Confused about biting behaviour

I adopted Mango, a GCC, two months ago from a shelter. The vet is unable to age him, just saying that he is "young". Mango loves to sit on my hand, shoulder, just, be anywhere with me. I have read about reading body language which I do; I used to be a dog trainer, so always try to read animals' body language. Now, Mango is molting and loves to be scratched. On and of, in between scratches, he'll bite hard, although not breaking skin. Is he biting due to over stimulation? At other times, when he is enjoying sitting on my hand, he'll bend down and bite hard too. Almost seems like he doesn't know how to control his bites. In these situations, what would be best to handle this?

Thanks,
Reni

Welcome!
Plenty of Green Cheek lovers here, and also so many experts in general.
I'm sure good advice will be along soon.
Meanwhile... I'm glad you found us!

Patagonian hugs, fellow conure lover!

Reni said:

I adopted Mango, a GCC, two months ago from a shelter. The vet is unable to age him, just saying that he is "young". Mango loves to sit on my hand, shoulder, just, be anywhere with me. I have read about reading body language which I do; I used to be a dog trainer, so always try to read animals' body language. Now, Mango is molting and loves to be scratched. On and of, in between scratches, he'll bite hard, although not breaking skin. Is he biting due to over stimulation? At other times, when he is enjoying sitting on my hand, he'll bend down and bite hard too. Almost seems like he doesn't know how to control his bites. In these situations, what would be best to handle this?

Thanks,
Reni

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Welcome to the Parrot Forums!

Biting is one of the major reasons why People give-up on their Parrots. Bites happen for any number of reasons. The most common is that the Parrot has been communicating and/or providing warnings using Body Language that the Human was totally unaware of or wasn't paying attention. I am not versed in the Body Language of a GCC and will leave that to someone who is.

One of the tools that you can use is to Bite Pressure Training. This targets the amount of pressure that the Parrot uses. The reality is Parrot's use their Beak to communicate and also for just holding-on sometimes, all the way too: Hey you really don't get the meaning of NO! So suffer this! Therefore, we do not what to eliminate Biting, only modify it so that different Pressures have different meanings. Lite pressure is something like: not liking this, you need to pay attention to this, something is wrong here, etc... A medium Pressure: there is danger here, you need to be moving us out of here, like now. A Hard Bite: As stated above, Suffer This Fool!

Did the Shelter have any information from or about the prior owners and their stated reason for giving-up the Parrot?

Regarding your Question: "Now, Mango is molting and loves to be scratched. On and of, in between scratches, he'll bite hard, although not breaking skin. Is he biting due to over stimulation?"

It is very possible that you have come across a new feather that is not yet ready to be released and that is very painful to the Parrot. You need to be very aware of the hardness of the cover. A very soft cover, not ready. Kind of soft, getting there, but not yet. Hard and starting to fall apart on its own, Yup this one is ready! You will need to be paying more attention to the status of the new feathers. Sorry, missed part of the question: It could be, Hey you get back to work on those new feathers and Now!

Over stimulation is very rarely seen as part of 'preening' your Parrot's feathers. It is far more common with contact with the lower back and bottom of the Parrot.

Regarding your Question: "At other times, when he is enjoying sitting on my hand, he'll bend down and bite hard too. Almost seems like he doesn't know how to control his bites."

You have in fact correctly ID'ed the issue here, but you need to also ID what preceded that bite. This is the foundation of Bite Pressure training. Part of the training is to develop a communication between you and your Parrot. This includes statements like: No Bite, No, Easy, etc... There is a danger here as Parrots are very good a reading our emotions and can become drawn to developing a response: Yaaaa that was cool, lets do that again! Search Bite Pressure Training will provide you more information.

Assure you and your Parrot are very good with 'Step-Up.' This is a center piece to working and training Parrots. Step-up is a need request /address that needs to be in place. At some point you will need to move your Parrot and a full response to Step-up will need to occur.

Again, welcome to the Parrot Forums!

Thank you so much for the advise. First, I don't know why I was referring to her as 'he', as she has been DNA sexed. Mango is very good at stepping up. If I notice through her body language that she doesn't want to step up, I'll use a perch, and she never hesitates to step on that.
She came into the shelter as a bird that was found on the street. No owner ever came forward even though she was on the Lost and Found website for 10 days, as legally required. So, no one has any information on her. I adopted her and noticed that whoever had her, did a good job on training the step-up on your hand, as well as the step-up on a perch, and while she may refuse to step-up on my hand, she will ALWAYS step-up on the perch.
I will definitely search for Bite Pressure Training.

Reni