Nipping issue and why only with one?

[Conquer_Death]

We got our daughter a cute yellow cheek and nearly two months later he/she is nips at her when she has the bird on her. Mango doesn't nip with me or her mom. Is it a dislike towards a person when they get nippy? I find it strange that its only our daughter that gets this behavior from the bird.

 

[weco]

Need some more information...how old is the bird, is the bird a re-home or are you its first home? How old is your daughter?

Without seeing the interaction all we can do is guess and speculate.....first, often, but not always, when a bird is brought into a new home their initial demeanor is reserved and when they have figured out how this new home operates, they may start to insert themselves where they feel they should be...a flock ranking system. At the same time, often birds new to a new house have to warm up to the individual family members and while I may be wrong, I'm going to guess your daughter is young and many birds view children as an unknown quantity...children appear and disappear hurriedly, they make sudden and surprising noises.....most birds prefer things that don't surprise them.....it may take some time, but unless your daughter has done something directly to the bird, I think the bird will eventually accept her.....

 

[Conquer_Death]

Sorry for missing key info. Mango is 8 months old and I got him from a bird breeder that handles her birds all the time. The conure picked me instead of the other way around. Not sure if it's the first person to handle them that makes like them more. My daughter is 16 and the bird stays in there unless at the secondary location in the kitchen. Mango got passed around in the house a lot to get used to everyone. Unfortunately I am the pet person. Everything flocks to me. I try to make sure my daughter takes care of the new addition but he just is nippy with her and no one else.

 

[weco]

OK, at 16, does your daughter paint her nails in bright colors, maybe change colors often...the same with lipstick & other makeup...although you've had Mango a couple of months, there has to be something he's seeing, that bothers him...he came from a breeder who is older than your daughter and is most likely a much calmer type than your daughter, let's say a matriarchal type and he's probably seeing your wife similarly and since you mentioned that the birds seem to prefer to go to you, they're looking at you as flock leader.....I may be way off base with these suppositions, but for seven years, I had a birdsitter who had custody of two of her granddaughters and all of my birds let the girls do almost anything with them, until one Halloween the oldest girl and a few of her friends came over to let their grandmother see them dressed up for the night...the birds stayed in my den and the girls had to walk through the living room, the dining room and down three steps to get into the den...as soon as the oldest girl and one of her friends (both of whom had dyed their hair fluorescent colors) walked through the double doors and started down the steps all hell broke loose and two of my birds went after them.....my birdsitter took a couple of bites, but she kept the birds off of the girls.....also, and I don't remember if it was a member of this forum or another group, but she had stopped, after work and had a pedicure, with a flag on two fingers and stars & sparkles on the others.....she gets home opens her bird's cage and the bird attacks her new pedicure...

Something else, if not already known, the ladies of the house need to remove earrings around your birds, actually, they should not wear any jewelry around your birds, jewelry with stone settings are subject to immediate re-design, stone removal and possibly having a ring crushed crushed around a finger so that it has to be cut off...earrings can get torn out of ears an anyone wearing any visible body piercing does so at their own risk.....

I don't know if ant of this may have touched on the problem with Mango, but I've given you some ideas.....

Good luck.....

 

[MikeyTN]

Sometimes it's better IF your daughter had gone to choose from numerous ones instead of you purchasing one for her. It's better when a bird chooses a person, that's usually who they stick with. I don't force any bonding here in my home, they choose who they want to choose. Over time some ended up being just fine with me although those prefer my partner over me. But I am the person in the house that handles ALL the birds as I have ways of training them on my own.

But since the bird is already there, lots of interaction and only her feeding the new bird is what's gonna help with the situation. She needs to try to bond with the bird as much as possible on her own with no one else around and no intrusion of any kind, including other people or animals. She needs to be alone when she does the bonding.

 

[antoinette]

MickeyTN is quite correct

Your bird needs one on one time alone with your daughter, with no one else in the room.

He needs to gain her trust and form a bond.

 

[SilverSage]

By yellow cheek do you mean yellow sided green cheek? Or 'sun cheek' green cheek, or is this just a bird I have not heard of?

 

[4dugnlee]

When you daughter gets nipped, how does she react? Does she fear the bird at all now?

 

[Conquer_Death]

Yellow sided green cheek. We're aware of jewelry and there hasn't been any reaction to painted nails yet. She usually puts him back in the cage if he gets too nippy. We have a smaller cage on the kitchen counter in front of a window that he guards with his life. whenever the cats want to look out the window he charges them off. Great conure so far and isn't a problem child one bit. just would like to see him/her do better with my daughter but not sure how that'll play out. She is trying though when he gets to be a pain with her. In some ways i feel bad.

 

[Birdman666]

Well, they say that birds can sense demonic possession! And how else can you explain some teenage daughter behaviors?

Nipping can be a lot of things.

It can be fear based. (Something spooks the bird so he nips.)

It can be attitude. (I don't wanna and you can't make me!)

It can be a jealousy/overbonding/attention thing. (You're mine, pay attention to me.)

It could be a lack of bonding thing. (Puh-leeze. I don't know you that well!)

It can be an attempt by the bird to communicate. (I don't like that person/thing you are getting to close to it/him/her.)

It can be an attempt by the bird to influence the behavior of his/her person. (take me here/feed me that/put me back)

It can be a displaced aggression thing (if you can't bite the thing you want to bite, bite the one you're with.)

So there are a lot of variables. Observe the behaviors and see if there is a trigger.

And if that doesn't work... perhaps try a bottle of holy water and a good exorcist?!