Pineapple Conure biting/advice

Tryingtothink

Registered
Hi everyone! Just joined this forum (I’ll head to new member introductions after this) and have been reading a bit, and wanted to if anyone had some advice or suggestions.

My pineapple conure is about 11-12 years old. We got him when he was a few months old I believe. For the first few years, I had him trained; a command to step onto my hand, to poop before sitting with someone, and he loved to sit on mine and my mom’s shoulders. He has always been a little aggressive with me, biting, but I was working on it with his training. A few years later I moved away for about a year, and he lived with just my parents. Not sure if it matters, but I don’t think he was being covered at night during this time. When I moved back, I was able to rebuild with him a little bit, but then started working a full time job with odd hours, and the only time I was home was to sleep. During this time he continued to sit on my moms shoulders. Now I am in school full time, and again, seem to only be home to sleep. About a year ago he bit my mom, who now is afraid to hold him. He’ll try and bite at us when we go by the cage. He will not bite my dad, and generally listens to him. They share fruit in the morning, and have a routine at night where my dad will motion him into the cage and he’ll go right to bed after being covered up.

I am currently on break for the next few weeks, and currently house/animal sitting. While changing his food Friday morning, I noticed a mass under my conures wing. Long story short, and multiple vet visits later, he is home after a tumor removal, and wearing a cone. He’s obviously very annoyed with the large plastic keeping him from his stitches, so I am trying to keep him entertained. After a few days of being very calm with me, he is back to being aggressive and biting. I think this has been a wake up call, definitely for me, and I hope my parents as well, who primarily care for him.
My question is, does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to work with my bird to break the aggression and make sure he is happy? I would love to set up something to introduce to my parents that they can follow when I am not available all the time. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and for helping if you can!
 
Welcome to the forum
Biting can mean many things from I don't like that, you left me, your not my partner, not now I'm busy and really don't wish to interact, that hurts and the I'm way too over excited and woooooo hooooooo I'm just hyperactive cos I'm excited to see you!
The art is reading what's going to come next and heading it off first. If you know a bite is likely to occur by reading body langue avoid the bite and the reaction that the bird wishes to receive. Go back to basics with the training identify a reinforcer that's only ever used for training as a reward for the desired behaviour bribery can get you a long way! Routine and consistency, time and patience which is likely why your dad is getting on so well, sharing his morning fruit the bribery and reinforcing the bond.
There are some awesome training threads in the training section.

Reinforcement, Reinforcers, And How To Identify And Use Them

Reinforcement, Reinforcers, and how to identify and use them Reinforcement If the outcome to a behaviour is desirable, then we will repeat that behaviour. That outcome or consequence to the behaviour is therefore said to be reinforcing. Positive Reinforcement As trainers we can engineer the...
theparrotclub.co.uk

Teaching a reliable step up and trouble shooting

How do we train a reliable step up? One that takes place pretty much every time we ask? If a consequence/outcome to a behaviour (the step up) is reinforcing, the parrot will most likely repeat the behaviour in the future. So let’s choose a good reinforcer for our individual parrot: For some...
theparrotclub.co.uk

Shaping the step up (back to basics)

Shaping is a wonderful tool to teach any single behaviour without force. Since some parrots have a strong fear response to hands I thought it would be useful to show how to shape stepping up onto a hand held perch. Before we can even begin shaping the step up we may have to introduce our...
theparrotclub.co.uk
 
DizzyBlue said:
Welcome to the forum
Biting can mean many things from I don't like that, you left me, your not my partner, not now I'm busy and really don't wish to interact, that hurts and the I'm way too over excited and woooooo hooooooo I'm just hyperactive cos I'm excited to see you!
The art is reading what's going to come next and heading it off first. If you know a bite is likely to occur by reading body langue avoid the bite and the reaction that the bird wishes to receive. Go back to basics with the training identify a reinforcer that's only ever used for training as a reward for the desired behaviour bribery can get you a long way! Routine and consistency, time and patience which is likely why your dad is getting on so well, sharing his morning fruit the bribery and reinforcing the bond.
There are some awesome training threads in the training section.

