Welcome to you and your GCC! I'm so sorry to hear you are having biting issues with your conure, I know from experience how upsetting this is! Do you know much about his background and how many homes he has had? Having been uprooted from one or more previous homes will almost certainly add to the anxiety, insecurity and aggressiveness that he is displaying. He probably feels like you are just going to be another in a line of people who have abandoned him just as he might have been beginning to form a bond. And what is his name by the way?
I had a green cheeked conure for a sum total of just over 4 years prior to his premature death from pancreatitis in August 2018 so I do not pretend to know everything about them. What I can tell you though is that my beloved sweet snuggly baby named Baci turned into a vicious and bitey demon practically overnight at the age of about 2 and a bit. Now this was at a time before discovering this forum and I had no idea what had happened to him. It was the middle of a summer heatwave and Iād been working a few long day shifts in a row so heād been stuck in his cage in a hot house for several days and I just thought he hated me for it. Anyway, I found he was suddenly hugely vicious around his cage in particular and I couldnāt get near him for days without him absolutely LACERATING my hands. In desperation I looked up all sorts of things online to try to find a solution, and thereās a lot of stuff out there like the āearthquakeā method (doesnāt work with green cheeks, it just makes them latch on even harder!) and dropping them suddenly on the floor (NEVER an option as it could obviously result in injury!) Ignoring the bite just seemed to make him bite that much harder because I clearly wasn't getting the message. Bribery with treats didnāt work on my Baci either, he would take the treat and then bite me anyway, and quite savagely too!
What saved our relationship in the end was the procedure of "laddering". First thing in the morning I would stick a few flesh coloured band-aids on the parts of my hand most likely to get bit, thus lessening my reflexive flinch when I thought he was about to bite, and in turn lessening his reaction to my flinching. Then I would ask him to step up, and if/when he bit me, Iād ladder him onto my other hand and back and forth until he stopped biting, usually only a step or two or three until he stopped. Then Iād pop him down somewhere neutral like the back of a chair and walk away for a minute or two until he cooled off, then go back and repeat the process once or twice. Where possible I would repeat the procedure in neutral territory where he had not previously shown this type of aggression. Baci was a smart boy and it didnāt take him long to work out that he wasnāt going to get away with biting, which was pretty much the only thing I didnāt tolerate from him because he bit so dang hard! Heād grumble at me a little but Iād (carefully!!) give him a big kiss and tell him how much I loved him, then pop him down and he would usually go about his business quite happily for the rest of the day. But I always kept those band-aids handy!
Looking back on it now, and having learned a lot about GCCs from other members on this forum, I now realise that his behaviour change pretty much coincided exactly with his reaching puberty. Your conure is quite a bit older than Baci was but seasonal hormonal changes may well be feeding into his behaviour so hopefully the worst of it will pass.
I wish I had known these things about conures at the time because if I had it may have changed the way in which I dealt with Baci's behaviour. Undoubtedly there are better ways of handling the situation - I know some will say laddering is not the ideal solution to an issue like this and hopefully some of our other members will weigh in soon with some ideas about how you might deal with this behaviour in the longer term. It by no means guaranteed that Baci never bit me again, but as a short term circuit-breaker in this type of emotionally fraught situation I found it very useful indeed. I hope this helps you!
