Biting Black Capped Conure

[Agoraphobic]

One of my BCC's, Marlin, has had a bit of a behavior change lately and has been biting much more than usual and I am unsure as to how to help her.



Allow me to provide some context:


We got Marlin from a local pet store a few years ago. We are unsure of her exact age but she is young, as of now I reckon she's no more than 5. We don't get many birds around here. Upon meeting her I had to have her. She's gorgeous, but seemed skidding upon first handling her, which is understandable. Handling her in the pet store, she didn't bite much if at all, and I was able to hold her for a while with no problems. You could tell she was nervous/scared, etc. So we decided to bring her home.

We have another BCC, Crimson, who we'd gotten a few months prior to her. He's an absolute love bug, he cuddles, never bites, is potty trained, etc. It didn't take long for her to bond with him. They sleep together every night, but other than that she's always out on her own, he usually stays in his cage when we're not around or is on my shoulder.

She has never really wanted much to do with us. I understand Conures bite more than most birds and for many different reasons. I can tell when our Conures are biting for good or bad reasons. She usually always bites harder.
Recently she's had quite a behavior change. She will run under our couch puffed up and making squeaky noises whenever we are in the immediate vicinity. Getting her back in her cage is a chore now. We are not aggressive towards her whatsoever. We always try to show her as much love and care as our other birds. They're like our children. She will bite us whenever she is not on her cage, when she is, she won't bite at all, she'll just run off our hands and into her cage whenever she sees an opening.

Today, she was on our Ringneck's cage, no problem. I picked her up and she latches on to my finger, hard. She's not puffed, just biting my fingers and pulsing her grip as she's biting. It's not enough to break skin, so I feel like she's not trying THAT hard, but it's not pleasant. I hold her close to comfort her, nothing, keeps going. I can tell her beak is getting tired from all that latching so I bring her back to her cage and eventually she lets go and hops in.

This has been hard for me as I really do care about my birds, rehoming isn't an option. We've tried working with her as much as we can, but she seems to just not like people that much at all. She's healthy, and otherwise seems happy whenever we're not around. She cares for our Tiels and defends them if she feels they're threatened.

I apologize for the long back story an explanation. I hope to find some insight and guidance as to how to help her feel like we're family she never had.

 

[Cagzo]

You could try putting a finger firmly on her head and saying" no bite". I know what you mean about them not meaning to draw blood,but its just too hard to be comfortable.
There was a lady on You Tube showing this method.
Obviously if they are puffed up you cant do much except protect yourself!
My Conure is the opposite,she bites hard if you try and get her to "step up" in the cage,but when shes out shes very friendly,but everything is on her terms,and I have to remember that!
We had family at new year and she was really nasty after they had gone,for about a week she sulked and raised her hackles if we went near her.

 

[Agoraphobic]

I've tried the usual methods of bite prevention or discouraging. She is too smart, she won't have it. She'll latch until she's tired or until she's near somewhere she can escape to.

I'm not sure what happened, I can tell she's being protective, defensive, etc. I just don't understand where it came from. On occasion she will make an effort to lunge for my hands to bite them, unless she is outside on her cage and it's bed time. She's very particular it seems.

 

[LaManuka]

Welcome to you and your diverse flock! I'm so sorry to hear you are having biting issues with your conure, I know from experience how upsetting this is!

I had a green cheeked conure for a sum total of about 4 years prior to his premature death from pancreatitis in August 2018 (still cry over him too) so I do not pretend to know everything about them. What I can tell you though is that my beloved sweet snuggly baby named Baci turned into a vicious and bitey demon practically overnight at the age of about 2 and a bit. Now this was at a time before discovering this forum and I had no idea what had happened to him. It was the middle of a summer heatwave and I’d been working a few long day shifts in a row so he’d been stuck in his cage in a hot house for several days and I just thought he hated me for it. Anyway, I found he was suddenly hugely vicious around his cage in particular and I couldn’t get near him for days without him LACERATING my hands. In desperation I looked up all sorts of crazy things online to try to find a solution, and there’s a lot of stuff out there like the “earthquake” method (doesn’t work with green cheeks, it just makes them latch on even harder!) and dropping them suddenly on the floor (NEVER an option as it could obviously result in injury!) Bribery with treats didn’t work on my Baci either, he would take the treat and then bite me anyway, and quite savagely too!

What saved our relationship in the end was the procedure of "laddering". I would stick a few protective band aids on the parts of my hand most likely to get bit, thus lessening my reflexive flinch when I thought he was about to bite, and in turn lessening his reaction to my flinching. Then I would ask him to step up, and if/when he bit me, I’d ladder him onto my other hand and back and forth until he stopped biting, usually only a step or two or three until he stopped. Then I’d pop him down somewhere neutral like the back of a chair and walk away for 5 minutes or so until he cooled off, then go back and repeat the process once or twice. Where possible I would repeat the procedure in neutral territory where he had not previously shown this type of aggression. Baci was a smart boy and it didn’t take him long to work out that he wasn’t going to get away with biting, which was pretty much the only thing I didn’t tolerate from him because he bit so dang hard! He’d grumble at me a little but I’d (carefully!!) give him a big kiss and tell him how much I loved him, then pop him down and he would go about his business quite happily.

Looking back on it now, and having learned a lot about GCCs from other members on this forum, I now realise that his behaviour change pretty much coincided exactly with his reaching puberty. Your Marlin is a little older than Baci was but seasonal hormonal changes may well be feeding into her behaviour so hopefully it will pass. The puffing up and running under the couch and making squeaky noises sounds like pretty nesty broody behaviour to me - my female lorikeet is exhibiting just this sort of behaviour right now!

I wish I had known these things about Baci at the time because if I had it may have changed the way in which I dealt with the behaviour. Undoubtedly there are better ways of handling the situation, and I know some will say laddering is not the ideal solution to an issue like this. It by no means meant that he never bit me again, but as a short term circuit-breaker in this type of emotionally fraught situation I found it very useful indeed!

 

[Laurasea]

This thread a bunch of ga e some biting advice, give it a read and see if it helps
http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/84060-green-cheek-aggression-issues.html