Can training get rid of Biting all together?

[Zukarin]

Long story short, I intend on working with an 36-year-old Amazon and a 9-year-old conure my brother is neglecting either by frequent visits or taking the animals myself. (I haven't decided which since either comes with its own issues)

The reason they're being neglected is because they bite and scream.
If a bird has been biting for years, will training get rid of that behavior all together? If the biting seems random, will that change the birds ability to stop biting?
Also, how bad are Amazon parrot bites?
I know how bad a conure's bite is, and I have little fear of it since its all superficial and short-term.

I'm sorry that there's 3 questions there, but I would appreciate all the advice I can get since this is a very difficult situation I have to deal with.

 

[fiddlejen]

I am sure you canNot get rid of biting altogether.

With my own sun conure, she is about 2 1/2 now, I have had her for 2 years, from pretty early on I worked on Bite Pressure Training, and have been really succesful.

Every bird is different and then you have the difference of older vs younger. But I suspect you can Reduce the biting, and i think there's a reasonable chance of being mostly-succesful with bite-pressure training.

The idea is, at least half or more of "bites", are just birds using their beaks to explore the world. Remember they don't have hands, and are often busy using their feet to stand upon. In the wild, or in flocks, birds would learn that biting other birds too hard, does not get the desired result. So combine that concept with care and love and good bird-psychology, and you can teach a bird to Not bite too hard UN-intentionally.

This of course won't stop All bites. Sometimes the bird is angry, frustrated, or hormonal, or trying to communicate, and bites hard on-purpose. That will still happen. But getting to know a bird, and teaching it to love you, will lead to Less of those incidents. And Bite Pressure training will cause less UN-intentional bites.

 

[SailBoat]

Bring a Parrot into your home requires the ability of taking one's 'expectations' and leaving them behind!

One needs to remember that an Adult Parrot commonly bites because it expects to be miss-treated (abused) and wishes to drive-off any further such treatment.

Far too many Human's believe that Parrots are like Dogs and wish to befriend a Human. Whereas, Parrots have no natural reason to trust a Human!

The process of providing a Parrot a reason to trust a Human can take much longer as it requires that Every Time A Human Is Around, Only Good Things Happen! That can takes months to years depending on how committed the Human wishes to be.

Changing ones Vantage Point!
- Its Never the Fault of the Parrot!
- Its Always the Fault of the Human!
By changing to this Vantage Point, one can see what one is doing wrong earlier and change it!

See the Amazon Subform and the two Threads at the top. The one that is titled something like: Understand Amazon Body Language is useful to avoiding being bitten as Amazon's commonly 'by use of body language' what is about to happen.

 

[Laurasea]

Birds protect their cages, for dome that's sn instinct you can't train away.. but you csn out a perch on the door swings out when open and they do good. Away from the cage they behave.

Agree with Squeekmouse. There is beak explore, stabilization, polite non hurting nips, sbd occasionally bites ( but rare, sbd your fault)

I've helped 3 screaming burds. 90% reduction by improvement of quality of life, increased out of cage time, foraging, good diet, encouraging and allowing choice , enrichment of environment. The last 10% is tweaking, rewarding good behavior, patterning, ritual, routine, flock call, knowledgeof alarm calls, lije hey I see a snake or hawk or bug dog outside. . Burds will still be happy vocal loud gere abd there but it is not screaming.
Thanks for stepping up!! So many burds go mad and unhappy acting out when stuck in a cage all day.

 

[chris-md]

So I’m gonna perhaps...reframe some of the answers you’re getting here: Training CAN get rid of bad bites altogether, with the caveat that it depends on what is causing the biting - generally speaking.

Biting as a result of hormonal behavior...not much you can do about. It comes and goes with hormonal surges, and this is a genetics thing. Not all birds become aggressive when hormonal, this is down to the individual. Cage aggression falls into this category as Laura notes.

Biting from wild birds who were never tamed to begin with...can’t fix that.

This is what I believe you are truly asking and not so much gentle beak exploration: Biting LEARNED as a result of poor husbandry/training or neglect of an otherwise previously hand reared bird? That CAN be wound back to almost nothing with proper training and care.

And we’re talking aggressive biting here. NOT the gentle warning nips you might get if you annoy a bird (which is a training issue! If you’re properly watching the bird, these do t happen with most birds), or exploratory use of the beak which should be be restricted through training.

 

[chris-md]

And Amazon bites can be bad. I know someone who had the side of their nose sliced right through by a pubertal Amazon.

 

[riddick07]

On the Amazon bites they can be very bad. They have both slicing talent and a pitbull like ability to hang on for life while grinding their beak. They hit like a freight train too. Plus, they get a death grip with their feet & can hang on while biting multiple times. I always had a giant bruise from a hard Amazon bite even if they don’t necessarily break skin. They are strong little jerks lol.

Knew an Amazon that damaged a tendon in someone’s arm & they had to have surgery to fix it up. Worst Amazon bite I knew of besides a face bite. They have pretty obvious signals for biting. There is a guide on here somewhere for their body language. They aren’t hard to work with once you learn the signals they give off. But if a bad bite really worries you I wouldn’t go with the Amazon.

On a side note if the Amazon decides you are the favorite person it’ll be easy to work with in general. I loved the shelter Amazon’s they were characters & you always felt like they were planning to kill you even while they were being nice

 

[noodles123]

no- training cannot entirely. Trust can, but even that fluctuates depending on your actions. I haven't been bitten in over a year and I do A LOT with my adult parrot, but if I screw up, I will be. It's more about establishing bonds, not rewarding biting, and reading body language.
A hard bite is different from a wimpy one, but getting rid of those comes down to trust + training. Without trust, training doesn't matter as much. You have to make your bird trust you.


You can reduce hormonal biting by reducing triggers and simultaneously building/preserving trust. 10 hours sleep nightly= essential, pet on the head and neck only and do not allow access to even remotely shadowy spaces (no boxes, huts, tents, low shelves, under furniture, on soft or high-backed furniture like couches, in shadowy laps under hair, etc etc)

 

[wrench13]

If you adopt the Amazon, and learn from the good folks here, and PAY ATTENTION, you'll see the bite coming. Amazons will typically have obvious tells when a bite is coming, and the ignorant human will either not know them or ignore them. Nips are the 'zon teaching you. a bit more then a pinprick. Bites, yeah they can be bad but like all instantaneous injuries like a knife cut, its the initial pain thats worst. My friends blue front likes to take a chunk out of me everytime we get together, I kinda expect it. You'll live.