Ask Lafeber

Biting and hand fear

So I got a budgie from pet smart about 9 months ago, her name is Pilot and I love her to death.
She seems to be decently bonded to me as a person, but has too things that I don’t entirely know how to work with. So shes pretty content all together, she will hop onto my shoulder, she will preen my hair in the back where its shaved, she likes to sit on my head, play with my earrings, and more.
But she has a very bad fear of hands, and coming from petsmart that makes a lot of sense, there’s probably little kids pressing their faces to the glass all the time, and what I’ve been doing is picking her up with a shirt which she doesn’t seem to mind, but sometimes I do forget, and I feel bad, and don’t get me wrong, sometimes she will perch on my bare hand but not often. So I was wanting advice on maybe how I can work around that and I know alot of people say “put your hand in her cage” but that doesn’t work for her. And I want to train her but I’m scared that won’t be able to happen
Then theres biting, as I stated above, sometimes she will let me touch her, like head scritches, but she also bites A LOT, and hard. And I was wanting advice on that aswell.

Hi,

Have you tried to stick train her? This is just the process of teaching her to step up on a perch. I’ll give you the links to our behavior and training page to help you better understand her and know how to work with her productively. Female budgies can be a bit mouthy, so stick training can work great with a bird like her. She can take out her biting urges on the stick rather than your hand!

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Teaching Your Bird

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda