Correct Response to Biting

[Vim]

Hi there, and thanks in advance for reading my post.  This is my second post about Vim, who is doing great.  She enjoys my company, and has learned all sorts of tricks.  I can say, "Hello," and she says, "Hi Kara" (my wife's name).  I can say, "The Andy Griffith show!", and she whistles the theme song.  I say, "What's wrong with you?", and she responds, "I have no lips!"

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.

[Talon]

Oh my!  I have sooo been down this road.  I don't remember how long you have had her. but it could be a few things..perhaps the honeymoon period is over & she is testing you.....mine all did that. YOU did the right thing when she bit your nose in putting her back in her cage and walking aways without saying anything. They WANT a response, a reaction. best not to give it to them or it will reinforce the behavior.  When my parrots are on my shoulder, I do my best to keep my face away from them..you never know what will spook them , when they get spooked, their reaction is to react by flying or biting..they dont know whatever happened isn't your fault, they just know to react. I would try and ignore the biting, so she finds nothing exciting happens when she does it. It will take time..as she will continue to try & get a reaction out of you, then it just becomes a game to her

Also try and read her body language..most bites happen because we miss something, not always tho. I have a grey who usually is a doll when I tell her to step up for bedtime..but everyone in a while, I see it in her eyes & she will just quickly give my hand a hard bite instead..I just walk away & allow her time to settle down while I go about my business.. then when I finally do go get her, I talk to her sweetly first ..you can tell her reaction and then I know if I can try again or not.  If you find that she is biting your finger when you tell her to step uo, put your hand in a fist, they can't bite hard & there is nothing much to grab onto.

A grey will always be more on the nervous side, they don't usally like their feathers ruffled or to be flipped around..they spook very easily.  I always say they are like horses, cause they spook over anything, so do greys.

 

When you are doing head scratches, every bird is different, & some can only tolerate a tiny amount before they bite, I have 1 grey who just loves light head rubs forever, another who I can rub 2 or 3 times, then I get a squeak & a bite!  You just have to know that a little is better  & learn her body language.

 

It took my rescued grey 3 to 4 years to settle in ( I was her 4th home) and truly feel comfortable to start to trust fully, but still I have to always watch body language on all 3 of my parrots that I have had for 17 years!  

Keep us posted..Sorry my reply is so scattered, I am at work!  LOL

[Vim]

Hey Talon, thanks for the response.  I'll keep on with just ignoring her when she bites, although sometimes that's hard to do since her bite packs a punch compared to our conure.

I think maybe she's a bit hormonal this summer.  Vim's very gentle and likes to hang out with me, and she loves scratches, so this is a bit unusual for her temperament.  My gut is that she gets scared and is still just learning how to communicate.  Sometimes when I hit touch a sore quill, she says, "I'm sorry" and winces.  I've been trying to reinforce that communication.  I tell her, "I'm sorry" in response, then "good girl" (our training "click"), and then I back off.  She's very smart and seems to understand tone remarkably well.

Perhaps the honeymoon period is over.  I used to work in a pet store in high school and some of the rescue parrots there were testers.  Others were tricksters, especially the cockatoos: they would fluff up and squint like they wanted to be pet, then they would bite and cackle!  Vim's more of a snuggle bug, but she is still young and starting to mature.  Her personality could be changing, and maybe she's pushing boundaries.  I'll keep trying to better understand her language.

My fear, of course, is that I've unknowingly been somehow reinforcing the biting.  Over the years I've learned that it's easy to accidentally reinforce undesired behavior.

[Timbersmom]

I agree with all Talon said. I've had Timber (rehome) for ten years and think I know him well. On a rare occasion, he will still bite, seemingly out of the blue. I just have to accept that he has his reasons, though I don't know what they are. I just say "no bite" firmly and back to the cage he goes. I suspect that is what he wants, since that is his safe place. There are times I can read his body language and know to leave him be, but the times he has bitten in recent history there were no indications it was coming. Good luck and God bless

[neoow]

Grey's are such contrary little buggers at times! 🤣

I too have been on the receiving end of a bite from Alfie after he has stepped up nicely. And it confused me too as I always give him the option of refusing the step up and don't pursue him if he refuses, I always back off. But every so often Alfie will willingly step up and just grab my hand/wrist seemingly out of nowhere. It doesn't happen often at all. But I usually just try not to react, set him down somewhere and ignore him for a few mins.

When Alfie spooks, he typically takes off in flight instead of biting. It does mean there's been a couple of times when I've been smacked by a wing unexpectedly!

