Shoulder training?

I love to have my bird on my shoulder as I go about doing things. My BCC sprinkles loves being on my shoulder but I can not trust him. He nips necks. I feel he does it with love like he wants to preen but it is too hard. Or he bites when he is frustrated because I am not petting him when he is on my shoulder.

When he is on my shoulder I use a mirror to see him. He has really gotten much much better at not nipping hands. How do I fix the neck bites? Will he outgrow it?

Its not that he is being mean it is just him being a baby conure. At night we do the training because he is more relaxed. I really need to keep him off the shoulder in the morning he is crazy.

Tips for shoulder training would be good ? HE only gets a shoulder ride if he is being good it's a reward.

Shoulder Training is very possible, however anytime that you cannot fully see your parrot you open yourself to at the minimum a nip to a very dangerous bite. Consider what sits just below the skin of the neck and shoulder.

Until you fully know how to quickly take your parrot off your shoulder and at the same time you are fully willing to take a very painful bite to a finger, you are not yet ready to begin shoulder training.

As parrot owners, we like the closeness that having our Parrots on our shoulder provides us. It also lets us 'multi-task,' which can make our lives simpler. At the same time, we place ourselves at real risk!

I know that I did not provide the training process. Once you have developed a strong bond, it will likely just happen. This due to Parrots commonly wanting to move the the highest point.

You will be much better off, if you target moving your Parrot on your fingers, hand or arm than to have your Parrot on your Shoulder!

See the Thread in the Amazon Forum: OUCH that hurt.

Oh yeah I am ready for the pain. It has already happened a few times good nips to the neck. I can grab him to get him off. Other times he is a good boy and steps up.

I have been using a mirror to watch him when he is on me. This helps a lot. I also wear a hoodie for extra protection.

Your right I think it will just take some time. It took some time for me to trust Kiwi my old parrot once We had a strong bound I let her on my shoulder. Sprinkles and I are still new to each other I have only had him a month. But he is already getting much better.

Maybe he's nipping because he's bored? Or perhaps there's another reason???


Why not make, or buy, a "birdy toy necklace"? It'll give him something to do while he's up there!

He nips because he does not know how hard it is. I think that is part of it. The other part is he loves to be pet and will not bite if I am petting him when he is on my shoulder. So he might also nip to tell me he wants more attention. I think that is the real reason. He just loves attention and loves to be pet and cuddle. He is becoming a velcro bird.

The key to shoulder training, as with any training, is consistency. You have to set his boundaries and then stick to reinforcing them. And you would deal with this situation in the same way you would deal with any other bite pressure violation.

Tell him "No" or "Not nice" or "Too hard, whatever choice of words you prefer to get across that you're not happy with the current behavior. Make sure you use a firm, yet even, tone of voice. No yelling, as birds may not infer the same things from an elevated voice as a human would. Which ever tone of voice and choice of words you pick, make sure to stick with it. It's the sound of the words they recognize more than the words themselves.

Once you've verbally conveyed your displeasure, take him immediately to his cage for a timeout. (I even adopt a different walk while doing so, more brusque, to differentiate between timeout and a regular trip to the cage.) Once he's in his cage, leave the room if possible. If not, at least turn your back and ignore him for a full 5-10 minutes. Then return and take him right back out.

Wash, rinse, repeat as needed.

On the flip side, praise and reward him for behaving as he should. Put enthusiasm into your tone and make a big old deal about him. Eventually he'll make the association between bad behavior and timeouts, and good behavior and praise and treats.

Just remember to be consistent. Anything less will only confuse him.

Agree with Anansi above but have noticed that if it is nips not bites it can be their way of them trying to communicate with you so perhaps also have a think why or what it is that Sprinkles wants from you.

plumsmum2005 said:

Agree with Anansi above but have noticed that if it is nips not bites it can be their way of them trying to communicate with you so perhaps also have a think why or what it is that Sprinkles wants from you.

Click to expand...

Solid point. I know you already believe it to be impatience for petting and such, and considering that you've said the behavior stops whenever you are petting him, that seems a reasonable conclusion. But it would still be a good idea to take another step back and further observe as Plumsmum has suggested, just to eliminate the possibility that it could be something else.

With our birds, who communicate so differently than we do, eliminating all assumptions and taking the time to critically reconsider your interpretations of their behavior is always a good idea.

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