Finley started yelling when asked to step up and sometimes bites (not hard) help!

Yeah so since I got back from France everything is good with my babies except for one thing. Finley started yelling at me and biting at me when I ask him to step up (sometimes). Sometimes he steps up fine and sometimes he just screams like he's scared of me and sometimes he screams and bites at my fingers. His bites are like a fast paced warning bite but sometimes he goes harder and it actually hurts. He definitely does not seem aggressive but more scared. Once he is spending time with me he is fine and plays and goes on his back, cuddles and gets tickles ect. When he bites I've been trying 2 things: I hold his beak and tell him "no bite" which always works with my other conure Ollie. Finn doesn't continue to bite even when I'm holding his beak he doesn't even try to bite. The second thing I'm trying is when he yells or bites or both I put him back down and have him step up until he does it without yelling or biting me. Both of these methods work on Ollie and he hasn't bitten me for a year or so and never actually bit me in the 1sr place but I even got him to stop warning bite g me. I'm pretty worried about Finley...I dont want him to be scared ever at all and I feel bad for him. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just interrupting him and he gets annoyed or maybe sometimes it's play biting which he does from time to time. It's not even the biting that makes me upset it's the yelling and biting, I hate the idea that I'm scaring him somehow. I've been spoiled with Ollie, he's so good at birding and he always wants to step up no matter what he's doing he doesn't care he would step up onto a burning lava volcano if I put my finger out. I'm not sure of Finley just doesn't want to step up those times he acts like that. Please any advice would be wonderful! Thank you.

sounds like the honeymoon period ended, he could just be having a funny couple days (we all know that conure switch flicks at seemingly nothing)

Of course the thing to remember is Ollie has had so much more time learning stepping up is good. Perhaps for a few days go back to offering a treat for step up to remind him good things happen. Could it maybe be that finley could be unnerved by the beak grab? It could explain the slight fear of the fingers

You might need a different enforcer with him. Maybe put him in his cage when he bites for a short while. It will stop trust me.

Llord Triggs is right too. They all have a grumpy few days also. Maybe he didnt sleep well one night or hasnt forgave you yet for going away for a few days. You guys will be fine but be firm when he bites so he learns its bad and there will be consequences for biting x

Carl_Power said:

You might need a different enforcer with him. Maybe put him in his cage when he bites for a short while. It will stop trust me.

Llord Triggs is right too. They all have a grumpy few days also. Maybe he didnt sleep well one night or hasnt forgave you yet for going away for a few days. You guys will be fine but be firm when he bites so he learns its bad and there will be consequences for biting x

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I'd vote not to use the cage cause that is the safe space for them. But the back of a chair is always an option or just anywhere without immediate fun to be had

Uh oh Finley!

Hmm....this is tricky. It would be so much easier if Finley could talk and tell you what is going on, lol but I suppose birds will be birds.

My initial thoughts are.... perhaps he is annoyed and is testing his boundaries with you. I don't wanna step up, you can't make me! Kind of thing...

The yelling is puzzling to me. Paired with the biting it could just be a phase he's going through.

Whatever the case, obviously this is not wanted behavior. You could try placing him in a dark bathroom when it happens in a small carrier and covered with a towel for a couple minutes. Enough time outs like this after these incidents and he should get it into his mind that the yelling/biting is bad.

Keep us updated!

I like the dark bathroom idea because there is one really close to the living room where I usually hang out. So far he's had one trip for biting and didn't seem to enjoy his stay in bathroom prison. With this going on and Ollie ditching me for my son who is on spring break from boarding school (who he previously attacked whenever my son would touch him or ask him to step up) it's been a weird week. Plus it's snowing outside and we have a huge snow storm. /Sigh

Did you remember to explain to all of them that you will be gone and for how long? And did it a few times before you actually left? DOing that amazingly cuts down on the grouchyness upon your return.

I definitely explained that we would be gone for 7 night nights every day for a week. My husband took time to tell them also. I think because it's Finley's 1st time he may not have understood very well. Ollie has been a perfect angel since we got back of course. It's been about 2 weeks or so since we returned so I'm not sure why the behavior would continue so long. He seems to want to to be with me but is biting quite a bit and yelling at the same time. It's weird. He has been hormonal since I've gotten back too. He'll regurgitate and then proceed to get busy with my hand sometimes. I ofc don't pet him below the neck and distract him when he does these things so it never lasts long. He's only 5 months old so that's concerning.

