Conure Bites when Going Back to Cage

[Deannabananna03]

hi All! New conure owner here.. we have only had her 2 days. I did a ton of research, 2 years worth, before i brought home a bird. I have a 2 year old female yellow sided green cheek. I expected her to be nervous and shy for a long time when brining her home, but she isnt shy at all. the first day she was squeeking and chirping and banging her door on her cage to come out.. so i let her out and she flies straight to my shoulder. She is ok when she is up there, we go hang out on the couch and she will usually just climb on me like a jungle gym, except she is biting too. She insists on being on you, but climbs to your hands to bite your fingers.. she bit my arms when i took her into the bathroom, but that was my fault cause the shower was on and i think i scared her. I wont be doing anything with my hands, and she comes over to bite them, hard. She also attacks feet and has made both me and my boyfriend bleed. She is sweet most of the time so far.. she has taken quite a liking to my boyfriend, i think mostly because im the one who gets her back to her cage. She does NOT like that and bites aggressively and flies away if you try. she flies to your shoulder and will bite like crazy if you try to get her down. We try to lean down when she is climbing on you to get her back on the top of her cage at least, she gets off but flies right back to you.. We have had to keep a towel handy, but that is becoming a challenge because she flies away. She is clipped but still flies very well. She sont stay on her cage, she insists on being on us.. preferably my boyfriend. unfortunately he is trying to pass a kidney stone right now and is not in the mood. He wasnt happy about this idea for the past 2 years. he is humoring me and allowing her to be on him, but when he is making soup and she is trying to get in the soup on the stove, he cant get her to stop, and if he tries with his hands she bites like crazy.. if you try to get her to stand on a toy, she lunges at your hand to try to bite and flies around. Im kind of at a loss when my boyfriend asks me to take her, cause he needs to go outside to smoke, or go to the bathroom.. and i cant get her off of him, without getting the towel. i dont want her to fear me, or not trust me. Kind of not sure the plan of action. Any help is appreciated. It seems like most everything i read is of birds that LIKE to go back to their cage..

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

hi All! New conure owner here.. we have only had her 2 days. I did a ton of research, 2 years worth, before i brought home a bird. I have a 2 year old female yellow sided green cheek. I expected her to be nervous and shy for a long time when brining her home, but she isnt shy at all. the first day she was squeeking and chirping and banging her door on her cage to come out.. so i let her out and she flies straight to my shoulder. She is ok when she is up there, we go hang out on the couch and she will usually just climb on me like a jungle gym, except she is biting too. She insists on being on you, but climbs to your hands to bite your fingers.. she bit my arms when i took her into the bathroom, but that was my fault cause the shower was on and i think i scared her. I wont be doing anything with my hands, and she comes over to bite them, hard. She also attacks feet and has made both me and my boyfriend bleed. She is sweet most of the time so far.. she has taken quite a liking to my boyfriend, i think mostly because im the one who gets her back to her cage. She does NOT like that and bites aggressively and flies away if you try. she flies to your shoulder and will bite like crazy if you try to get her down. We try to lean down when she is climbing on you to get her back on the top of her cage at least, she gets off but flies right back to you.. We have had to keep a towel handy, but that is becoming a challenge because she flies away. She is clipped but still flies very well. She sont stay on her cage, she insists on being on us.. preferably my boyfriend. unfortunately he is trying to pass a kidney stone right now and is not in the mood. He wasnt happy about this idea for the past 2 years. he is humoring me and allowing her to be on him, but when he is making soup and she is trying to get in the soup on the stove, he cant get her to stop, and if he tries with his hands she bites like crazy.. if you try to get her to stand on a toy, she lunges at your hand to try to bite and flies around. Im kind of at a loss when my boyfriend asks me to take her, cause he needs to go outside to smoke, or go to the bathroom.. and i cant get her off of him, without getting the towel. i dont want her to fear me, or not trust me. Kind of not sure the plan of action. Any help is appreciated. It seems like most everything i read is of birds that LIKE to go back to their cage..

Hi there...and Merry Christmas!!

Now,how old is your girl? And you have had her only two days? I think I'd take her to an avian vet,and get a PROPER wing clip. THAT would make her more reliant on your,or your boy friend,for her to get around.
2nd..if she is just a baby..i think she is testing the waters with you,on how far she can go/get away with.

BB my 'tiel,is a velcro bird..wants to be with me/on my shoulder,every minute that he is out..which is fine by me,he is such a sweet heart. He was 4 months old when he came home with me,and he has been here 7 months..and he is finally testing HIS waters,by suddenly "boxing" with my ear lobe ( doesn't hurt..but is very aggravating ) and now he's been suddenly nipping my lips! I'm putting a STOP to that! I grab his little beaky,and with a stern voice,tell him NO BEAKY!,and put him back in his house for a "time out" for 5 to 10 minutes.
This action has only started within the last couple days,so he hasn't gotten the message YET..but he will!