Reinforcement, Reinforcers, And How To Identify And Use Them

Reinforcement, Reinforcers, and how to identify and use them Reinforcement If the outcome to a behaviour is desirable, then we will repeat that behaviour. That outcome or consequence to the behaviour is therefore said to be reinforcing. Positive Reinforcement As trainers we can engineer the...
theparrotclub.co.uk

Teaching a reliable step up and trouble shooting

How do we train a reliable step up? One that takes place pretty much every time we ask? If a consequence/outcome to a behaviour (the step up) is reinforcing, the parrot will most likely repeat the behaviour in the future. So let’s choose a good reinforcer for our individual parrot: For some...
theparrotclub.co.uk

Shaping the step up (back to basics)

Shaping is a wonderful tool to teach any single behaviour without force. Since some parrots have a strong fear response to hands I thought it would be useful to show how to shape stepping up onto a hand held perch. Before we can even begin shaping the step up we may have to introduce our...
theparrotclub.co.uk
Click to expand...
Thank you so much! We will definitely be going back to the basics. I appreciate your response
 
Hi hun welcome, two things I note on top of the advice already given and that is he sounds bonded to a male human primarily and he is pretty peeved at the collar. One of my 'too's had to have one and the vet made it out of like pipe insulation so it was not too bulky but did the job. You need to stop him picking his wound but be able to move around. Collars change their centre of gravity and must make things very odd indeed. Anything you can do? :)
 
Some birds will accept periods of absence without too much bother and others you have to go right back to the beginning to prove yourself all over again. So possibly work on trust and proving you are the same person for a period of time before you start asking too much of this little one. We humans can pick up after not seeing someone for a long time but birds can be very suspicious.
 
plumsmum said:
Hi hun welcome, two things I note on top of the advice already given and that is he sounds bonded to a male human primarily and he is pretty peeved at the collar. One of my 'too's had to have one and the vet made it out of like pipe insulation so it was not too bulky but did the job. You need to stop him picking his wound but be able to move around. Collars change their centre of gravity and must make things very odd indeed. Anything you can do? :)
Click to expand...
Hi, thank you! He definitely is not a fan of the collar in the slightest, but it’s much better than the infection alternative. That’s a really clever way to make the cone, the one he’s in now is like a sheet of plastic. Pretty lightweight, but definitely bothersome. He’s supposed to only have it on for another 6-ish days, but if he can’t get it off when we see the vet on the 2nd, I will ask about alternative materials. He’s gotten pretty comfortable with wobbling around in it, hahaha. Climbing is still a little awkward, with getting the cone stuck where his beak should go, but we’re trying to keep the climbing to a minimum anyway. How’s your ‘too doing now?
 
plumsmum said:
Some birds will accept periods of absence without too much bother and others you have to go right back to the beginning to prove yourself all over again. So possibly work on trust and proving you are the same person for a period of time before you start asking too much of this little one. We humans can pick up after not seeing someone for a long time but birds can be very suspicious.
Click to expand...
That’s a really good way to look at it. I’m not in the house as often, unlike my parents. I’m working on rebuilding that trust with him :)
 
Perhaps you can get a soft collar cone they are available on-line also via some vets, its the same when dogs need cones most vet only provide those awful hard large ones.
 
Tryingtothink said:
Hi everyone! Just joined this forum (I’ll head to new member introductions after this) and have been reading a bit, and wanted to if anyone had some advice or suggestions.

My pineapple conure is about 11-12 years old. We got him when he was a few months old I believe. For the first few years, I had him trained; a command to step onto my hand, to poop before sitting with someone, and he loved to sit on mine and my mom’s shoulders. He has always been a little aggressive with me, biting, but I was working on it with his training. A few years later I moved away for about a year, and he lived with just my parents. Not sure if it matters, but I don’t think he was being covered at night during this time. When I moved back, I was able to rebuild with him a little bit, but then started working a full time job with odd hours, and the only time I was home was to sleep. During this time he continued to sit on my moms shoulders. Now I am in school full time, and again, seem to only be home to sleep. About a year ago he bit my mom, who now is afraid to hold him. He’ll try and bite at us when we go by the cage. He will not bite my dad, and generally listens to him. They share fruit in the morning, and have a routine at night where my dad will motion him into the cage and he’ll go right to bed after being covered up.

