Build trust as a "not-preferred" human

shinyuankuo

New member
May 9, 2019
98
16
State College, PA
Parrots
Winston 屁撚, the Eclectus. 屁撚 (pi-nian) came from Pinion (Psalms 64, meaning flight feather, typifying God's soaring power.)
Hi guys,
I am wondering if you have experienced successful trust building as a not-preferred parront? I've been having problems with Winston. Winston ABSOLUTELY LOVES his dad (my husband), and I'm the unwanted mom. I respect his boundaries and is okay with him choosing dad overall, but things got complicated over the past few weeks.

1. Hormone - (facepalm)
Winston chases his dad everyday. We been discouraging, but we can at best prevent birdy love vomit.

2. He's sick (sour crop) without appetite. To manage his weight, we give more than usual amount of fruit and treats to entice him to eat. We also almost stopped all the recall training because he had no interest. He didn't feel well enough to do it. We've seen a vet, and he is recovering. I plan to start cutting his sugar once he gets into the 470g weight range. He's at 460g but normally at 488g.

Now, problems I have with Winston...(let me make a big sigh here.)

  • Winston and I kind of get along, but he will choose to bite. I can put my face to him, and he'd be fine receiving a kiss. We have great singing sessions every other day (shower schedule). But he will floor shark me out of the blue.
  • Step up (permission based with a treat) became very wacky. He knows that he can refuse a step up, and I know when he says no. He will however choose to step up and bite my hand without getting a reward. The bite became his reward. He always gets a firm "NO" and a time-out after bites, but he will choose to have consequences. I feel he's stepping up to bite me sometimes. This is a big problem because it breaks our trust.
  • He displays some hormonal behavior towards me, too, but it's more like a bad boy using a random girl as a target to take out emotions. His hormonal behavior towards his dad is like "ooohhh, let me show you my great precious vomit. I'm sure you will like me (romantic voice over)," Towards me? "HORMONE CHOMP! You'd better be satisfied with this! Because you are getting NOTHING ELSE!"
To summarize, my problem is hormonal based, but it is becoming trust-breaking. He bites me for every little emotions. Has anyone lived through this? Can you share how you handled the situation?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:

noodles123

Well-known member
Jul 11, 2018
8,145
472
Parrots
Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
Let me see if I can find an older thread on this where I wrote the reply I would basically write to you.

Okay go to this link, then look at my reply and read it---There are also some links (to related threads) within my reply that person, which may help as well.

http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/85952-son-s-conure-keeps-biting-me.html

EDIT--- YES- AGREE W/ CHRIS-MD (BELOW) DEFFFFFINITLY fix the medical first. I missed the thing about sour crop when commenting.
 
Last edited:

chris-md

Well-known member
Feb 6, 2010
4,349
2,119
Maryland - USA
Parrots
Parker - male Eclectus

Aphrodite - red throated conure (RIP)
Sounds like my situation. I'm often tolerated, never fully loved. My partner is the favorite.

What I want to see is for you to actually back off bonding attempts for now. You're in a slight medical triage situation, and you're hormonal issues are directly tied to the treatment you're having to give. Right now, getting calories in him is more important than "proper diet", so you're necessarily feeding stuff that is making the hormonal situation much worse than it would otherwise be.

Don't let it get to a trust-breaking point right now. Change your mindset here. You're boy is sick, and acting out because of it.

SailBoat will tell you many times over, bonding while going through medical situations is near-futile.

Get the medical stuff out of the way first before you worry about actions to help the bonding.

Once medical is fixed, address the hormone issue.

Once hormone issue is addressed, you can better address the bonding challenges.

These steps feed directly into each other as you can see. No meaningful progress can be made right now. And remember, if you're getting bit over and over again, even when hormonal, you're going to far/too fast for the bird. Scale back the interactions to where there are guaranteed no bites, and build up positive associations from there. Nothing but good stuff, and don't intentionally put yourself in a situation where a bite can happen.
 
Last edited:

noodles123

Well-known member
Jul 11, 2018
8,145
472
Parrots
Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
Sounds like my situation. I'm often tolerated, never fully loved. My partner is the favorite.

