greylover Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 chcio my african grey he keeps on biting us really hard and i smack his beack then he stops.Then when im putting more food in his cage he keeps on going for me again.Anyone got some tips to help me from some him biting.PLEASE I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP. otherwise he is going to hurt one of us. greylover! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest briansmum Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 you should NEVER smack your bird. this is what i've read and i believe it to be true. they do not understand that you are doing it to tell them off and will see it as a threat and bite you more or come to resent you. if he bites you the best thing to do is just turn around, walk away and ignore him. he will learn he does not get his food or a scratch if he bites you because biting makes you go away. you might go through lots of walking back and forth but this is far better than smacking his beak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
splint101 Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 Yeah I 2nd you xxbeccyxx, never ever smack your bird greylover. The best is to ignore him, but it will take a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 Greylover he'll get to recognize your hand as the 'object' that beats his beak. That's not good I think. Your hand should be recognizable for more positive purposes: likegiving him food, playing with him, a place he can feel comfortable. You will never get this if he relates your hand to beating his beak, and probably just make it worse. About all grey-owners seem to agree on the fact that greys hate to be ignored. So, as written by Beccy and Splint, there really doesn't seem to be another way you can 'punish' him for biting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest briansmum Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 there is some good reading here about greys and punishment. hopefully it will help you understand what we mean. http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww31eiii.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caspersmum Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Hey greylover, I've had problems with casper biting, and I've tackled it in the way that Beccy says - I just ignore him - even though it can be really painful - he's taken a fair few chinks out of my hands. Part of the solution is to learn chico's body language - with Casper, he'd seem to be wanting a head scratch, then he'd bite. When you're being bitten regularly, you need to observe his body language REALLY closely, so that you learn when he's being affectionate, and when he's being sly! Alot of people on the site have said the beak book gives really good advice on biting. I've used a book called a guide to taming and gentling your parrot. I'd strongly recommend getting one of these books - they go into parrot psychology, which may sound a bit batty, but is very useful to know, Hope this helps, and let us know how you get on, Julia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talon Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Very good advice above. You should NEVER strike your bird! They aren't able to understand why you did that, and will resent you. You can't discipline them like pets or children. They have a different mentality. The Beak Book is an excellant book to read. It will help. And ignoring them is the best solution at this point, but it will take time before you see any improvement. Be very patient with him. He should improve if you take all the advice given on this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greylover Posted June 1, 2007 Author Share Posted June 1, 2007 Im getting this feeling that everyone is thinking im smaking him hard but i swear i DON'T smack him hard. It is just a tap on the beack!!!! greylover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest briansmum Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 no greylover, i never thought you were hitting him hard don't worry. i can imagine what you mean and why some people would think it would work.. which is where you've read it. i'm sure i speak for everyone when i say we don't think badly of you , you've just been given some wrong advice somewhere. everyone gets something wrong when they're new to greys goodness knows i've had some trial and error with my little guy. the important thing is now you know that even if it is only a gentle tap it won't train him not to bite.. complicated things these little rascals and hopefully you'll have some luck by ignoreing the bad behaviour away. beccy x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judygram Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Beccy is right, any kind of smack on the beak is not going to cause nothing but trouble. They don't understand the concept of punishment. You have to use positive reinforcement. If you strike them they will only bite more. Turning the back and walking away will accomplish more because like the others said they don't like to be ignored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Monique Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Greylover - Look at the article under "Understanding Your Grey" see if this helps at all. I'd like to hear more about how long you have had your bird, when the biting started, under what situations it does and does not occur, and what his normal routine is like. Birds are animals preyed upon and such are very cautious, mistrusting, and sensitive. To do anything the bird interprets as intimidating (even if not hard enough to be physically harmful) will ultimately hurt your relationship with your bird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Monique Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 I would also like to know if there are any differences in who he bites in the household. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeasarsDad Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Great advice so far.. I can tell you this.. Your Grey is biting you because he is afraid of you.. Biting is a defensive tactic animals use to protect themselves.. In order for the biting to stop the Grey needs to feel safe.. Two ways to achieve this.. The easy but long way and the hard but fast way.. The easy but long way is the just slowly allow your bird time to realize that you are no threat to him. Patience is the key here.. NEVER tap him.. The reasons are outlined in the excellent replies you already got.. The hard but fast way to make your Grey understand you are no threat is to just allow him to bite you... without any grimace or yell... Be determined to make him Step up onto you ... Then do the Ladder technique but allowing him to step up from one hand to the other.. give me a treat.. make him understand that you bring treats not fright.. He will also understand that the biting is not doing a thing to you... He will stop.. Biting is hard for them.. uses lots of energy.. They would rather NOT bite then bite... Now of course it's not easy to use this approach as you will get hurt.. but in the long run it's the approach i used with my Yellow Nape. My hands were chop meat for awhile but the bird got the message... My Grey didn't bite so I didn't have the same situation with him Hope this helps..<br><br>Post edited by: CeasarsDad, at: 2007/06/03 06:52 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greylover Posted June 3, 2007 Author Share Posted June 3, 2007 THANKS for the advice guys and you understand that im not hurting him a tall. The other day i did walk away when he bit me and he followed me like to say sorry so im just egnoring him, sorry or me bad english. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caspersmum Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 Good job greylover. Don't feel guilty about it - you were only doing what came to you when you were feeling desperate, it's just that as you've found out it only makes things worse. Keep up the good work, and it will get better. Have you taught him to step-up yet? If not it's the next thing you really need to teach him. By the way, NEVER appologise about the quality of your english! Its far better than my spanish (which extends to '2 beers please'!) Julia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raehamilton Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 Julia, I can teach you Spanish if you'd like. Greylover, great job on ignoring him. I bought Angie just a couple of weeks ago and the first thing the breeder told me was not to pull my hand away if Angie peaks at it because it will teach her to bite. She also told me that if she does bite me to turn around and ignore her. Everyone here has given you great advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judygram Posted June 4, 2007 Share Posted June 4, 2007 Very sound advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greylover Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 thanks everyone for you help.The other day when i got him out he was fine then after an hour he started biting me. so i put him on the floor and walked off.Then he follwed me!This plan seams to be working but i hope it just does keep on doing the trick. I would be glad to learn you all spanish. hasta luego o hasta manana ADIOS (GOODBYE) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caspersmum Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 Hey Rae and Greylover, Would love some spannish lessons - maybe we could start up a new forum just in spannish! I think I'll have to wait til I get back from south africa though, as I'm trying to learn some Zulu at the moment, and I don't think I could cope with more than one language at a time! Really glad you're making such great progress greylover - keep us up to date with your progress, Julia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Monique Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 Buenos nochos. My hija would love to have a penpal to correspond with in Espanol. She has taken about 4 years of it in school and just graduated high school. She is considering minoring in Spanish she plans to major in pre-med. If you have the time to give some Spanish lessons please let me know that would be the hilite of her summer!!! Next April we (my husband & I) are going to Cozumel (only for a day on a cruise). She's paying her own way to go to ... she wants to go to Mexico SO bad!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greylover Posted June 6, 2007 Author Share Posted June 6, 2007 LOL:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 greylover wrote: I would be glad to learn you all spanish. hasta luego o hasta manana ADIOS (GOODBYE) quiero espanol muchos, pero no hablo I'd love that, Greylover! when can we start ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greylover Posted June 9, 2007 Author Share Posted June 9, 2007 Any time.Can a set up a spanish page on off topic disscions.(sorry about my bad english!) PLEASE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caspersmum Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Sounds like a great idea - but is there any chance you could provide a translation - or maybe Rae could do the translating? Julia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greylover Posted June 9, 2007 Author Share Posted June 9, 2007 i can give you a spanish and english and all diffrent types of launguges.It will be on the off topic diss- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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