How old is Vim? It could be boundary testing depending on her age or because she's more settled. They do have a toddler attitude about most things! Or it could be hormonal. Alfie is very distant from me at the moment. He'll fly over to see what I'm up to but he is absolutely not interested in head scratches right now. A couple of months back and he was like a velcro bird- always flying to sit with me for some head scritches. Now if I try to offer head scritches he ignores me or shakes his head if I go to touch him. I know full well if I tried to persist, I'd get bitten.

They can change, even month to month in what they'll tolerate/like. And they do figure out how to push your buttons as well, just like a child would. 

And other times it can be as simple as something spooked them or something they don't like happened nearby so they take it out on you!

I sometimes find the trickiest part is not letting it hurt my feelings! Especially when you can't figure out the trigger.

[Talon]

On 7/29/2023 at 10:03 AM, Timbersmom said:

I agree with all Talon said. I've had Timber (rehome) for ten years and think I know him well. On a rare occasion, he will still bite, seemingly out of the blue. I just have to accept that he has his reasons, though I don't know what they are. I just say "no bite" firmly and back to the cage he goes. I suspect that is what he wants, since that is his safe place. There are times I can read his body language and know to leave him be, but the times he has bitten in recent history there were no indications it was coming. Good luck and God bless

YES!  I totally agree!  I too, have found that "NO BITES" said by me and me walking away & ignoring them works very well. They do understand what no bites mean. My amazon has a cage with the top that flips down, I have to put my hand in her cage (which for my amazon is a NO NO!  she hates anyone's hand in her domain!!)   & I put her breakfast food bowl on it in the am. She would try & bite me hard most times..Now I say over & over again nonstop .:.no bites no bites no bites" the entire time.  Then when she doesn't,  I clap loudly & say, " Yay!  No bites, good girrrlll, over & over (which she loves)  & continue clapping..she get very excited by the attention I give her..her eyes start pinning & she clucks when she is excited!  It's now our morning ritual. I rarely get a bite anymore when I do that.

You own a parrot, you ARE going to get bitten..many times never really knowing why..just respect their boundaries & move forward without making a fuss!

[Talon]

Great suggestions here, Hormones definitely cause biting!  My birds are hormonal from early spring until August!  

[Vim]

Hi Timbersmom and neoow.  Thank you for the responses, it makes me feel better about the way I've been handling this.  I'll keep on with telling her, "I bite," putting her down, and walking away.  She hasn't bitten me in a week now, and I spend a lot of time with her each day.

Vim was born in June of 2021, so she's 2.  Right now she's a bit of a velcro bird.  Boundary pushing is certainly on the table; she is changing a bit, although she still has a very gentle and shy personality.

I've also increased her sleep from 12 hours to 13.5.  With how attached she is recently, I am worried that she's becoming hormonal, even though I've tried to follow the rules surrounding hormonal behavior (no body scratches, plenty of sleep, no nesting material, etc.).

[Vim]

Just to follow up, Vim hasn't bitten me again, and it's been a month.  So all good things and thanks again for the advice.  A few times I've hit a sore quill and she's lunged, but it looks like she catches herself mid-strike and instead just bumps me with her beak.  Each time I tell her "Good girl," which is our reward/treat term, in an attempt to encourage this good communication (i.e. a beak-bump is enough to get me to back off).  I think she's young and still learning to communicate with me, and of course I'm still learning to understand her communication.  I continue to be amazed at how quickly she learns and how much she understands.

[Greytness]

Fantastic! It always takes time and a lot of patience, as you do everything in 'grey time'. Sounds like she's coming along quite nicely!

[neoow]

Sounds like it's all going well, which is great! I love that she's learning to correct herself so that a bump will do.
I had a similar process with Alfie where he (and I) learned that if he turns away or walks away then that shows me he's not interested. Previously his first response was a bite to tell me to go away. But we've both learned how to read each other better so a bite isn't needed. It's very rare that I get bitten these days (which I'm very happy about!). The most recent occurrence was when I had my feet up on a footstool and he flew over and bit me on the little toe because I didn't move out of the way quick enough. 🤣

[KevinD]

For some reason, the title of this thread "Correct Response to Biting" light up in bold for me as unread. Obviously it was a cookie error, but the old joke came to mind is "OUCH !" Then some cursing, followed by some antibiotic, lol.

After all it took to save Sukei, It's a wonder after the trying to rip my eye out incident, he didn't end up in a soup LOL.

For me, I have tried everything. I have just had to embrace it, prepare counter measures and pray

He is just a mommy Grey, Ive accepted it, like growing old. Try to do it with grace.  

One thing, I can get away with is scratching his head through the cage bars, he wil sit there all day for that, so I can maintain some physical contact with him.

He is 8 now, im hoping as he grows older he will mellow.

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