Sudden and random biting

[Comafly]

Hi everyone. I've had my eclectus for a year now - she is about 1 year and 9 months old. We had settled in to a really nice groove and for the most part she has been a fantastic friend. I take her out every morning and she waddles around on my shoulders making nice noises while I fix her breakfast - the same for dinner. I leave her out of her cage all day and she busies herself with her cage, play stand, and toys - and she would fly to and from me as she liked. She does training without a hitch and executes all her moves perfectly. She's almost silent all the time, and only ever makes silly whistling noises and weird word mimics. We've had a few ups and downs here and there, but it has been basically perfect.

Until about 3 weeks ago, when I was making her food and she just suddenly started randomly biting my ear REALLY hard and growling. So I just pushed her beak away, said "No", and ignored her. But she did it again, I said "No" and I put her in her cage. This happened again the next day, and again the day after.

After a few days of this happening, she started biting my fingers when I would go to push her beak away or get her to step up so I could put her in her cage. I'd like to point out this isn't biting as in drawing blood, but squeezing to the point of indenting or just breaking skin - definitely not as hard as she could be doing it.

It's not fear, it's not when I perform any particular action, and it's not from any outside stimuli as far as I can tell. I've removed every variable so its just me in a bare room with her on my shoulder, and she seems to just do it completely randomly - but she will eventually do it whenever she's on me. She can literally be on one shoulder happily booping and beeping, walk across to the other shoulder and then start attacking my ear/cheek.

I now no longer let her on my shoulder, and I cannot let her out of her cage for extended periods because she will fly to me and at some point start biting my ear and cheek.

Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to be specific about the situation. She is still sweet, silent, trains well, steps up, makes funny noises, and all the same things. But whenever she is on my shoulder she will randomly lose it and start the growling and biting.

I am thinking that it's simply hormones, as she is still going through her puberty stage and the shoulder is a position of power, but in the past all of her random mood swings have disappeared in a few days, and this has been going on for weeks. I am just doing the tried and true: Reward the good, ignore the bad, and hoping for the best.

I'd really just love some input, opinions, and experiences so that I can assess the situation better and maybe pinpoint anything I might be doing wrong, or alternatively get some reassurance that it very well might just be hormones.

Thanks for reading!

 

[camo]

I was going to take a step back and let some more experienced people jump in, but I wanted to share my experience with Gizmo, my male eclectus. Please note I am no expert, so take that into account.

I had taken a bit of a possibly too nice approach with Gizmo, who had always had an issue with fingers. He would bite and I would sort of ignore it, avoid it, distract him etc. I sort of got to a point where we could get around without a big issue, but one day he got caught in my wife's hair and coming in to help, he got me pretty good around the finger nail, and I realised this couldn't continue and I wasn't helping him any by not confronting the problem.

Fortunately his biting was never as strong as it could be (basically how you described), so I have been taking a 2 pronged approach, firstly I learned how to use my finger and thumb to restrain his beak (it's not a tight hold, just enough to hold on and create a distraction that stops the bite), and secondly started offering a treat and then touching him with my hands to get him used to being touched and desensitise him to my fingers (this I also did with Pebbles, it's basically a case of, he would tolerate it as biting means not eating).

Now I am not fully past the biting, but I am 95% there (touch wood no hard bites lately). Things I can do now that I had to generally avoid include:

* having him step onto my fingers, not my arm from the top of the cage
* have him step up on my finger from my shoulder
* if he does go to bite, it is now more of a light hold, which he stops with the command "we don't bite"
* reach up (when he flys on to the curtain rod), and have him step onto my fingers without biting

I mainly wrote this, because if it doesn't turn out to be hormonal, it sounds like it could have started by some unknown thing that happened the first time, but could be developing into a bad habit. If I had a chance to go back, I would have got on top of Gizmo's issue with fingers earlier, as I know my avoidance of the issue made things worse, and it is now a long term habit that will probably take a long time to fully correct.

Now this is not to suggest you are avoiding the problem or that this is even the answer.

Cheers,

Cameron

 

[Dopey]

It could be hormonal. If it isn't then Cameron is spot on.

When I got my male ekkie he wasn't used to being held a lot. He used to come at me to bite me but now he steps up without biting...most of the time. I have to watch him though. I don't take my eyes off of him because they seem to know and they will bite you to get you to focus your attention back on them.

I don't hold my ekkies a lot either but I do spend time with them and they get out of their cages every day. They let me know when they are done with me holding them.

I would go back to basics and that means no shoulder time until she learns not to bite again. Watch and see if it is only food related or only some kind of food related. My male ekkie I don't/can't bother when he is eating but my female ekkie I can take away from her food and cuddle with her even if she is/was eating.

 

[Anansi]

Great points already made. At this point you don't know whether the issue is hormonal or behavioral, but either way you do want to take steps to course correct. Biting is never acceptable.

Giving the timeouts as you have been when it occurs is a good idea. Cameron's behavioral conditioning technique is also a good method, though it might be a little more difficult to implement in your situation given that the behavior only happens when she is on your shoulder and absent any other predictive stimuli.

And as Dopey mentioned, I'd definitely suspend shoulder privileges for the time being.

 

[plumsmum2005]

I have a simplistic train of thought with this and that is she is hungry/eager for the meal you are getting ready for her and she is impatient. She shows you by using her beak, discovers hey I can do this and bingo they take notice when I bite and so it continues.

I'm sure you will overcome it.