Jim

 

[Deannabananna03]

Merry Christmas! Thank you for your response! She is about 2 years old, and yes, i have only had her a couple days. Adopted her from a girl who had her as a hand tamed baby. I have let her know a little about her biting, and she said the same thing, she is trying to be dominate and see what she can get away with. She knows she has me wrapped around her finger. We have started bringing out a wooden spoon, where i was going to use it as a perch for her to step up on instead of my shoulder...but she is quite scared of it so my boyfriend just has to put it near her and she will fly to me. that helps to problem of getting her off of him when he needs her off. Getting her back in the cage is still an issue. He has been grabbing her gently when she is on a shoulder.. his calloused hands withstand the piranha bites while he gets her in his cage. I am still very cautious of not making my hands scare her. I will get her to an avian vet asap to clip those wings some more. i didnt want to have to do that but she is entirely way too mobile. Its good exercise for her.. she is quieter tonight than she has been during her bed time. She was a little sweeter today. No bleeding toes. A couple time outs, but not as bad as yesterday. And we spent a lot of time getting scratches and sleeping on my shoulder. I think she does like me, but she does prefer to be with the guys I will try to be more stern with her. Thank you for your advice!

 

[dhraiden]

Our smaller conure seems to go thru bitey phases. She nips when being put back...I ignore it, or hold her beak firmly and tell her 'no bite', before a timeout.

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[trimblegirls]

I have a GCC who is the sweetest thing until you try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. Generally, it's when I want him back in his cage and he doesn't. I lean my shoulder over to his porch and he'll jump off. I can't use my fingers because he doesn't want to get off my shoulder. I give him a treat inside his cage so he goes in. The treat is anything. He's crazy for anything he think that I am eating. He's gone in for broccoli, oranges, Grey pellets, his own pellets. It's worked every time. I just pretend to eat it first. I used to feel guilty about tricking him but he's happy and I'm happy. It's not like I give him junk food to get him in.

 

[Reni]

Mango, my GCC, also bites regularly. I've been working to avoid the bites which has been working on and off. Since I adopted her from a shelter as a stray, I have no information on her habits, but did find out that she has been perch trained. So, whenever she needs to come off my shoulder I tell her to step up on the perch and she always does. The same if she flies to my tiels' cage, where I don't want her to be, as they are not comfortable with her. I use the perch again and she always steps up. If I would try using my hands she'd come over and bite them. So, for me the perch is a life saver.

 

[Anansi]

Personally, I don't clip. Instead, I focus on building the bond of trust, working on communication building training exercises like target training, and shifting the perception of the cage to a home.

Building the bond of trust is done in many ways. One of the most effective is shameless bribery! Find a treat that your bird will go absolutely bonkers for, and feed it to her. Have her associate you, in her mind, with tasty treats. She hasn't been with you long, so even though she isn't particularly shy she still has yet to truly trust you or even accept you and your boyfriend as members of her flock. So forging that bond will help with her training.

Spending time with her in general will also count as bond building. Whether she's watching tv with you, or accompanying you around the house as you do chores... etc, etc.

Target training is vitally important, here. One, for the obvious reason that it will allow you to have your bird go wherever you need on command. But also because it is one of the first methods of communication between you and your parrot. It gets them into the frame of mind where they are observing you in an attempt to figure out what you want in the hopes of earning a treat. This mindset becomes a foundation for so many other interchanges between the two of you. Here is a great video to get you started on target training: [ame="https://youtu.be/HaOicTtwIZo"]Beginners guide to target training parrots - YouTube[/ame]

As for shifting her perception of her cage to a home, here are three major components for achieving that. 1) Aside from treats, her meals should be given exclusively in her cage. Parrots learn via association, so make the link in her mind between her cage and the satisfaction of her hunger. (I don't free feed, which helps in the effectiveness of this approach. My birds get 2 main large meals, one in the morning and one in the evening. Treats are given as training aids between meals.) The point here is to have her start viewing the cage as a positive part of her experience.

2) Once she comes to understand the basics of target training and the bounty of treats that come with it, you can target her into her cage... and then right back out again. This is important because a common mistake is to always make a return to the cage seem like a "permanent" thing. If every time they go into the cage they wind up getting locked away, they are going to associate going to the cage with an inevitable loss of freedom.

Buuuuuuut, if you do exercises where they sometimes go in for a few seconds and then come right back out, you're building the basis in her mind that going into the cage is often the basis for a treat. It might take her a while to twig onto this, but once she does it will make a world of difference. My birds LOVE being out with me, but with this training neither one fights me about going back into the cage.

3) Make the inside of her cage interesting. Provide lots of toys and foraging activities so that her cage is more to her than just a place to wait for your return. You want her to see the cage as more than a waiting room, you know?

