Conure keeps climbing me ?!

[MangoBabyy]

My 13 week old pineapple conure has been acting very weird with me lately. He will climb up my arm to my shoulder, bite my ear and play with my hair but when I try to pet him he lets out these tiny screams and bites me. Hard. He didn’t do this when I first got him and we would cuddle and he would only nibble on my fingers. Now he bites me whenever I try to pet him or give him scratches. How do I stop this behavior? I don’t want him to think I’m just his perch that walks him from room to room.

 

[BoomBoom]

Welcome to the forums!

Conures can get bitey. I was going to say hormones but at 13 weeks I think this is too early. First I would avoid situations where you could get bitten, this means no shoulder or arm access. This is temporary until you find out the reason that Mango is biting. There is often a host of valid and/or silly reasons (note that these are based on my experiences with my own bird):

1) They feel threatened by something. I may get bitten by my sun conure if I handled a watering can (his nemesis) or a CD case. Avoid handling or being near the object until he's been bite pressure trained.

2) They need something. Is he hungry? Thirsty (check that his water bottle isn't stuck). Is he bored? More toys and training activities will help here. Does he want a bath?

3) Jealous over another human or pet? This is more when they reach sexual maturity so again may not be applicable to your situation.


Things that work for me is sternly saying NO BITE when a bite occurs. Setting them on a perch and walking out of the room. If there are other pets or people around then you'd have to leave him inside the cage before you walk out. Don't show anger, don't yell. You absence is enough punishment. You can come back a few minutes later when he's calmer.

Search up the topic in this forum. There are loads of great advice. Good luck!

 

[Sunnyclover]

I have 2 Conures...one is an angel sent straight from the heavens and is perfect in every way and the other is a doofus who doesn't "seem" to know his beak from his tail feathers half the time. You guessed it...the 2nd I is/was a biter. I have a story thread on the forums with the link in my signature of my struggles with this bird. I tried everything to get him to stop biting. I would put him on the floor and say "no bite", I tried holding his beak, I tried gently touching his beak, I tried putting him down in a cage used for time outs, I tried just putting him down and telling him"no bite", I tried straight out not handling him unless needed if he's in a biting mood ext and the list goes on and on. Nothing worked except completely ignoring the biting or just saying calmly "no bite baby, it's okay" and being calm. This particular bird basically felt like he was being punished for no reason because he just couldn't connect the 2 and eventually because somewhat scared of me and my hands( I think) and would bite even more than ever. Now he's finally getting better after months and months of ignoring the biting and he fully trusts me again which took hours and hours a day of extra time to fix things between us. I saw no end in sight but finally there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Don't get me wrong he's not totally perfect and he will bite when pushed to do things he clearly doesn't want to do but that's usually my fault because now because he isn't scared of me he gives body language before he bites and if I decide to go ahead and try it anyways then I'm the one who is biting myself really. So yeah... he's wonderful now! Hope you can fix things with your baby and I hope this helps! If you want to try a method that is pretty calm I would recommend just putting your bird down fairly close to where you are for like 30 seconds for them to cool off but more more than that because they won't remember and think you're just being mean...well in my case anyways that's what happened.

 

[PickleMeDickles]

My Suns have never even threatened me with a bite. Pickles, my GCC can be a *itch. She wants things now and her way or the highway. When she started doing this I grabbed her and gave her a firm no and a 10-minute time-out! She stopped it within 3-4 days and is now an angel most days, kind of.

 

[Caitnah]

My Pineapple does EXACTLY the same thing. When I got him at 12 weeks he would just sit and cuddle in my hands all the time.
Now at 20 weeks he doesn't sit still. He only wants to be with me. He will run up and down my arm, across my shoulder and will get nippy at times when I try and head scratch him.

I have discovered that when he REALLY nips, he will also nip my shirt, fingers, or almost anything else he comes in contact with. It's as if he is hungry. Sure enough, when this happens, I put him back and he eats right away. I just tested this theory about ten minutes ago. After he ate, I took him back out and even though he ran around like usual he didn't nip at all; and I can pick him up like a football and he was fine.

But he still won't cuddle anymore. He just runs around like a chicken on crack. He only plays on his playground if I stand there. Otherwise he is on me 100% of the time. Am wondering if the energy/running around is due to the diet he is on. Lots of mash with fruits, vegs, chia seeds, oats, sweet potatoe, nuts, red palm oil, etc...

Check my post a couple days ago regarding, "Always On Me..."

 

[sjcline2013]

Today I opened my conures cage he climbed right up my arm to my face. He was born Febuary of 2022 so he is young. My husband and I are getting bitten a lot because we're trying to understand how to gain his trust. My husband and I are extremely patient because I know it can take a long time for a bird to bond with you.

Now I have instincts I follow all the time and when he went up to my face today he seems playful he was making these like tiny little sounds not a scream not something I think is bad. A small chirping and he nuzzled my face, my neck and ear. He was nibbling which was gental and sleep.

I think some of the reason why he might not be happy with us. Maybe because of his cage now I was told it was big enough to house him for a while, I was saving money to get a flight cage and unfortunately I lost my job.

I find it cute be nibbled my ears and nuzzled my hair it's cute.