GCC Lost Trust in my Hands

[SDK]

I have had my Green Cheeked Conure, Anzu, for a little over a year now, and it has until now been a wonderful experience. We were fully bonded, and with a lot of work I got her to bond with the rest of my family as well.

As last week was Thanksgiving, we had a lot of distant relatives come over. I was really hesitant to let her out around others, as she gets territorial over me and my dad (one of the main reasons I had a hard time getting her to bond with the rest of my family), but I took her out to show one of my aunts when it was just the two of us in the room. Sure enough, my bird had gotten defensive and wasn't happy that my aunt was sitting close by and jumped off my hand to bite her. My aunt yelped and pulled her hand away before she got bit, but I had instinctively grabbed the bird with both of my hands and carried her over to her cage and put her in right away. I immediately recognized this as a disaster and hadn't taken Anzu out for the rest of the day.

Next morning, when I went to take her out as a part of my normal morning routine, she refused to step onto my hands like she normally would and when I kept insisting she began biting my hand very hard with no warning. I had had no experience on what to do when a bird starts biting at this time, so I did ALL the wrong things. I quickly yanked away, yelled at her, and bopped her head with the finger she bit. I foolishly tried to pick her up again and was of course met with the same response. I tried this again two more times throughout the day and we both reacted in the same way each time. That night, I did some research and realized the horror of what I had done. I now not only have upset my bird and pulled a bad reaction, but I have now also reinforced it.

I have made a lot of progress on my own since then, as I have gotten my bird to trust me again as long as my hand aren't visible. If I open the cage and walk away (after she tries to bite my fingers through the bars) she will fly onto my shoulder and behave normally. She will respond to my chirps and will still talk back to me. She will even still lean up against my head and fall asleep if shes on me for a while. However, if I even try to lift my hand up to scratch my head she immediately gets defensive and will chase my hand to chomp down then quickly run back to my shoulder. The best I can do is offer her food with my hand, where she will only give a warning nibble on my fingers before peacefully eating the food. Thankfully, she only distrusts my hands, as she still fully trusts the rest of my family.

This is obviously unacceptable behavior, and I have run out of ideas for how to help her regain trust in my hands. I had educated myself with what to do when I am now bitten, but that has only gotten me this far. I was hoping this would go away with time but it has now been a week and my hands are very cut up. I am desperate for any help or advice anyone may have.

 

[Laurasea]

You can get past this, it's important you believe that, and it is true. It just might take longer than you think, it will take as long as your GCC needs it to take. Every time you work with her you have to put yourself in a calm mental state first. They can read you like a book. After all they read pupil size as a form of communication. I've been there done that with my Ta-dah. I tried to wrongly force train her to accept a flight harness and instead taught her to fear my hands. It took me six months to win her trust back. If I had been on this forum, or done better research maybe it would have gone quicker. What worked for me was to work with her away from her cage, and a ton of safflower treats. And patience, and also the age ok'd sit by the cage sideways so you aren't hust staring at them, with the door open, talking and talking, and offering the treats when ever she came near. Then holding o to the treat longer then letting her take it, then stroking the side of her beak as she took the treat. Always adjusting what I could do by her behavior. Then putting her on her play pen and having her come to me for the treat, gradually making her come farther to get the treat. We had set backs, it took a long time before I could get her out of the cage by stepping up again. I can now have her step up in the cage scritch her head for hours and s snuggle again. You can do it too!

 

[Laurasea]

PS. Last night my quaker pulled my GCC tail featheres while she was sitting on my shoulder, she then bit my face just a half inch below my eye!!!! And latched on, I flung her off I couldn't help myself!!! Iook like I have a mild black eye now. And yep that made her mad/afraid of my hands again. This morning she was running to me to bite. So I started back with safflower seeds ( they rule her soul) and we are already back to normal again!! I'd had foolishly thought when she woke up this morning all would have been back to normal, no bribes needed, but they are to smart and their memories to good, plus she thinks I pulled her tail featheres! You'd think she would remember our great eight years together lol!!

 

[SDK]

I really appreciate the optimistic reply, but I still have some specific questions and concerns.