Hopefully this all helps. Please keep us updated on your progress.

 

[Deannabananna03]

Thanks so much for the responses. And thank you Anansi for the excellent advice. I now come back to all of you for more.

So, she doesn't just bite when going back to her cage, she bites all the time. She tries to attack your hand when cleaning up her poo. If I have something in my hand that she wants and I wont give to her, she will climb down to my arm as soon as she comes to skin will squeal, bite, and twist. Ive tried the earthquake, but she hangs on for dear life and just continues to bite until I can get her off. She wont come off of my boyfriend when she doesn't want to. I cant offer her my finger to come off of him. She bites when you try to change her food, she bites when you put her back on her cage, where she knows she is going to get her food, but tries to attack me when I put her dish on the top. She will run and attack your toes if she can see them, made me and my boyfriend both bleed on multiple occasions. I get bit the most when she comes down to my fingers, and begs for scratches... and I slowly and gently give her light scratches. She really enjoys it and closes her eyes and gently mouths my fingers with her beak.. I rub the sides of her beak which she really likes and constantly wants scratches. well when I give her scratches that she is enjoying, she attacks my hand. Whether is another finger, or my other hand, she goes nuts and bites the crap out of my hand. Of course she is quite the flyer, so time outs are a joke. I haven't got her clipped.. I wanted to try everything I could before I had to do that. But her beak is sharp and she is quite demanding when she wants something. I have to keep her in her cage while making her food cause she wants to climb into it before its done, or cool enough for her to eat. I have to quickly move it to the fridge so it can cool quickly. This is her oatmeal in the AM, or veggies and brown rice in the evening. She gets some sliced almond with her oatmeal, probably 2 or 3 nutriberries throughout the day. Strawberries and green apple, corn is her favorite. I am trying to limit the amount of sugar she intakes though because I think that contributes to her biting. She does get a little rowdy when she is nibbling on my fingers when I'm giving her scratches, but I can tell her "Gentle.." and she will loosen up, most of the time. She loves getting tangled in my hair. we spend all day together on the weekends, and then during the week I'm home around 6pm and she stays out until about 11. I leave classical music on for her during the day and she stays in her cage. This is the cage her previous owner had and wanted her to stay in until she was comfortable. It is definitely a waiting room. i would say its 2' wide by 3' tall, on wheels with the playtop on top. Its a nice cage, i really like it. But it will eventually be her sleep cage. I want to move that cage into my bathroom in the master. There are no windows so it is completely dark and will be uninterrupted dark for her. Right now it is in the living room off to the side a bit, next to a window where lots of natural light comes in. But its where we are 99.9% of the time, so she doesnt really go to bed until we do. If i put her to bed at 8, we are still up until 10:30, shes upset, and really she can be out, she should just be sleeping. I tried to tell her. =/ But when I get her new cage, which will be quite large, 4x6', ill move the smaller cage to the back room, and she can get quiet time. There are a couple of her toys from her home hanging in there, wood ones, that are bitten up and stuff, but I have never seen her play with them, or show interest in them. She has only mildly shown interest in shredding paper. I bought a couple new foraging toys, with the crinkle shredded paper, put nuts and a nutriberry, pumpkin seeds.. put it all in a paper popcorn package.. she had no interest at all. I even let her see me do it, and she didn't care. She loves nutriberries and snacks.. and she didn't forage at all. I left it in her cage while at work. So we have an OK relationship. she definitely isn't scared of me, and that's good, she has no reason to be. but at this point I know we still don't trust each other. I haven't tried the targeting yet, mostly because I'm sure I'm going to get bit in the process and ive been trying to avoid anything that might set her off, which of course is no fun. I don't know how to keep her from flying She spends most of her time on my shoulder or the back of my neck under my hair. She cuddles up to the side of my face and gives gentle kisses to my cheeks. She tried once on my lip I think, but I dared not move. She keeps me from getting any work done at home haha, she always wants to sit in my hand and beg for scratches, and then bite my fingers really hard and squeal, and then put her head right back down for more scratches.... that's confusing!!!! I don't know what to do about the biting.. shes just a little punk at some point every day, and I have to tell her "NO!" and get her off of me. She waits about 10 seconds and then climbs back on me. if I don't let her she goes to my boyfriend.. who then wont let her, so she goes to the other end of the couch.. usually to get dangerously close to the kitty. I want to be able to take her out in the AM while I'm getting ready for work.. that's at least an hour and a half of out of cage time in the AM, but she is too angry about going back in her cage. I'm hoping the big cage will help that.

There are a couple behaviors I am unsure about..She does this funny robot, sway back and forth while sticking her head straight up and bob motion when she is on my shoulder, seems to be when shes excited, like when I get home, (she beelines straight for the door as soon as I get home to sit on my shoulder!) she does it when shes walking on top of the fish tank.. I think shes showing off? is this a strut? I definitely keep my fingers away from her when shes doing this, just wondering if my face is too close to her when shes on my shoulder and doing this?