What I want to see is for you to actually back off bonding attempts for now. You're in a slight medical triage situation, and you're hormonal issues are directly tied to the treatment you're having to give. Right now, getting calories in him is more important than "proper diet", so you're necessarily feeding stuff that is making the hormonal situation much worse than it would otherwise be.

Don't let it get to a trust-breaking point right now. Change your mindset here. You're boy is sick, and acting out because of it.

SailBoat will tell you many times over, bonding while going through medical situations is near-futile.

Get the medical stuff out of the way first before you worry about actions to help the bonding.

Once medical is fixed, address the hormone issue.

Once hormone issue is addressed, you can better address the bonding challenges.

These steps feed directly into each other as you can see. No meaningful progress can be made right now. And remember, if you're getting bit over and over again, even when hormonal, you're going to far/too fast for the bird. Scale back the interactions to where there are guaranteed no bites, and build up positive associations from there. Nothing but good stuff, and don't intentionally put yourself in a situation where a bite can happen.

very very very very well-said!
 

wrench13

Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Parrot of the Month 🏆
Nov 22, 2015
11,383
Media
14
Albums
2
12,567
Isle of Long, NY
Parrots
Yellow Shoulder Amazon, Salty
Chris, that is a very cogent explaination and I hope the OP takes heed.
The only thing I might add is that hormone season seems to be over ( at least in our house with Salty). Thats the thing with hormonal behavior - this too shall pass. The key thing is not to let bad behavior become the new normal. Example - Salty and I play rough, with him play attacking me, but during his recent 6 month long mating season this year, I couldn't do that because it became a serious bite almost immediately. Rather than ingrain that, I stopped doing that with him, and only recently tried to play rough again.
 

noodles123

Well-known member
Jul 11, 2018
8,145
472
Parrots
Umbrella Cockatoo- 15? years old..I think?
Chris, that is a very cogent explaination and I hope the OP takes heed.
The only thing I might add is that hormone season seems to be over ( at least in our house with Salty). Thats the thing with hormonal behavior - this too shall pass. The key thing is not to let bad behavior become the new normal. Example - Salty and I play rough, with him play attacking me, but during his recent 6 month long mating season this year, I couldn't do that because it became a serious bite almost immediately. Rather than ingrain that, I stopped doing that with him, and only recently tried to play rough again.

There is definitely a "hormone season" in a bird that has no hormonal triggers in its life...but if environmental or behavioral hormone triggers are present, then hormones can last all year in captive parrots....even if they do get even worse during the "season"...
So while certain things may become triggers during the season,lots of birds are in perpetually hormonal states due to other environmental and behavioral factors...and so for these birds, things will be a little different.
 
Last edited:
OP
shinyuankuo

shinyuankuo

New member
May 9, 2019
98
16
State College, PA
Parrots
Winston 屁撚, the Eclectus. 屁撚 (pi-nian) came from Pinion (Psalms 64, meaning flight feather, typifying God's soaring power.)
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #8
What I want to see is for you to actually back off bonding attempts for now. You're in a slight medical triage situation, and you're hormonal issues are directly tied to the treatment you're having to give. Right now, getting calories in him is more important than "proper diet", so you're necessarily feeding stuff that is making the hormonal situation much worse than it would otherwise be.

Don't let it get to a trust-breaking point right now. Change your mindset here. You're boy is sick, and acting out because of it.

Winston's medical situation is being cared for very carefully. We not only weight him every day, but we also weight every meal. We know exactly how much he eats and gains in a day in grams. (Well, minus the stuff he throws out of the bowl and rubs on the cage bars. That's an estimate.)
I am considering the bonding issue after we've reached the confidence level to say "yea, just some more time he'd be fine." It's pretty funny that I know Winston better than my husband, and Winston does not care one bit. Love is blind...LOL

It is not that easy to just change the mindset when you carefully ask your bird "would you like to step up? I will give you a treat and take you to your dad." And, your bird gives cues of agreement, lifts up his feet, steps on...BANG! He chomps down and look at you like he proudly master-planned the whole scene. It is not so much about accepting and forgiving him, but I can't reasonably pick him up anymore. That means I can't remove him from danger if needed.

Once we get his health on track, we will decrease his fruit/sugar intake.

