bonding with gcc advice

hi everyone one

looking for some advice on bonding. i have a 6 month old gcc called bash. currently not been sexed. also bash was hand rared.

bash is a very active and inquisitive bird. from day one he has been great in the house, settled down within a day or two. was no longer jumping with me approaching the cage would happily allow me to remove his food and water dish.
i have been spending time just near his cage and talking to him which he seem to enjoy gets very excited and jumps about the cage perch to perch . so now i have had him for almost three weeks and i offered him a treat from my hand. he was a little hesitant but came over so i have been working on this for a couple of days , but today he started nibbling my hand not hard so i let him as didn't want to pull my hand away and scare him but after a few minutes he bite down hard. i try'd not to make any noise and try'd making a fist as i have heard this is a good way of stopping biting and they cant catch your skin. this didn't work be stepped on to my hand and found anywhere he could get a hold of.
so later on a try'd to change out his food and water and all hes interested in is biting me. i also would sit with my hand on his cage for a wee 10 minutes just to let him get used to him hand but know i cant even do that with out him coming over for a nibbling

i have three toys in his cage currently he has a foraging toy, preening and a wooden toy which had a bell for chewing.

looking for any advice on how i can work through this with him. i have just been sitting talking to him but not sure what to do about the biting.

Thank you in advance for any advice

The nibbling sounds like he is mouthing you to see what category you fall into. Safe to stand on, something fun to chew or food. To me it sounds like it might be a good time to try getting him to step up as he doesn't seem all that afraid of your hand. Such a young bird is much easier , from my experience, to get to step up as it wasn't all that long ago for them that the rearer was handling them.

If he steps onto your hand and bites just give it a bit of a gentle shake. Enough that the bird stops biting and starts paying attention to holding on but not enough that he flies away or falls. He should quickly learn that it makes the perch unstable. From my limited knowledge of bird psychology they see you as just your head. Everything else about you is basically a perch for them to use or chew.

I found when I brought Ari home that if I just gently grabbed his beak and detached it from whatever part of me he was biting it would redirect him for a while. Eventually he learnt not to do it. Lots of destructible toys help too. Put him near something that is ok for him to chew and encourage it.

Try to get him to come out and explore as much as possible too. It may just be he needs to burn off some energy

Hopefully someone else will give you more advice

hi talven

thank you so much for the advice i gave what you said i try , he did'nt seem overly put off by the gentle shake but i try stroking his beak when he bites and it alot better, took about 10 minutes and manager to get him onto my hand and out of his cage with no bites. was amazing it made such a big difference i feel like i can control how hard he was biting me instead of him just treating me like a chew toy. cant thank you enough feel like this will be a great start to getting the step up and getting a stronger bound

I would highly recommend you read through this thread:

Tips for Bonding and Building Trust

It works great when you understand bird language!

hi jackie

thank you for the link ,

i try talvens advice of the shake which didnt fuss bash at all so give gently touching his beak when he bite and that seem to work really well he was still nibbling gently when he was steping on to me , but if he trying to bite down and touched his bite and he stopped, he managed to come onto my hand and out of his cage he done very well

Talven gave great advice. Here's a couple of more tips that work for us:

1. If your little guy is acting aggressive, leave him alone if possible. If you can't avoid it try to keep your fingers curled like in a fist, so it's much harder for him/her to bite.
2. Mouthing/nibbling is a VERY common thing for GCC's and is how they explore and move around. Here's a great thread on Bite Pressure Training to consider.
3. If Bash bites you really hard/frequently, cry out OUCH! in distress and put Bash down on the ground, then walk away. This does three things: Vocal alert that Bash hurt you, Puts him some place he's not crazy about, and Bash loses his/her playmate. Give Bash a moment to calm down and then approach YOU, which is Bash's way of apologizing. Then pick Bash up and try again.

Be gentle. Be slow. Be patient. Above all, give LOTS of love and attention.

Hi squeekymouse

That's great thank you will give that a try I have been work with bash with the gentle tap on the beak , he been responding very well, I have also been keeping a wee treat so if the tap work and he doesn't bite harder he gets a wee reward if he continue to bit I put him down on the perch on his cage. For a wee minute when go back. He seem to be coming along very quickly I thought it would take alot long but he has taken to sitting on my hand and my husbands very quickly. I'm guessing alot of this will be due to being hand rared. But I'm just taking it slow and if he doesn't want to come onto my hand and dont force the issue. He will trust me when he trust me.