1. From what I understand, I shouldn't really be directly discouraging her from biting, but instead supplying her with other things to do. However, I feel like this ignores the underlying issue, that being the fact that my bird treats my hands like a separate entity. If I just leave them out of view she won't learn anything, and whenever they are in view she will chase after them to bite. If she simply wanted to attack the rest of me or acted skittish I feel like I would know what to do, but her specifically targeting my hands is making it difficult. How do I get her to relax around something she so zealously chases?

2. The only time she won't attack my hands is when I am holding food, but this comes with its own set of challenges. The only tell I have been able to identify when she is going to bite is when her head feathers puff up. However her head feathers also puff up when she is happy... like when she is eating. This means that in this situation she will truly bite without warning. With this being the case, should I continue to hold the food to try and distract her, or take the food away as negative reinforcement?

3. Spending time with her outside of the cage is really difficult because she will only tolerate being on my shoulder. Before this, I would carry her around on my hand, arm, or shoulder, and if I wanted to put her down I would first put her on my hand then lead her to where I wanted her to go. Since she wont tolerate being on my hand, and putting her on my arm lets her see my hand, she can't understand when I'm trying to put her down. Even baiting her with food doesn't help. She will climb onto my back if I put my shoulder to a perch or tabletop, and the only way I can get her off me without someone else's help is to lay on the floor or take my shirt off with her on it, both of which freak her out.

4. Should I try to wear gloves? She behaves similarly to anyone wearing gloves as she does when she sees my hands, she will chase and try to bite them when she sees them. While they certainly help dull the pain of the bite, would wearing them also defeat the purpose of getting her used to my hands?

If you or anyone could help with these more specific problems, it would help a lot.
P.S. I never knew what safflower seeds were called. They are a part of the bird seed mix with her food, but I only recognized them by appearance. She refuses to go into her cage unless she sees them in her food dish. Now I know to get a bunch of just safflower seeds thanks

 

[Laurasea]

Hands= treats
You can try coating your hands in sugar for a one time effort, when she runs to hand and bites the sugar she will be very surprised, abd should want to taste that again, have a safflower in the other hand and give that too. It reset my girl back in our dark days. Or offer apple sauce on the tip if your finger, or peanut butter. I use a cheap kid toy as my stand , I'll go get the pic an attach it. You need something for her to stand on so you can work with her, sometimes the top if the cage can work just put a rope perch uo there or something. This toy is perfect stand 8 bucks at Walmart kids section, I get lots of cheap toys from kids section, better than paying inflated prices for parrot toys sometimes! Added bonus Neptune loves to spin the blocks!

 

[noodles123]

If you can figure out the reason for the bite then you can react in a way that decreases the liklihood of it happening...but you have to know the reason (function) of the behavior.

I feel like a broken record, but I have made a lot of posts about ABA (applied behavior analysis) and ABC charting. I will see if I can find a link...
Your bird is probably going through some sort of hormonal issue is it is 1.5 years old (give or take)...Birds always act bratty during puberty. That doesn't mean that you can just chalk the behavior up to hormones without being proactive, but I am just mentioning that because it could be a big part of the issue.

 

[noodles123]

You probably need to also work on station training (using a t-perch away from her cage), or train her to where she only gets the shoulder when invited. She can learn to tolerate being out but not on your shoulder. That is a training issue....you may be bitten out of her desire to go there during this time, but you need to set those boundaries, not her....Keep in mind, you haven't set them thus far, so you will get push-back, as you are changing the norm/routine.

 

[GaleriaGila]

I really LOVE your dedication.

I am a big believer in sharing diverse experiences... parrots are so so so SO different, aren't they?

Here are my miscellaneous thoughts. Maybe there will be a kernel of interest/information for you...

Personally, I have reduced biting to almost zero over the years I've spent with the Rickeybird... and a lot of that has involved compromise. I don't do stuff that gets me bitten. Some will say I have let him get away with too much, and that's a fair criticism, but, well... I'm okay with it. I don't do stuff that makes him mad... I don't touch others when he's out; I rarely try to get him to step up onto my hand first. Hand-held perch first, then hand. In some ways, I'm disappointed/embarassed at having such a little monster for a pet, but he is what he is. I ALWAYS wear my hair down when he's on my shoulder, so all he can bite is hair. Really, I don't involve hands much... he doesn't like them. He seems to think the real ME is my head, perched on a weird moveable tree with questionable appendages.

Hang in there!