Reduce trauma of Lorri beak maintenance

I have a very friendly and smart, hand raised rainbow Lorrikeet who I play with every day.
The problem is his behavior changes dramatically if I pick up the phone or turn my head away from him to talk to someone else in the room. It appears to be jealousy and he will strike repeatedly at my mouth sometimes leaving deep cuts on my bottom lip.
So for safety sake he needs maintenance in the form of the point ground off his beak.
The only way I know is to wrap him in a tea towel and touch the point of his beak with a battery powered grinder which I made from a tiny personal hand held battery fan from the $2 shop with the blades removed and a fine grind stone attached to the spinning shaft.
It actually works very well and much safer than the You Tube videos I've seen of people doing it with 240v electric drills.
But the Lorri hates it and when released afterwards will stand there squawking at me for several minutes. He also continually runs his tongue over the end of his beak so it is obviously not as comfortable as before.
Over the next few days he will bite me repeatedly on the hand that performed the operation (yes he remembers my left hand, never bites the other) and won't play or talk at all which is very sad.
By the time he has forgotten the ordeal it is just about time to do it again.
The whole process really makes him lose trust in me. What can I do?

While it may be faster, using your creation, it could be the vibration, coupled with the resulting feeling your feathered friend dislikes. Have you ever tried emery/garnet paper or a finger nail trimming board? You could also get a rough cement/concrete perch so (s)he can keep the beak trimmed, then it may be only the tip will need a couple of passes to blunt the tip.

Otherwise you might want to find someone else to do the trimming.....good luck.....

Thanks Weco,
Getting someone else to do it might be the answer since he remembers who or what was associated with the nasty act. He now has a permanent fear of my left hand but is fine if I remove my watch.
I don't think it's just the vibration as being restrained by a tea towel sets him off squawking and biting like you wouldn't believe. Lifting a tea towel off the cupboard will make him instantly fly to the floor and run away.

I've even considered taking him to the vet for beak and wing trims, the later being even more emotionally disturbing. But it is too expensive to go regularly.

I've tried nail files and trimming boards but he pokes his tongue around it and I'm worried about scraping it.

What has worked in the past was to give him whole carrots. He spent hours biting them into coleslaw size pieces on the cement floor of his avairy. His beak must have made regular contact with the rough concrete because it filed off the point.
Alas his new aviary has an earth floor.

You aren't correcting the behavior, only dulling it.

I have a mitred conure that, due to an injury, requires beak trims. I do this myself, because it's less stressful on both of us. If it's not kept trimmed, then he could have difficulties eating, and it could eventually kill him if the beak became too long and punctured through his skin (I've seen photos of this, and I don't want it to happen to him!) However, I could *NEVER* recommend trimming the beak of a perfectly healthy bird with a perfectly healthy beak.



Rather than trim her beak, you need to stop the behavior, and it starts with you. If you *know* that touching a phone or another object upsets her, don't touch it when she's with you. If the phone rings, set her down and then answer the phone. If it bothers her when you turn your head away from her, don't have her near your head if you plan to look away.

What I'm trying to say is to not put her into a situation that will result in her attacking you. Then, you can work on training her to station - to stay put and ignore what's going on around her. If you move towards a hated object and she ignores you, reward her. If you touch the hated object and she ignores you, reward her. If you pick up the hated object and she ignores you, reward her.

Stationing « Lara Joseph



It's like when a bird bites. A lot of information out there tells you to ignore the bite. What are you supposed to do, hand your fingers over and wait for the bird to stop biting? Would you do the same to a dog? No! So why would you allow a bird to bite and wait for it to stop biting? It's not teaching the bird not to bite! As you should not put a dog in a position that will result in a bite (i.e. toy aggressive, food aggressive, shy, is afraid of big people, etc) you should not put a bird into a situation that will result in a bite. You need to figure out the triggers to the behavior, then remove the triggers and avoid the situation, or *slowly* train the bird to accept something without resulting in a bite.