Help! Sun Conure biting issue!

[Beeps_n_Peeky]

Hi,

My partner and i have a 1 yo Sun Conure that we got as a handraised baby. When we first got her home, we left her in the cage for the first week or so to get comfortable. Once she was ready to come out by herself we would have her sit with us and play with some foot toys, as well as introducing her to our cockatiel. Everything was fine for the first few months until she started trying to bite us. I dont feel like it's aggressive, and we read about staying calm and giving them the angry eyes, as well as trying to do step ups (which she does not like to do in repetition, or sometimes even onto our hands) and trying to get her to bite her toys instead. More recently, when she starts to act up we put her back in the cage, which is not easy because trying to get her to step up leads to more biting and we often have to grasp her and place her inside.
The things we have tried haven't worked so far, she still likes to bite fingers, ears, cheeks. It has unfortunately lead to her having a lot more cage time than outside time and it makes me sad. We love her a lot and want to help her be calm and sit with us, and maybe even learn some tricks.
Hopefully this is understandable, if anyone has any ideas as to why she is is like this and how to fix it please let us know! Any help is appreciated, thank you!

 

[Dinosrawr]

There is a possibility that at 1, she's hitting hormones. She may also be getting aggressive because she's being placed in her cage and unsocialized more and more as time goes on. If she doesn't particularly like stepping up on hands, find an object like a rope perch or wood perch that she will step up on and use that. I find my GCC also hates repetitive stepping up, so when we train it's only 3-4 times max a day. Otherwise it's essentially on her terms.

When putting your sun in the cage, how long do you leave her in there? I've found that placing a bird in a cage for longer than 5 minutes often diminishes the reason why they were placed there in the first place. My conure, Avery, also gets very angry and can often get very aggressive with me (I'm under the strong impression that it's hormones). One day she was completely unhandlable, but what I did was get her to step up on a wooden perch, and I moved her to the ground in a different room. She calmed down and crawled onto me, so I just sat there and talked to her. I couldn't touch her or put my hands near her, and I definitely didn't let her crawl up to my face. But this way we spent positive time together even though it didn't involve touching. After the interaction I rewarded her and placed her on her stand to let her do her own birdy things. I find we have to be innovative when a bird doesn't want to be touched or can be aggressive, because the birds who become aggressive or angry are the ones who often need more time spent with them.

Hopefully someone else will chime in with other suggestions. I hope you can resolve the issue!