How to Train Parrots to Stop Biting

Video Transcript

"Hi my name's Elizabeth and I'm speaking on behalf of expert village. What we're going to talk today is birds that bite. The number one reason that most parrots bite is out of fear. So if your bird is biting the number one way for you to get your bird to stop biting is to figure out why your bird is biting and change it so you're no longer threatening this animal and he's no longer frightened. Your obviously pushing yourself on this bird or he's frightened or something is very uncomfortable that this is the last form of self defense. Most birds in the wild would just choose to fly away versus aggressively biting you. So most birds when they bite is like a dog that bites, they feel cornered. So you need to find a way to make this experience more comfortable. If you have a bird that bites and you and you wanna get a particular behavior out of him such as step up or if you've got them already on your hand. Come here Karen step up, good girl. Let's say for instance Karen wanted to bite me and I was about to just do something like say step up and instead of stepping up, sorry, she switched and she decided that she wanted to bite my hand so what I would do is just as she was reaching , sorry, I'm sorry, as she was reaching for her beak what I'd do is I'd wobble my hand ever so slightly just like this as she's reaching to bite. What that does is it's a negative reinforcement they don't like losing their balance and so it'll stop the biting behavior. You can do this two or three times until you can offer your hand and she no longer tries to bite before standing up onto the next hand. That's one way to start, just keep them from biting from one hand to the next. Again that's not a way of causing it to be a more positive experience but immediately it can keep you from getting bitten. The other way again is to reach from behind the bird. The last method to keep from biting is to obviously just offer a distraction at the same time. So if Karen wanted to bite what I would do is I'd say step up and at the same time, sorry my birds can fly so they can choose to not interact with me. You'd offer a distraction so if I was going to ask her to step up at the same time I'd offer her to step up I'd offer a distraction at the same time this can be a piece of a popsicle stick or a piece of food and ask them to do he two activities simultaneously. So you'll offer food while while offering your hand. This often times is distracting enough to break the bite behavior. So there's different ways to stop biting the number one way is to distract and the other number one way would be to figure out why the bird wants to bite you in the first place and change up their environment. Try to create the situation in such a way that is positive and the bird wants to interact so that he doesn't want to bite you instead."