I am currently on break for the next few weeks, and currently house/animal sitting. While changing his food Friday morning, I noticed a mass under my conures wing. Long story short, and multiple vet visits later, he is home after a tumor removal, and wearing a cone. He’s obviously very annoyed with the large plastic keeping him from his stitches, so I am trying to keep him entertained. After a few days of being very calm with me, he is back to being aggressive and biting. I think this has been a wake up call, definitely for me, and I hope my parents as well, who primarily care for him.
My question is, does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to work with my bird to break the aggression and make sure he is happy? I would love to set up something to introduce to my parents that they can follow when I am not available all the time. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and for helping if you can!
Click to expand...
Hi,
I have a pineapple green cheek, 13 yrs old. I trained her when she was very young to stop biting. She now bites the collars instead of the skin when she lands on our shoulder. When she's in her cage, I trained her to stop biting by letting her bite my finger, avoid showing any reaction, then gently take her to my hand belly up and tell her not to bite, then back in the cage and try again until she understood. It took several times, but she got it. She realized that I am not afraid of her bite and got treats for not biting😉🤗
 
Tryingtothink said:
Hi everyone! Just joined this forum (I’ll head to new member introductions after this) and have been reading a bit, and wanted to if anyone had some advice or suggestions.

My pineapple conure is about 11-12 years old. We got him when he was a few months old I believe. For the first few years, I had him trained; a command to step onto my hand, to poop before sitting with someone, and he loved to sit on mine and my mom’s shoulders. He has always been a little aggressive with me, biting, but I was working on it with his training. A few years later I moved away for about a year, and he lived with just my parents. Not sure if it matters, but I don’t think he was being covered at night during this time. When I moved back, I was able to rebuild with him a little bit, but then started working a full time job with odd hours, and the only time I was home was to sleep. During this time he continued to sit on my moms shoulders. Now I am in school full time, and again, seem to only be home to sleep. About a year ago he bit my mom, who now is afraid to hold him. He’ll try and bite at us when we go by the cage. He will not bite my dad, and generally listens to him. They share fruit in the morning, and have a routine at night where my dad will motion him into the cage and he’ll go right to bed after being covered up.

I am currently on break for the next few weeks, and currently house/animal sitting. While changing his food Friday morning, I noticed a mass under my conures wing. Long story short, and multiple vet visits later, he is home after a tumor removal, and wearing a cone. He’s obviously very annoyed with the large plastic keeping him from his stitches, so I am trying to keep him entertained. After a few days of being very calm with me, he is back to being aggressive and biting. I think this has been a wake up call, definitely for me, and I hope my parents as well, who primarily care for him.
My question is, does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to work with my bird to break the aggression and make sure he is happy? I would love to set up something to introduce to my parents that they can follow when I am not available all the time. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and for helping if you can!
Click to expand...
I was able to show mine that biting doesn't bother me, laying her in my hand belly up, kissing her, telling her not to bite, putting her back on the perch in her cage, letting her bite again, showing no reaction, doing this over and over with treats when she didn't bite, now she is a good girl!
 
edith desparois said:
Hi,
I have a pineapple green cheek, 13 yrs old. I trained her when she was very young to stop biting. She now bites the collars instead of the skin when she lands on our shoulder. When she's in her cage, I trained her to stop biting by letting her bite my finger, avoid showing any reaction, then gently take her to my hand belly up and tell her not to bite, then back in the cage and try again until she understood. It took several times, but she got it. She realized that I am not afraid of her bite and got treats for not biting😉🤗
Click to expand...
Hi, thank you! That’s a good tactic. I try really hard not to give him the response he wants, but sometimes the bite can really hurt! I’m definitely going to give this a try, and will include rewarding with treats
 
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