Dealing with biting, any good advice?

Hi everyone,

Sometimes my sun conure (Hotrod) will bite me if he is ever on my shoulder and I ask him to step up, or whenever he doesn't want to. He doesn't make me bleed or anything, but it still hurts. Or sometimes he will bite my neck or lose skin. Anybody have some helpful tips in getting him not to bite? I want him to know I am the boss while still maintaining a good relationship between us.

There is no reason for you to be the boss of Hotrod. He is your feathered companion and he has his own likes and dislikes. He doesn't work for you! A relationship with a bird should be built on trust and understanding. Positive reinforcement training can be used to bridge the communication gap between us. Ya, sure, parrots can learn to parrot humans, or maybe even learn to talk, but we can't speak bird!

Positive reinforcement training (often under the guise of clicker training) is a means to learn how to communicate with animals in a positive manner. It's about learning how to understand their body language, learning when to back off and when to go forward.


If Hotrod is on your shoulder and you ask him to step off and he bites, he's telling you he doesn't want to come off. What reason does he have to come off when he's happy where he's at?


Well, here's where your training comes into place. You need to find out what Hotrod loves. What Hotrod will do anything for. Is it a favorite treat? A piece of food? A toy? Going somewhere? Is he willing to step up for that item?

You need to teach him that doing as you ask (not demand) brings positive rewards for him. The more you reward him for doing as you ask, the more he's likely to continue that behavior.


The best way to teach Hotrod to step up from your shoulder is to first teach him to step up from various locations. Once he's good at stepping up from one location, add in another location. Keep doing this until Hotrod steps up well from various locations and he gets rewarded for it each time. Then, you can try teaching him to step up from your shoulder.



Otherwise, you may want to prevent him from sitting on your shoulder, thus preventing him from biting you in that kind of situation.

My mothers Sun is the same way with her. He won't step up off her shoulder and tries to bite and she pulls her hand away. I tell her don't pull your hand away and try to get him to step up for a treat, but she doesn't listen to me.

I told her to start target training and clicker training with him and the target training was going well, but she doesn't seem interested enough to keep doing it. And when I have Cookie out she says she wishes her birds were as well trained as Cookie, so I tell her that it IS possible, you just have to train them, but she just says she couldn't do it.

And Erik is even worse behaved with me. He flies and attacks me.

She is scared of being bitten from a Sun Conure yet she has an African Grey.

Sorry for the rant. What I'm saying is any bird just needs time and training.

I speak from experience with the shoulder biting thing. Avery was never allowed on my shoulder because she refused to come off, even with treat bribery because being close to me was a better reward. Today is the first day I let her up, and she came off without a problem! Why? Because I've been continuously and positively reinforcing that stepping up, no matter where from, is always a good thing. It means more love, great treats, and fun things!

It all comes down to consistency and positive reinforcement. If your bird won't gain anything that they desire, they won't do it. They're not as blissfully eager to please you as a dog is... instead they train you to reward them when they do what they want

Thank you so much everyone for the advice!
Sometimes when I need to go to the bathroom or need to do something around the house, or I want him to step up so he can go do-do on his newspaper, he just refuses. I want him to learn that as much as I love spending time with him, that he just can't go EVERYWHERE and do absolutely EVERYTHING with me. If I am sitting down on the couch, he is fine with stepping up off my shoulder though, because he knows I am sitting and am not taking him off my shoulder. He loves being around me all the time, no matter what I am doing. If I leave him in a room by himself, he hollers for me to come get him. I always have him out when I am home, unless he is sleeping at night. I love being around Hotrod just as much as he loves being around me.
He is very good at stepping up from anywhere else, so I will definitely start positiviely reinforcing that good behavior and give him a treat when he does, to see if that will help him to learn to step off my shoulder without biting. Then he will know that "yes, even though mommy needs to go do something for a minute, I can snack on my yummy treat until she comes back for me."

Now that's the spirit!


As far as situations where you need to temporarily set him down, it would greatly help him to teach him how to forage and interact with things in his environment. In other words, teach him to be independent. At first, he'll probably drop whatever he's doing and call out for you, however the more you teach him to play or eat with whatever is placed in front of him while you go about and do your business, the more you'll be able to set him down, give him something to do and walk away.

I will definitely try that; thanks so much!

This was very helpful info for me, also, as I am still learning the ways of my surprise pet. The first two weeks, I could not stand for her to get on my shoulder because it was like WWIII to get her off when it was time for me to do something. She is becoming far more trustful in the last week or so, and she will almost always step down without a fuss.

What about just not reacting to the bite? Does that work? I realize you'd have to have nerves of steel, but if you show the bird that biting doesn't get them what they want, wouldnt they pick up on that?

What does the bird want? And why are they biting in the first place?


IMO, ignoring the bite is only teaching the bird that you aren't "listening" to them, and when we don't back off, they bite. This can easily lead to more painful bites as well as birds that "bite for no reason", or "unexpectedly bite without warning". Ignoring the bite can be a method of flooding them which is not recommended when it comes to training.