Can natural yogurt help with the sour crop, just a little of course?

I thought about it, but was not sure about yogurt for eclectus specifically. Our vet also advised against apple cider vinegar, so we decided to just stick with the vet's prescription.

Chris, that is a very cogent explaination and I hope the OP takes heed.
The only thing I might add is that hormone season seems to be over ( at least in our house with Salty). Thats the thing with hormonal behavior - this too shall pass. The key thing is not to let bad behavior become the new normal.

Our summer weather is like spring weather. The hormone season starts late here. My next door neighbor has a poicephalus who's also affected. I am trying hard to not let it become the new normal. I don't even play with Winston. Our only playing time is singing and no hands involved.
 

Ira7

Banned
Banned
Feb 9, 2020
621
8
Coral Springs, FL
Parrots
YNA
Regarding the hard biting after step-up, others may disagree, but my friend taught me this:

Turn your head away from the bird so he doesn’t make the connection between you and your next action, which is to sharply tremble your hand, creating an unstable perching platform for him. You only do it for an instant, and I think you can figure out the proper amount of shake.

He wants to get on your hand...that’s why he stepped up there in the first place...but he doesn’t want that earthquake.

I only needed to do this once or twice with my birds, but they weren’t biting like that to be mean. They were just on emotional overload.
 

NewQuakerMom

Member
Apr 7, 2020
111
6
Just a thought about stepping up - can you use a perch? Our (rescue) QP viciously bites whatever he steps up on until he's sure it's dead, and then happily perches on it while he's carried from room to room or rescued from the floor or whatever. Since we like all our fingers where they are, we use a wooden perch to move him. Just a thought. :)
 

SailBoat

Supporting Member
Jul 10, 2015
17,646
10,008
Western, Michigan
Parrots
DYH Amazon
Regarding the hard biting after step-up, others may disagree, but my friend taught me this:

Turn your head away from the bird so he doesn’t make the connection between you and your next action, which is to sharply tremble your hand, creating an unstable perching platform for him. You only do it for an instant, and I think you can figure out the proper amount of shake.

He wants to get on your hand...that’s why he stepped up there in the first place...but he doesn’t want that earthquake.

I only needed to do this once or twice with my birds, but they weren’t biting like that to be mean. They were just on emotional overload.

Take great care in using this approach when you are not the favored one! Especially with everything else that is going-on at this moment! This approach can work with the bonded individual, but can go seriously wrong when you're not.
 

SailBoat

Supporting Member
Jul 10, 2015
17,646
10,008
Western, Michigan
Parrots
DYH Amazon
Sounds like my situation. I'm often tolerated, never fully loved. My partner is the favorite.

What I want to see is for you to actually back off bonding attempts for now. You're in a slight medical triage situation, and you're hormonal issues are directly tied to the treatment you're having to give. Right now, getting calories in him is more important than "proper diet", so you're necessarily feeding stuff that is making the hormonal situation much worse than it would otherwise be.

Don't let it get to a trust-breaking point right now. Change your mindset here. You're boy is sick, and acting out because of it.

SailBoat will tell you many times over, bonding while going through medical situations is near-futile.

Get the medical stuff out of the way first before you worry about actions to help the bonding.

Once medical is fixed, address the hormone issue.

Once hormone issue is addressed, you can better address the bonding challenges.

These steps feed directly into each other as you can see. No meaningful progress can be made right now. And remember, if you're getting bit over and over again, even when hormonal, you're going to far/too fast for the bird. Scale back the interactions to where there are guaranteed no bites, and build up positive associations from there. Nothing but good stuff, and don't intentionally put yourself in a situation where a bite can happen.

very very very very well-said!

Thanks for the call-out my good friend.

As so well summarized above.

When faced with a stacked series of issues, place your efforts with health first, and always first, as you can recover a relationship! Never Their Loss...

Hormones this year have rolled-over the top of records near everywhere around this World. Those species with non-specific calendared timelines seem to be but a blink of an eye from a chemical rage. Once, the health issues are under control and eating is restored, work at pulling the diet back into the safe range as well as interactions.

Restoring a semi-safe 'second-one-out' relationship! It is important to remember that when Parrots choose, its their emotional choice and has nothing to do with how hard the 'second-one-out' works in caring and loving efforts... I have been here before and currently here again. Our Julio loves his Girl Friend and is okay with me. Remember, only you get to provide the Good Stuff!!! And, I was the only way Julio got to his GF (he was dropped rock flightless when he first came to us), which helped.

Step-up Bitting! I'm assuming you have enough experience with his process that you can ID his beak position just prior to the bit. The goal is to fort the chump by pushing his upper bill up and then back away from your skin... It does not take a much effort. Remember to clearly state no, No, NO! The push back will reset the behavior and with repeated push back will work to first slow and then stop it. It also will not destroy where the relationship is.

FYI #1: Many of us know these things, only repeating for those visitors and new members... Plus it helps me remember when, I'm picking-up Julio!!!

FYI #2: This period of time is also a great time to really zoom-in on the tiny hints of the emotional state of your Parrot. Easy to say, as an Amazon Snob and their providing tons of I'm going to kill you warnings. :D
 
Last edited:
OP
shinyuankuo

shinyuankuo

New member
May 9, 2019
98
16
State College, PA
Parrots
Winston 屁撚, the Eclectus. 屁撚 (pi-nian) came from Pinion (Psalms 64, meaning flight feather, typifying God's soaring power.)
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #13
Regarding the hard biting after step-up, others may disagree, but my friend taught me this:

Turn your head away from the bird so he doesn’t make the connection between you and your next action, which is to sharply tremble your hand, creating an unstable perching platform for him. You only do it for an instant, and I think you can figure out the proper amount of shake.

He wants to get on your hand...that’s why he stepped up there in the first place...but he doesn’t want that earthquake.

I only needed to do this once or twice with my birds, but they weren’t biting like that to be mean. They were just on emotional overload.

Ummmm...thanks but I tried this early in our first bonding process, and Winston taught me "NEVER AGAIN DO THAT" with a nose bite. And sadly, Winston only had to do it once with the human mom.:smile040:

Just a thought about stepping up - can you use a perch? Our (rescue) QP viciously bites whatever he steps up on until he's sure it's dead, and then happily perches on it while he's carried from room to room or rescued from the floor or whatever. Since we like all our fingers where they are, we use a wooden perch to move him. Just a thought. :)

Also tried this. He's afraid of moving perches. :smile040::smile040:

Restoring a semi-safe 'second-one-out' relationship! It is important to remember that when Parrots choose, its their emotional choice and has nothing to do with how hard the 'second-one-out' works in caring and loving efforts... I have been here before and currently here again. Our Julio loves his Girl Friend and is okay with me. Remember, only you get to provide the Good Stuff!!! And, I was the only way Julio got to his GF (he was dropped rock flightless when he first came to us), which helped.

Step-up Bitting! I'm assuming you have enough experience with his process that you can ID his beak position just prior to the bit. The goal is to fort the chump by pushing his upper bill up and then back away from your skin... It does not take a much effort. Remember to clearly state no, No, NO! The push back will reset the behavior and with repeated push back will work to first slow and then stop it. It also will not destroy where the relationship is.

Yes, I agree with your tips 100%. That's how I've managed my relationship with Winston. We've reached an satisfied point up until recently. Winston is definitely acting out of jealousy because I held hand with my husband yesterday night, and Winston immediately flew to my arm. And he STARED at me. Just stared with a "I dare you...!" look.

I will keep trying, just Winston is allowing very small room for mistake from me. He turn from being fine on me to "I need to punish you" in seconds. I do kind of now his beak position right before the bite, but he also knows that I know. He will pick the best position to bite. I last received an armpit nip while he was on my shoulder. He is definitely creative to say the least. :17::17::17:
 

NewQuakerMom

Member
Apr 7, 2020
111
6
Also tried this. He's afraid of moving perches. :smile040::smile040:

LOL! These guys can be so picky!!! It took us AGES to get ours to even step up on a perch, much less let us move him on it. Once he'll step up on a perch for you, practice just holding the perch VERY steady (if it's wiggly, he'll be afraid, it has to be super steady. Rest it on something if you can't hold your hand perfectly steady) and giving him treats while he's on it. Then once he's reliable with that, start moving him a few inches on the perch, then moving him back, and THEN giving him the treats while he's on the perch. Once he's OK with that, move him a few more inches, and then more treats. After a while, you can move him on the perch from one perch to another perch, and give him a ton of treats, and eventually, he'll see 'move on the perch' as a good thing that gets him treats. It takes a little while, but is SO worth it!!! :)
 

