Ringneck Parrot

Erdinç

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Hello,

I've been with my ringneck parrot for 8 months. My petshop parrot, which I bought, stated that it was 7 months old and male. A beautiful 15 month old parrot now. My parrot comes to my arm, shoulder, but bites my hand. If my arm is bare, it bites my arm. How do I prevent it from biting? What gender do you think my parrot is?
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:welcome: A lovely bird, what is it's name? I cannot see the dark ring around its neck so I guess it is a hen. As for biting unfortunately that is what parrots do, but I would not place a hand over it as you are doing to try and scratch it's head, that is quite scary for a bird, plus not all birds like to be touched, if that is the case with your then you must accept that. lets see what others say @Michael Reynolds @Roz anyone please.
 
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He, or she as Di thought, is a beautiful bird!

I had a look at the video - what a fabulous example of recall training ie. cue-ing her to fly to your arm and then her flying! :applaudit: Did you reinforce her flying to you with a treat? If not I would, or else the behaviour will gradually die out, especially if it is followed by something aversive like trying to touch her head.

The video does show the bird uncomfortable with your approach from above, as Diana pointed out. There is a lot of lunging. What you are actually doing here is teaching her to lunge/bite more. You could try approaching from below (ie. to stroke under the beak or cheek area), but going much slower… ie. not making contact at first until the bird shows relaxed body language, then progressing a little further. But some birds just don’t like to be touched which you might have to accept.

Is she ok with your hands otherwise? I would work on getting her to accept your hands, get used to them etc. She takes treats from you nicely which is great. Does she take small toys, play with you/your hands? Maybe concentrate on pairing your hands with good experiences (treats, toys, etc) so that she begins to trust them.

Also the “shhhhhhhh” sound might be comforting to humans but to many species of parrot it is a sound to say “I’m not happy”. What sounds does your bird make when she is happy/content? Try to copy them instead of using the “shhhhhhh”. I know the "shhhhhh" sound is very unsettling to my birds.

Parrots usually bite to say "no!" or maybe if they are exploring something. In the video she gets a treat for stepping back onto her cage top which is great! Because she takes treats so nicely from you, you can use them for teaching her other things like stepping up on you without biting. Ask her to step up onto your arm and immediately reinforce with a treat. But hold the treat high so that she has to reach up to get it. She can't reach for the treat and bite you at the same time. Then immediately get her to step off your arm before she even thinks of biting. Gradually you can train duration which is the amount of time she is on your arm without biting.

The more a parrot bites the more he/she is learning to, which is why it is better to try never to evoke a bite in the first place, by heeding body language and using sensitive training.
 
His name is July. He checks my hands before he gets to my arm and comes if he has a reward. It doesn't like my hands at all. If I bring my hands close from the bottom, it will attack. If I put my hand near it, it attacks. I signaled him to go to his cage today and he bit me as he handed her his reward. I'm confused about her gender as she is 15 months old and has a faint ring.
 

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Not sure would it be helpful but when one of my girls was bit nippy I trained her to fly and step up to T shape perch and that’s how we were handling her for a while, we made T perches out of dowel perches… then once she got comfortable with T perch and was stepping up nicely on it and flying to it we again started to try to train her to step up to our hands, but we were paying lots of attention to her body language, if she pinned her eyes, got bitt fluffy ( especially feathers on her head) lunged or growl we would back away
 
Hopefully @Michael Reynolds can confirm if Diana’s guess of female is correct.

Vera’s idea of using a hand held perch is a good one. One of my birds, a new arrival, also doesn’t like hands or arms so at the moment I am using a rope perch to move him.

Sorry you got bitten. If you make July stretch upwards to reach the treat it will be harder for him to bite. If he will only step up if he sees a treat in your hands, that’s fine, continue to do that until he is stepping up without pausing. That’s when you can gradually begin to hide the treat in your hand so that it ends up being the consequence (comes after the step up) and not a lure (shown before the behaviour).
 
Hello and welcome, He/she is Stunning, well done on the training so far but i am pleased to see the video as well, at the ages of 16 to 24 months can be the most difficult to determined its sex, as at this age they both will look female, as the shading will form around the neck will be a slight shade of darker green. the first signs of your bird being a male is when the feathers just above the beak turn a line of black. I notice on July the line of feathers are darker but this can also happen in both sexes, the eyes can tell me your bird is between 15 and 20 months old, now looking at the video and thinking why your bird is reacting by using its beak when you touch it on the head or neck, it may be just the bird dose not like your hand or the hand going over the head but this is a reaction i will expect from a female of this age, Not being mature for any approaches. then i look at your birds movements and other actions, and although looking more female at the moment My feeling that your bird is a male. the line above the beak running towards the eyes is a bit darker than i would expect for a female
 
I bought a t perch for july but she was very scared of t perch. afraid of any perch I have. He was nagging when I first touched him on the top of his head 3 months ago. Then he would let me caress a little. now it allows less. Looking at the feather lines, I think it's a male as you said. I read that females have thicker feet. What do you think of the foot structure? Can we tell the gender of the feet? I am attaching our video from 3 months ago.

 
having a male and female sitting next to each other at the moment, I can see both birds feet and legs there is no difference in size, shape or the way they are sitting. I think the feet difference is just a myth, with some birds like canary's you can tell the sex by the way they hold there legs when held upside down. all birds do suffer with anxiety so introducing new things can affect the way they act, its part of there survival response. I try to shower my flock every other day using a spray bottle and letting the water get to room temperature. looking at the videos they are brilliant, when you are stroking July's head are you feeling any hard spiky feathers, there may be blood feathers (new feathers) there and going in the wrong direction against the grain of the feathers would irritate July and cause a reaction like what you are getting, try to just stroke from top down and see if July will be more settled. mine like me to use two fingers as if they pinch like a beak will, and slowly stroke down to the neck. I love the rain dance and its a sure sign that your bird is enjoying the water when the wings spread and slowly flap.
 
When I pull out my July slice, he gets very angry and tries to attack. Why might it be doing this?
 
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