Why do birds bite? Why is my parrot biting me? Your pet parrot can bite for many reasons. Is he/she afraid? Have you inadvertently taught him/her to bite? Sometimes without knowing it we teach our birds to bite. Look at this example; your little darling is very bonded with you.( for the purpose of this example we shall assume that the bird is male, this is not intended to suggest that males are more likely than females to become biters. All bird have biting potential). Your partner comes into the room and plonks down beside you. Before you know it your little darling is in full on attack mode; lunging and biting at your partner. You rush to your loved one's defense, scolding your bird. Does this sound familiar? Now let's look at this situation from your bird's perspective He is with his bonded mate the love of his life(you), when in comes a challenge to that bond (your partner). Your bird reacts as most animals would. He reacts in the only way he knows; he defends his mate from this interloper. His mate then attacks him, shouting at the interloper and getting exited, which in turn brings on the dreaded hormones. How could you have handled this differently? 1.Watch your bird's body language. There are many signs that you need to look for; eyes pinning, raising the head, crouching low in anticipation of the attack, tail wagging, cheek blushing. It all depends on the type of bird you have, or even down to the individual, so start watching and learning his/her language, after all your bird tries to learn yours. 2. If he/she is attacking you, safely move him/her away from you in a calm and controlled manner. DO NOT reprimand him/her verbally no matter how upset you may be feeling. It will just fuel his/her energy more. If your bird is on a stand, or is in a position where you can walk away from him/her and he/she will come to no harm, simply walk away. Show no energy and no response to this negative behaviour. Simply leave him/her for a little while and then return. 3 Explain to your partner that in future he/she needs to take things very slowly. This will allow you time to either remove the bird, or even better, praise the bird for not attacking and staying calm. As soon as the bird's behaviour changes to the negative, and only if your bird is in a safe position, remove yourself from the room. Your bird just wants to be close to you, therefore the perfect reprimand for his/her aggression is to remove yourself from his/her company. 5 Try to get your partner to encourage the bird to trust him/her by giving the favourite treat to the bird as soon as he/she comes through the door. This will tell the bird that he is an allie and does not pose a threat. This sort of behaviour mainly starts between the ages of 4-7 years old, again depending on the species of the bird. This is when their hormones are kicking in. PLAY BITING
Young birds love to play, like children everything goes straight in to the mouth, fingers, ears, the nose etc... This is when you MUST lay down some ground rules of what is and is not acceptable behaviour. There are so many birds that have learned to bite in this way. They are on the floor, playing happily when you walk past, your dinky little toes make a pitter patter noise on the floor, up pops the birds head he/she then makes a run for your toes, you giggle and run away. The game has started, after that he/she runs at your toes at every possible moment. WHY? because you were pleased the first time, he/she made you laugh, and your bird felt your energy. He/she has no idea that the energy was caused by 200lbs of biting pressure on your little toe and that it was going to hurt and start a biting pattern.
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PARROT BEHAVIOUR CONSULTANT |
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