Ira7

Banned
Banned
Feb 9, 2020
621
8
Coral Springs, FL
Parrots
YNA
Regarding the hard biting after step-up, others may disagree, but my friend taught me this:

Turn your head away from the bird so he doesn’t make the connection between you and your next action, which is to sharply tremble your hand, creating an unstable perching platform for him. You only do it for an instant, and I think you can figure out the proper amount of shake.

He wants to get on your hand...that’s why he stepped up there in the first place...but he doesn’t want that earthquake.

I only needed to do this once or twice with my birds, but they weren’t biting like that to be mean. They were just on emotional overload.

Ummmm...thanks but I tried this early in our first bonding process, and Winston taught me "NEVER AGAIN DO THAT" with a nose bite. And sadly, Winston only had to do it once with the human mom.:smile040:

Just a thought about stepping up - can you use a perch? Our (rescue) QP viciously bites whatever he steps up on until he's sure it's dead, and then happily perches on it while he's carried from room to room or rescued from the floor or whatever. Since we like all our fingers where they are, we use a wooden perch to move him. Just a thought. :)

Also tried this. He's afraid of moving perches. :smile040::smile040:

Restoring a semi-safe 'second-one-out' relationship! It is important to remember that when Parrots choose, its their emotional choice and has nothing to do with how hard the 'second-one-out' works in caring and loving efforts... I have been here before and currently here again. Our Julio loves his Girl Friend and is okay with me. Remember, only you get to provide the Good Stuff!!! And, I was the only way Julio got to his GF (he was dropped rock flightless when he first came to us), which helped.

Step-up Bitting! I'm assuming you have enough experience with his process that you can ID his beak position just prior to the bit. The goal is to fort the chump by pushing his upper bill up and then back away from your skin... It does not take a much effort. Remember to clearly state no, No, NO! The push back will reset the behavior and with repeated push back will work to first slow and then stop it. It also will not destroy where the relationship is.

Yes, I agree with your tips 100%. That's how I've managed my relationship with Winston. We've reached an satisfied point up until recently. Winston is definitely acting out of jealousy because I held hand with my husband yesterday night, and Winston immediately flew to my arm. And he STARED at me. Just stared with a "I dare you...!" look.

I will keep trying, just Winston is allowing very small room for mistake from me. He turn from being fine on me to "I need to punish you" in seconds. I do kind of now his beak position right before the bite, but he also knows that I know. He will pick the best position to bite. I last received an armpit nip while he was on my shoulder. He is definitely creative to say the least. :17::17::17:
A nose bite?

Why the heck did you bring him close enough to your nose to bite you there!?
 
OP
shinyuankuo

shinyuankuo

New member
May 9, 2019
98
16
State College, PA
Parrots
Winston 屁撚, the Eclectus. 屁撚 (pi-nian) came from Pinion (Psalms 64, meaning flight feather, typifying God's soaring power.)
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #16
A nose bite?

Why the heck did you bring him close enough to your nose to bite you there!?


The nose bite happened within the first 2 weeks of getting Winston last year. Count that as human's stupidity.
 
Last edited:
OP
shinyuankuo

shinyuankuo

New member
May 9, 2019
98
16
State College, PA
Parrots
Winston 屁撚, the Eclectus. 屁撚 (pi-nian) came from Pinion (Psalms 64, meaning flight feather, typifying God's soaring power.)
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #17
Quick update for you all:
The shunning method has been working. I don't get bite just anytime now. I can pick him up with a treat, and I'm training putting my hand over (not touching) and reward when he looks away.

Winston is still a brat at times. Today, he walked all the way across the living room to me. I was just sitting on the floor with my computer. I looked at him, and welcomed him vocally (no movement). He first put his one foot on me, then he rested his chin on my arm, and chomped. I was like "what's that for...(shaking my head)".
 

Most Reactions

Latest posts

Top