relationship with your animal. But let me tell y’all, this bird is something else!

I’ve had some major success with him and I have definitely learned some of his tells. But I’m having a lot of problems with his biting. I can only ask him to step up onto my hand when he first wakes up in the morning and he’s doing that whole regurgitation song and dance. Other wise I have to wait for him to climb down his cage onto the floor and then I can pick him with this little organization box (we call it the magic box, pictured below). He’s eating well, bathing, interacting with toys and can be very vocal (mostly whistles, clicks and other vocalizations, no words). 

I try sooo hard to find ideal times to ask him to step up and reward him for being good and for also making it variable (if he steps up he doesn’t have to be with me forever, he can go back to his cage or he can go sit on his magic box somewhere while I read or something). But homeboy doesn’t just tag you, he grinds his beak into your skin and doesn’t let up. 

Ideally, I would love to find a bird trainer/grey specialist that either I can go to or can come meet him (so someone in the central Texas area?)and give me more insight on how to help this lil bird be successful. I understand that he might not ever be affectionate with me but I would like to be able to pick him up consistently and be able to move him to clean his home and socialize with him etc. 

Any and all advice would be appreciated!

-Schooner’s Mom

so I have decided to go down the flight harness route.

Tali still has clipped wings but once her malt is done I have decided to let her keep her wings so she can fly to me in the house.

so I now have a harness to teach her to wear so we can still enjoy outings together.

my problem is.. she's not big on being touched on wings or under wings. She loves to snuggle in the evenings under her blanket, and when she's chosez she loves a scratch under her chin and on her back of neck...

She is willing to put her head into the harness to retrieve treats. 

How can I get her used to being touched around her wings? I think she remembers the breeder cutting her wings and she wasn't exactly calm and gentle about it.

do you think I should worry about teaching her to be touched under wings? Or just focus on putting harness on over head?

Once it's on over her head if I keep the treats up I can manuvour the rest of the harness inplace, I havent worked up to tightening it up snug to her body yet.

any advice would be much appreciated 

thank y'all so much in advance 😊

I wanted to know what you guys did during these early stages in training, and at what age. Thank you :D