Over bonded birds

[Frumpydumple]

Seems like my Blue Crowned Conure has chosen me as his favorite person. He regurgitates for my hand and he looks like he wants to mate with my hand sometimes. He hasn't really done this with anyone else. He also follows me and he is more affectionate with me than other people.

It is nice that he likes me, but how do I prevent him from liking me TOO much?

Also need advice on my mother's Sun Conure since he is over bonded to her. He is very hormonal (seems like he is ALWAYS hormonal, regardless of the season). My mother touches him all over, I think this might be what is causing him to be so hormonal, I've been telling her to only scratch his head though.

His wings are clipped because he will fly at people's faces and bite them. He will attack anyone apart from her and my father. I don't think clipping his wings is solving the problem either, just slightly avoiding it.

And my Green Cheek is slightly over bonded to me. She will step up on to people if I tell her to, but if someone else tries to make her step up she will often get aggressive and bite them (unless they are holding a seed or she actually wants to step up).

She will happily sit on anyone's shoulder though.

She doesn't really try to mate with my hand and she rarely regurgitates for me, so she isn't too badly over-bonded. She will do anything for me, but sometimes she will bite other people.

Just need some help with this and I need to know how to prevent this from happening with my BCC too.

 

[Julianna]

I don't know a ton on this topic, but I wouold just try to socialize your blue-crown as much as possible so that she's comfortable with everyone. Whenever there's an opportunity, have her step onto their hands and give her treats for standing on other people. Then at least she wouldn't become over protective/aggressive towards other people when she's around you.

As for your mother's sun, I think you're right about the wing clipping and the touching. Clipping his wings is treating the symptom of biting, but they're disregarding the disease of mistrust/an aggressive bird/whatever is causing the bite. Also, touching a bird on the wings and back can stimulate hormonal behavior. Confining petting to the head, like you said, might help your parents a lot.

Hope this helped, and good luck!

 

[Dinosrawr]

Your BCC sounds a lot like my Avery, or at least when I first got her. I was always so confused when she would regurgitate for my fingers because we didn't really have that strong of a bond at that point, or at least in my eyes. As of late, she's actually stopped doing that but her and I are still super close. I think what helped changed that was the fact that I'd pull away and then ask my boyfriend to continue training her or to hold her, and I always ask him to take her out and do things with her.

Since that, she's gotten much better. She used to lunge at Brendon or get physically aggressive with him if he came by me, and she'd also resorted to displacement biting for her jealousy at one point. She will still get upset if her and I are having our morning cuddle routine in bed, but she hardly cares. In fact, she'll step right off my shoulder on to his hand (also something we trained).

Her boyfriend (as I like to call him), formally known as my boyfriend's father, also handles her regularly. We live in their basement suite, and when we go upstairs he always wants to see her or will come down to greet her and take her out. He's always moved slowly with her, has always been patient, and every meeting has involved treats. The end result has been that she gladly goes to him and they'll watch movies together when we're gone.

I think the key thing is that the "stranger" has to be low-key to begin with and always ends the meeting with a treat. Then the whole stepping up and reward thing, and then eventually individual time. Avery still prefers me over either him or my boyfriend, but I never have to worry that she'll attack or get upset if I'm gone when she's with them. I don't know how much that will help, but that's just my experience with preventing over bonding.

 

[Frumpydumple]

Thanks to both of you. I will definitely start using treats and getting both my birds to step up on to other people. Cookie will do anything for a seed, so she shouldn't be a problem, and Merle hasn't over bonded to anyone, so I will try to prevent that from happening.

I don't know what to do about my mother's Sun Conure though. If I get too close while he is on my mother (his mate) he will bite her. He is very aggressive. When he was flighted he would fly at my face the second I walked through the door.

My mother has tried some basic training with him and she is trying to convert both her birds to pellets, but Erik refuses to do anything. He steps up ok, but if she tries to teach him anything like turn around or wave he just screams at her and if she touches him, he often screams then bites (not hard). I think he is so stubborn because he has never been taught anything, he has always been allowed to do whatever he wants (especially in his previous home). He also doesn't like stepping up off her shoulder.

 

[henpecked]

I don't think it's a case of "over bonding' , more likely a case of under socialized.

 

[ruffledfeathers]

When Gilbert starts the little head bobby thing before regurgitating, i normally try to change the focus of attention--quickly but calmly so to speak. I don't really draw attention to what he is doing with a reprimand but i try to get his attention with something else.

Georgie, my sun, used to bite me if there was company over (sometimes, especially when she was younger). I actually blamed myself because I was trying to do what i thought was socializing her, but i was actually pushing her to 'go be friendly'. I think she perceived it as a betrayal and that i was forcing her to do what scared her. Then when she saw strangers, she just bit me like 'get the heck away, i know what you are about to do to me'. It took me a while to figure this out. I was a little over zealous in the 'oh i have to have a well socialized bird', without grasping the depth of it at the time.

So sometimes there are subtle things in the way we interact with them socially that cause problems....unintentionally but just that we don't really speak bird and they don't speak human. It takes time to find the middle ground. Not sure that helps completely but maybe look for the specific nuance where the tension in the bird starts and work back from there.

Then there is always that blanket statement that any kind of training builds confidence and the relationship. (I feel that some of my sun conure's early problems were because she lacked confidence, where i thought at the time she was angry/aggressive and didn't understand why.)

Good luck with the training. Sometimes you start taking baby steps and once it starts to set in, it moves along quickly.

 

[Julianna]

Great advice from Ruffledfeathers - its hard for us to speak bird, and its hard for birds to speak human. When birds bite they're trying to tell us something, and we have to pay attention to that message. For some training tips look up some stuff on positive reinforcement training and Barbara Heidenreich. She has some really good videos on training.

 

[Frumpydumple]

Great advice from Ruffledfeathers - its hard for us to speak bird, and its hard for birds to speak human. When birds bite they're trying to tell us something, and we have to pay attention to that message. For some training tips look up some stuff on positive reinforcement training and Barbara Heidenreich. She has some really good videos on training.

I do positive reinforcement with my birds. Sadly my mother doesn't do that with her birds though. When Erik has bitten her before I saw her forcefully grab him and put him on the ground. When she did that my jaw just dropped. I couldn't believe that she would do something as negative as that after all I had told her about how they don't respond to punishment. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Julianna]

Yes, they really don't respond to negative reinforcement; in fact, I think it encourages them sometimes. If you push a bird away from something it's not supposed to have, for instance, they sometimes interpret it as play ( a reward) instead of a punishment. Good to hear that you're using positive reinforcement, and good luck with converting your mother