Gaia tries to eat my fingernails....

[Fleur]

Now that Gaia is comfortable with me she loves to spend as much time on me as possible. Some times it's really hard to get her to step down. She has a fixation with trying to tear my fingernails off and also loves to nibble on my fingers. The nibbling isn't so bad but when she finds my fingernails she chomps down and tries to crack them open like a seed and it's very painful. I of course don't let her know that and I will remove her beak from my fingers with my other hand. Even after I do this she will continue trying to get my fingernails. How do I stop this? I feel like one day she is actually going to peel one off

 

[SandyBee]

How old is she?
I know its a lot of peoples opinion not to let them see reaction but I disagree. My Amazon loves to nibble on my nails, skin ear etc He is preening me and I give a small yip and tell him no when he gets too hard. This totally works for us, I also tell him No or Gentle and he has learned the words. At first to get the point across if he didn't listen I would.remove him for a minute.

 

[Remy]

Darcy does this sometimes. I pull my fingers out relatively quickly, tell him "no" and take my fingers away temporarily. If it hurts, I say "Ow!" Don't make a scene though, because apparently that encourages some birds!

A couple weeks ago I decided to let him fidget with a fingernail that had grown longer than usual. He actually peeled the long part off!

 

[LoveMyParrots]

If she is only a baby, it might be that she is going through her teething stage. Yes, I know, parrot don't have teeth but when they are a baby, they do nibble on things just like puppies will do.

Tell her "be gentle" or "no" in a calm voice. But not shout "OUCH!" or yell "WHY DID YOU DO THAT!? YOU LITTLE DEVIL!" Or anything like that. That will encourage her to bite you harder and harder since she thinks that you are just so 'happy' that she bit you.

 

[Fleur]

she is only 4 months old so it might be "teething". Once she is on the hunt for my fingernails she is determined to get them lol. She won't step down when she is doing this and it took me like 10 minutes to step down on to one of her perches. She was on a mission. I will try to tell her "no" and see how that goes. So much to learn as a new bird mommy but I think so far we are doing pretty well. Just have to work out some bugs first

 

[LoveMyParrots]

Yea, 4 months is pretty young for eclectus. Probably because she is teething.

But is she actually eating it or just playing with it? If she does eat it, then might be a sign that she needs more calcium. Does she get cuttlefish bone?

 

[Fleur]

I have short nails so she can't break them but actually tries to crack them open like a seed. There isn't any part of my nail that would come off freely for her to eat lol, that's why its so painful. I don't give her cuttlefish bone, I was not aware this was necessary.

 

[NWQuakers]

My quaker Mark would chew on my nails while I was trying to trim her claws. I'd hold her foot with one hand, and she'd reach down to nibble while I tried to get her toes at the right angle to clip. Nothing too persistent or painful though. I figured it was fair paybacks

 

[BillsBirds]

I've had several birds who've chewed my nails their whole lives. I think it's from the preening mentality. Your nails are different than your fingers, so, must be preened off. Your skin is soft, and nails are hard, so, they can't be part of your fingers. Just like "foreign material" is not supposed to be on their feathers, so, they preen it off.