Bitey Baby (was hand fed)

[jessarose]

Hello! We brought our baby home last week. He is a yellow-sided turquoise green cheek baby. He is a cutie, but he had been biting. He wants to be on me at all times, which is fine. I gave lots of treats in the beginning, like that first day and obviously when we were in the store. Now he has started biting our hands and fingers a lot. He will start just by nuzzling with his beak a bit and then latch on hard, and not let go until we physically push his beak off. When he bites, I have been making him get off me and not giving attention or treats and trying to give him different toys to chew on instead. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Oftentimes he will just continue to look for skin he can get a good grip on and bite. He likes to be up by my neck and face and hang out there, and he's never bit my face area but I'm finding myself nervous when he gets up there and making him get down because he's been so beaky. A few times I've put him back in the cage because even when given toys to chew on and full access to his pellet food, he continues to want to bite my hands. He is getting between 4-7 hours out of cage every day, and starts crying when I put him in there so I'm feeling bad about it. Is there anything else I can do to teach him hands aren't chew toys and biting hands won't make it produce more walnuts?

 

[LaManuka]

Hello! We brought our baby home last week. He is a yellow-sided turquoise green cheek baby. He is a cutie, but he had been biting. He wants to be on me at all times, which is fine. I gave lots of treats in the beginning, like that first day and obviously when we were in the store. Now he has started biting our hands and fingers a lot. He will start just by nuzzling with his beak a bit and then latch on hard, and not let go until we physically push his beak off. When he bites, I have been making him get off me and not giving attention or treats and trying to give him different toys to chew on instead. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Oftentimes he will just continue to look for skin he can get a good grip on and bite. He likes to be up by my neck and face and hang out there, and he's never bit my face area but I'm finding myself nervous when he gets up there and making him get down because he's been so beaky. A few times I've put him back in the cage because even when given toys to chew on and full access to his pellet food, he continues to want to bite my hands. He is getting between 4-7 hours out of cage every day, and starts crying when I put him in there so I'm feeling bad about it. Is there anything else I can do to teach him hands aren't chew toys and biting hands won't make it produce more walnuts?

At your baby's age, the "shunning" method is your friend!! This is something that adult birds teach babies, that they won't make any friends by biting and may well get themselves ostracised from the flock if they keep it up, and as little conures are prey animals in the wild no baby bird wants that. It involves, each and every time he bites you, you pop him down somewhere in safe neutral territory, like the back of a chair or a table for example. NOT his cage because that may be exactly where he wants to go, and not on the floor because that may be unsafe too. It doesn't matter if he makes his own way back to his cage either, as long as you don't take him there. Once you've put him down, turn your back and walk away, making no eye contact for about a minute, not much more or the immediacy of the lesson may be lost - this is what parent birds would do in the wild or in an aviary setting. Consistency is key! Every member of your household needs to do this every single time because your little one will look for chinks in your family's armour! Conures are very smart, and it won't take long before he learns that if he wants to be a member of your "flock", and happily it sounds like he does, that biting will not be tolerated.

Welcome aboard the forums, @jessarose, it's good to have you and your baby boy aboard. What's his name btw? And please post some pics when you can, cos we LOVE baby photos around here!!

 

[jessarose]

Thank you! I don't think he'd ever want to be put in his cage. At least not right now. I also don't want him to associate his cage as a bad thing, but right now when I try to put him in he does everything he can to avoid it. I'm trying to teach him to play with his toys, but right now he's only playing with them when he is out of his cage with me. When he's in the cage and I'm in another room he just cries, and when I'm in the room and he's in the cage he just sits on a perch staring at me and bobbing his head up and down.

 

[LaManuka]

Thank you! I don't think he'd ever want to be put in his cage. At least not right now. I also don't want him to associate his cage as a bad thing, but right now when I try to put him in he does everything he can to avoid it. I'm trying to teach him to play with his toys, but right now he's only playing with them when he is out of his cage with me. When he's in the cage and I'm in another room he just cries, and when I'm in the room and he's in the cage he just sits on a perch staring at me and bobbing his head up and down.

He's a beautiful baby, congratulations! And yes they are brilliant at emotional manipulation, I had a green cheek some years ago who would cry when I put him to bed too - the little rascal!! Yours will settle eventually, he's still very much a baby and it usually takes a new bird a good few weeks to adjust to their new surroundings, again because they're "prey" species and generally much more cautious by nature. Take things at your bird's pace and you will have a friend for life - there is nothing more wonderful than winning the love and trust of a bird!

 

[EllieTheConure]

What I have found that I don't see a lot of people talking about is the fact that GCCs are especially nippy when they're young so this could be normal depending on how young it is. Ellie infact just grew out of that phase but we're still working on boundaries. A few things I would recommend is: 1) even though it's adorable as HECK don't let your baby even gently nibble on your finger (like put beak around finger and lick finger or nuzzles fingers and stuff) this will get them into a habit that can lead to biting. 2) shunning is definitely a good tool to use. You don't have to put the bird in the cage just on a surface like a perch or a chair away from you and walk away if the bird flies to you or put the bird back into the perch. Flocks do this in the wild to teach their young anyways so there's no harm. 3) even though it's cute I would recommend either not letting your bird perch on your shoulder or setting a time limit to shoulder time. I used to not do this myself but the more I got to know Ellie I realized she got aggressive with shoulder perching. Not a terrible amount but more prone to screaming and biting. I'm not really sure why but now I let her rest in my forearms instead. This is something I would recommend but of course every bird is different and your bird may not geta ggressive with shoulder perching


Hope this helps )