GCC Nibbling Fingers

Hi,
I adopted a Green Cheek Conure from a parrot rescue a year ago (He's 3 yrs old now), and biting has always been a bit of an issue. He'll sit on my shoulder and cuddle me without biting my ear or arm, but he has a particular grudge against fingers for some reason. I've tried ignoring him when he bites me, but man, it can hurt, lol. Is there something else I can do, that's easier on my hands?
Thanks!

-Will he take treats from you?

Yes, he's fine taking treats. As long at he's getting food he's fine.

My GC doesn't like thumbs, the other 8 fingers are OK .

Flick used to be like that and sometimes still is, but she is getting a lot better. What I did was look at how the birds around me reacted when something I or the other birds did, hurt them. They would squawk and pull away, but then seemed to go back to mutual preening or whatever. I didn't want to cause drama though, because Flick loves drama and i don't want her to bite me just to get it.

Before I go on, I want to also mention that the breeder I got Flick from used learned helplessness techniques with the birds, and I am trying to unteach Flick things she learned about having no say in her life.

Flick LOVES head scritches. So I give them to her. She rolls her head and neck and leans in, and then she "preens" me back, and then sometimes she bites. What I do is immediately, and I mean INSTANTLY pull back. Then I count to 10, and place my hand next to her. If she bit me because she was done, she has the option not to be petted (remember, trying to teach her she won't be forced), and I leave her alone. However is she still wants pets (95% of the time, this is the case) she has to reach out and gently begin to preen me, which she caught on to almost immediately.

It may seem complex, but it boils down to gentle beak gets petted, hard beak does not. She is learning pretty quickly not to use her beak so hard!

My gcc was (and still is) very beaky, and he used to bite my fingers quite hard when we got him. I never ignored that - otherwise how would he know he is doing something wrong? When he bit too hard I said "Ouch!" and gave him a very "dirty" and unhappy look, took my hand away and let him be on his own for abut 5 min. It really worked and very quickly. Now he never bites me hard, even if I do something he really hates. He nibbles on my fingers all the time, but he never hurts me. He likes to chew off my nails! LOL It seems to me that parrots are very observant of your facial expression and your emotions, and they don't want to upset you, so why wouldn't you try to show you buddy that you are very unhappy with what he is doing?

The restraint technique demonstrated on this page worked well for me when Bandit went through her finger chewing phase.

ETA: I used this for baby bird beaky behavior, not aggressive biting. It sounds like your situation is different. I would go with Monica and Mikey's awesome advice. Definitely try target training.

Birds use biting as a form of communication. By ignoring them biting you, you are not teaching them anything other than the fact that you aren't paying attention to them so the only way they know how to communicate with you is through the use of bites. Flicking them on the beak, restraining them, shoving them, using the 'earthquake' method, or other techniques to try to stop a bird from biting are not effective methods of communication. Sure, they might work, but it doesn't teach them anything *TO DO*.


Please look into positive reinforcement training and applied behavior analysis. Through the methods applied by PRT and ABA, you teach birds "what to do", and the more they learn what to do, the less undesired behaviors will occur.

Great point about communication, Monica. I always felt that way too. I play with my parrot beak a lot and he loves it. I feel that these are very precious moments of trust and love. It's important that birds understand that they can bite, just not to bite hard and hurt you. Maybe I was just lucky, but it was really easy to teach Parry not to bite hard without any special techniques, just trying to understand birds nature and body language.

Since you've got him from a rescue, perhaps he's afraid of fingers for a good reason? Like Dixie my LSC2. When I first got her I could not get her to step up onto fingers at all, she will bite down hard and draw blood. So I asked the previous owner if something had happened to her before. He told me when they first went to pick her up the previous owner would yank her off her cage by her feet. No wonder she hates fingers, hands, or her feet being touched period. So I taught her to step up onto perches instead. Then I repeat the exercise over and over until she's quite familiarized with stepping up onto perches. Then eventually I would go from perches to hands. She did great after that, but that lady did some damage to her when she was young, she will only step up onto perches first then hands even til this day after we've had her for 9 years. But at least I can touch her feet and get her to step up from perches to my hands without getting bit. She used to be terrified of it....

Another thing you should look into is target training, that would be something good to teach positive reinforcement like Monica mentioned above!!!