Another one.. she backs up to us, like our necks or arms, sometimes the pillow, makes a funny little squeeling sound and flicks her feathers. Is this sexual behavior? what do I do when she does that? I put her in her cage last night and I always lift the cover after I cover her to talk to her before bed. she climbed down to the bottom of the cage and did the same vocalizing, and flicked one Wing over and over?? She flicks one wing often.. ??

What meals do you feed your birds in morning and evenings? Do you also provide pellets throughout the day? I have natural pellets she was eating when I got her, she seems to enjoy them. I have those available to her all the time. but she also gets a little breakfast and dinner.

Sorry this with lengthy and kind of all over the place. Thats how its been around here lately!

 

[GaleriaGila]

Great advice!!!!

And now for the don't-do-like-I-do post.
I have an old bird who is set in his ways, and may be a good example of what can happen if you DON'T do effective, early intervention.
I have reduced biting to almost zero over the decades... not because I've changed the bird, but I have changed me. And a lot of that has involved giving up on a lot of my desires/expectations. After years of battle, I surrendered. I don't do stuff that gets me bitten. I don't scratch his head much, ever... tail is okay. I NEVER do stuff that makes him mad... I don't touch others when he's out; I rarely try to get him to step up onto my hand first. Hand-held perch first, then hand. In some ways, I swallow my disappointment at having such a little monster for a pet, but he is what he is. I ALWAYS wear my hair down when he's on my shoulder, so all he can bite is hair. Really, I don't involve hands much... he doesn't like them. He seems to think the real ME is my head, perched on a weird moveable tree with questionable appendages.
Since he's fully flighted, the ONLY way I get him into the cage is to toss a chile pepper in and he flaps in after it.
But please... listen to and try all the good advice you'll get here. Don't surrender until you know you've done your best. Then just accept and love whatever/whoever your bird turns out to be.
My darling is kind of a worse-case scenario, but we have it all worked out between the two of us.
Good luck!



P.S.
About food...
I feed Harrison's, supplemented by fresh healthy treats. My first, and later, my current avian vet recommended it. 30-ish years ago, Harrison's was still a small company. My vet was actually able to talk to Dr. Harrison about my bird's species and status, and they decided on the High Potency. My bird loves the pellets now, but to get him converted, my avian vet suggested putting pellets out all day, and putting seeds (his old diet) out for two 15-minute periods a day. That would sustain him but leave him hungry enough to try new stuff. I presume the same technique could be used to get him to eat other healthy stuff. My guy was eating pellets in a couple of days, and now I can feed a good variety of other stuff, knowing he has the pellets as a basic. Pellets are out all day... fresh treats a few times a day.

P.P.S.
About sex and light...
Ever since the Rickeybird hit sexual maturity at about 3-4 years of age, I've had to manage his hormones! If kept on too steady a long day, and too much light, he stayed "in the mood" (aggressive, even louder than usual, pleasuring himself on my neck ) year round. If I keep him on a natural light schedule... up with dawn, down with dusk, year around... THEN he's only a little monster rooster from July to September). He has his own room, so I can do that easily.

 

[wanesso]

I have the same issue with getting my two conures back into their (separate) cages. I try not to let them out unless they're hungry now! One or both stick like velcro to my shoulder or head. After being out for an hour or so (yes, lots of hand biting, ouch!) I'll rattle the food dishes and it works eventually, I try to let them go in on their own accord....I try not to feed them when outside and make their cage the tastiest place to be. I also wear a scarf and hat to protect from bites but his won't be fun when it's 90 degrees!

 

[Kyoto]

I get Kyo in her cage very easily. Her treat bowl is on her door, with a perch. She knows that going in her cage she gets her favourite treat, an almond. What I do is tell her "Kyo want a treat?" and she will often fly right to her perch and wait. she picks it up and I close the door, 99% of the time no fuss at all. Very rare now that she gives me a hard time about going in

I hope some of the tips provided help! Save her favourite treats for going into the cage only. And I also find, don't leave her as soon as she's back in. Stay around for a bit longer and talk to her, so she doesn't associate you putting her in with you leaving right away.

Also, time. It's your best friend. When I first got Kyo, after two weeks she started testing us. She would bite and draw blood badly. Now she just has a slight nipping problem. It has taken hours and hours of positive reinforcement and patience from me, but I now have a nearly perfect little angel who I love more than anything <3

 

[Altum]

My reasoning for why this occurs (because it happens to me, too) has always been that it's because he's got nothing to lose. We punish Foggy for biting too hard by putting him back in his cage, so if he's going back in the cage anyway, well, might as well bite!