Ta-dah's week of biting.

Has finally come to an end..
She was biting me multiple times a day, with blood drawn.
As I'm in the camp bites are my fault, I spent time thinking about it. And decided the biggest thing was I was using my hands to shoo her away from Penny and Penny's cage. And she seemed to develop fear of hands from that. The second thing is I had turned her humongous cage sideways to make more room. And lastly I had stopped her night time cuddles because I want her to get her sleep.
So I changed back her cage, reinstated night time cuddles, and stopped using my hands to shoo her.
All biting stopped!!!! Now that it has been a week free of bites.
I think the biggest thing was the hand shooing. As she stopped letting me pet her, and did seem afraid of hands. 8 years together and we are still learning!

Lol--for some reason, the part about turning the cage makes me laugh (she probably was like WHAT THE BLEEP IS SHE DOING NOW?!?!?!)

noodles123 said:

Lol--for some reason, the part about turning the cage makes me laugh (she probably was like WHAT THE BLEEP IS SHE DOING NOW?!?!?!)

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I wasn't taking any chances at what pissed her off more, I just fixed it all lol

Congratulations!

So many discount the "its never the fault of the Parrot" Vantage Point, right-up to the point that it is tried. So very happy that your girl is back to Loving all of you.
Try slow moving the cage over a couple of months. Always easy to say, but worth trying.
Again, Congratulations!

SailBoat said:

Congratulations!

So many discount the "its never the fault of the Parrot" Vantage Point, right-up to the point that it is tried. So very happy that your girl is back to Loving all of you.
Try slow moving the cage over a couple of months. Always easy to say, but worth trying.
Again, Congratulations!

Click to expand...

Thanks! I almost went with the time honored excuse , "she must be hormonal" but I've had her 8 years. So I knew it was something I was doing.

I have never grabbed her, or struck her. But just useing my hands to shoo her off Penny's cage, and putting my hand between her and Penny like a wall to block fights. I had been doing that for a month. And bites were starting to increase. But I didn't connect the dots at first. But when she started ducking when I went to scritch her, and not stepping up, and starting to run to my hands to bite. I finally sat down to figure things out!

It might be something others with bites can think about. Are you useing hands to shoo them away from something or someplace they shouldn't be,? Or did you make a big change with their cage? Or a change to their routine? Because those things led to a LOT of biting for me!

Ta-dah was very obviously happy when I put her cage back, I could see her relax. And she did some victory laps on her perch highways.
I should add, after realizing my errors, I started feeding treats by hand. To help get her over the sudden fear of hands. I'm back able to give scritches, she steps up again fine. No ducking or doging hands, or running to bite them anymore.

And her night time cuddles at 8 pm are obvious very important to her. It's when she talks to me and is vocal. And really snuggling. Everyone goes to bed at 530 ish. She waits till they are asleep, then runs her beak on the bars to get my attention, usually around 8 or 830 like clock work.

I waited to make sure I'd fixed the biting before posting and sharing with you all. It was becoming a very real problem. And people were asking what's happened to your hands. As it looked like I had been wrestling a rose bush!

I now use an oven mitt for shooing. Works great! And she doesn't connect the mitt to hands!

Ta-dah and I are still bite free! She has been such a good girl since I corrected my mistakes Tonight she pressed her tiny little face to mine for ten solid miniuts while I stroked her cheeks. I can touch her whole body a d move her wings , hold her head and all, but afraid to get back to harness training......I'm a chicken!