Could be hormonal behaviour after a post I just read. Apparently March time can be a hormonal time for them (correct me if I'm wrong)

Mine has been acting different too certain times of the day x

the snow could be part of it strangely. Especially if they've never seen it before

I don't think it's the snow because he's been doing this for over 2 weeks. So we've had 4 trips to the bathroom so far and on the 4th one he decided to yell and bite when I was getting him out of punishment so he had to stay a bit longer. I'm wondering if he even understands at all. I hope he doesn't hate me after this. I've been holding his beak on the way to the time out area and saying "no bite" so I'm hoping he'll pick up on that. Poor baby!

Is it possible me being gone for a week threw him into a very hormonal time because he thinks he needs to hurry up and breed with me because he's worried I'm going to leave him? He's only 5 months old it seems strange he's so hormonal. Before I left he regurgitated a couple times but now he does it multiple times a day and then sometimes tries to hump my hand. Idk but this is NOT good since he's just a baby he might be really badly hormonal as an adult.

At the end of the day I think we had 8 dark bathroom timeouts. My hope is that he's beginning to associate biting and timeouts but who knows because he's kind of a derpy guy a lot of the time. Maybe it's hormones related...not sure but he has definitely regurgitated 4 times today and each time I got up and changed activities before the other stuff starts. Poor Ollie is like "what is so great about this green guy again?!" Because my punishing Finn often interrupts Ollie too because they're on me at the same time. I hope Ollie doesn't think he's in trouble when I repremand Finley. Usually when Finfin gets in trouble Ollie looks at him like "Told you not to do that, Bro". Lol.

LordTriggs said:

sounds like the honeymoon period ended, he could just be having a funny couple days (we all know that conure switch flicks at seemingly nothing)

Of course the thing to remember is Ollie has had so much more time learning stepping up is good. Perhaps for a few days go back to offering a treat for step up to remind him good things happen. Could it maybe be that finley could be unnerved by the beak grab? It could explain the slight fear of the fingers

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I was thinking about what you said about the beak grab. I rub his beak and touch it all the time including tonight and he doesn't flinch or act weird it scared when I reach for his beak. I'm thinking he might know he's done something wrong when he bites and when I hold his beak he understands it's a consequence beak hold not a pleasurable one. Is that crazy? I can even move quickly towards his face/beak and he won't be scared or bite but mostly it's when asking to step up or if I do something he doesn't like that he screams and bites. He is a seriously weird kid.

well I think Hormones are the least likely right now

he could just have decided "I am Finley hear me roar" and entered into a brat/tantrum state or decided the french aroma is evil.

What's that thing people say? "Birds are weird"

Ive said this before but i also touch Xanders beak and say no. I used to do that then use whatever discipline method. He has associated the beak touching with knowing he is gonna be disciplined so now just touching his beak and saying no is enough of a discipline method to make him stop. Maybe Fin will learn this too, its worked great for me. I wouldnt grab his beak though, just apply a little pressure with one finger on top of his beak so its not the same as when you stroke his beak x

Hmmm so far I have put Fin in the bathroom 11 times in the last 36 hours and I am worried he will start hate me. He is starting to get a bit scared and possibly being a self fulfilling prophecy. I have not just gently tapped his beak, I have only held it which seems to scare him. I bet this is a phase, I kinda remember Ollie doing this a little bit when I had him a couple months but it not being very hard to get control of it. I have it pretty easy because at least Fin doesn't bite hard. He has also started doing the yelling and biting at random times when I am holding him, like if I interrupt a fun (or something he sees as fun) activity. It feels much like a teenager rebelling like "leave me alone mom!" rather than aggressive. I wonder if he learned it from Ollie because it seems like he is doing to me what Ollie does to him if Ollie annoys him....hmmm. Thank you for all the input so far everyone!

conure protests along with baby tantrums (how many times have we seen a child completely melt down over nothing?) he just needs to take some time to figure out tantrums don't make things go his way

This is really bad. He just tried to bite my eye for no reason unprovoked from my shoulder. I wasn't even asking him to step up, I was actually trying to include him more because he's acting up. I quickly held his beak and took him up to his sleep cage for a short time out. I didn't know what else to do but he struggled and tried to bit me when I was going up there too. He's back downstairs but not I'm terrified he's going to hate me because the whole ordeal was rather abrupt and forceful. He seems a bit scared of me now but not completely. This is going downhill fast.... Now I'm worried he's turning into a bitter bird who bites randomly for no reason. This all seemed to start when my son came to visit for spring break but I've supervised the whole time so I dont think my son did anything to him for him to be acting this way. My son is 12 and is in love with Finn and talks sweetly to him and plays with him. I seem to be the only one he is biting...

Well today I saw much improvement in Finley's attitude. He only warning bit me once and it was really close to bed time. Maybe he was just having a bad week and throwing tantrums like a spoiled child as LTriggs said. He's definitely more like himself which is very encouraging!