August 28, 2020
Biting bird
best way to get bird to stop biting
Question:
Answer:
Hi Debra & “Scooter”,
The best thing is to prevent the biting in the first place. This means observing your bird and understanding his body language as well as not giving him the reaction he wants. Birds almost never bite without motivation or warning. But some warning signs are not as obvious as others. If this is a young bird, he doesn’t know any better and he needs to learn what is and isn’t acceptable. It’s a good idea to have some type of toy handy to offer him when you can see he is wanting to bite. Give him the toy to chew on instead of yourself. With some birds, you can try to stick train them and this gives them something to bite instead of your finger. As Dr. Tully said today, positive reinforcement is the only thing that really works. I’m going to give you the link to our page on bird behavior and it also has a section on dealing with biting. I think this information can help you to avoid the bites and to have a better relationship with him. The second link has training tips, stick training tips and a section on positive reinforcement training.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
