Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

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poppeottomor
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:30 am

Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by poppeottomor »

Hello, I got my ringneck baby 3 months ago, he was a sceary cat, he´s over that now, tankfuly. :)
But now the problem is he bites me, he takes food from my hand now, before he was afridt of my hands, he is over that, so where do I go from here ??? :(
I have been giving him alot of atencion, and done all in he's time, not forcing him in any way, so I dont' thing that's the problem ???
He is not getting a outc or anything wen he bites, I just ignore it and try to give him somthing, he can destroy, he loves that :lol:
I am not sure what to do now, hopes to get some help :D
S. Charlotte.
mickpmc
Posts: 95
Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2010 6:22 pm
Location: Central Coast, Nsw Australia

Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by mickpmc »

I suggest to wear gloves for starters, gardening gloves.
Sorry for the late reply; no one has replied here. It seems this forum
is very quiet... well, it's christmas after all.
So wear gloves to handle it then start using your hands.
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Milo...Boy...Buddy
Shane7285
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:18 pm
Location: Sunshine Coast, QLD

Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by Shane7285 »

Hi

I think its better to not wear gloves from what I have read, if you can put up with the biting. They can tell the difference and know you are scared of getting bitten.

At 3 months old roughly, I would say its most likely bluffing, so just keep doing what you are and give him a distraction when he bites and you should come through fine.

To read more about bluffing go to:

http://www.indianringneck.com/bluffing/

Regards

Shane
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Melika
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Location: Florida
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Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by Melika »

When does he bite?
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I've been called 'birdbrained' before, but somehow I don't think this is what they meant. say:hah-nay
poppeottomor
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:30 am

Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by poppeottomor »

All the time.
And sometimes VERY hard, he is a nice bird and he loves when I talk to him. :D
S. Charlotte.
Melika
Posts: 1920
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 9:11 am
Location: Florida
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Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by Melika »

I mean, what are you doing when he bites. Is he just running up and randomly attacking? Are you trying to handle him? Are his wings clipped? Is he in a busy part of the home, does he bite more when others are around? How big is his cage, how much time out does he get? Have his circumstances changed recently or has his surroundings? Details can help us help you. :)

I wouldn't give him anything when he does bite, that strikes of reward to me and might not be helping.
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I've been called 'birdbrained' before, but somehow I don't think this is what they meant. say:hah-nay
poppeottomor
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:30 am

Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by poppeottomor »

Melika wrote:I mean, what are you doing when he bites. Is he just running up and randomly attacking? Are you trying to handle him? Are his wings clipped? Is he in a busy part of the home, does he bite more when others are around? How big is his cage, how much time out does he get? Have his circumstances changed recently or has his surroundings? Details can help us help you. :)

I wouldn't give him anything when he does bite, that strikes of reward to me and might not be helping.
I am ignorig him for 2-3 minuts when he bites me.
I am living alone with my birds, and I don't have a busy home.
His cage has been uset by a nother woman, to a blue headet amersone, but he will get a bigger cage soon.
It dosent matter how mani pepole ther is in my home, he just like to bite me :lol:
Sorry I diten get a A in englsk, I am just a birdlover from Denmark :D
S. Charlotte.
jimmyjack
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 5:54 am
Location: australia

Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by jimmyjack »

this may be a useful read - sorrry about the lengthy reply

positive fallout of trick training by *** noeth

Three years ago I raised a male Red Bellied parrot. He was fairly unpredictable right from the start. I figured all would be well when he went to his new home but that wasn’t to be. Ultimately, I brought the bird back to my home, to let him be the “free spirit” he appeared to be. He would tolerate no handling by humans. A step up request would almost always involve some bloodletting. He enjoyed sitting on you providing you never attempted to touch him. I let him be. Again, I had the notion he was a free spirit so I allowed him to live unhindered, rarely caged, fully flighted, just free to do his own thing. Here lies one of the problems with putting a construct onto a bird (or any animal). Because I had classified him as a free-spirit I basically wrote off his behavior, allowing it to continue and not taking any steps to correct or change it.

As life would have it, you can’t usually safely totally leave a bird free in our homes. It was necessary at times for him to step up onto our hands for his own safety. One day his bites, when asked to step up, reached the point where they could no longer be ignored. Something needed to be done. After conferring with Dr. S. Friedman about Rico, she explained that he sounded like a bird that had no idea how to act upon and within his environment. I had allowed the biting to continue. I had never shown him another way. He had no way of knowing there was another way.

Generally when you look at problem behaviors you focus in very closely and determine the antecedents (the set up) to the behavior and also the consequences (pay-off) for the behavior. What is maintaining the behavior? What sets it off? By the time I decided I needed to work on the problem, I couldn’t determine a specific antecedent and consequence. I actually decided that the biting initially started for a reason but the biting may have drifted away from that reason over time. It may have started from a fear of hands; it may have started as a way to say “No”. The original consequence that reinforced the biting into becoming a learned behavior was probably gone. Past consequences had taught the bird to bite. Past consequences form part of the antecedents. It was possible that the biting was now due to not knowing how to interact correctly within his environment. Biting got attention when attention was what was being sought. Biting moved the hand away when distance is what the bird wanted. In other words the biting had become multi-functional. It no longer mattered to me why he was biting. It was the only thing he knew. A bite gets the human’s attention for whatever reason. Rico had just never been shown anything else, nor was he ever taught that biting was unacceptable.

It was explained how I would need to make a special project of Rico, how I would need to teach him about positive outcomes and better ways to act within his environment. To begin to do this, I decided to start doing some trick training with him, as I was also doing this for fun with a Meyers parrot. It was a shaky start. Rico was a bird that would casually bite for any reason and now I was in his face, requesting behaviors, trying to give food reinforcers. I discovered passing the nut bits from my fingers, was not going to work even though Rico loved nut bits. Instead he would bite my fingers.

What did seem to work was having a flat, open palm and the treat resting there. Having never worked with a bird that bites like Rico, we had some bad days initially. At one point I again wrote Dr. Friedman and said I couldn’t do this. I was getting bit more than ever. I even went so far as to say, “It’s OK, he was fine the way he was, he can remain that way”. She encouraged me to continue for the sake of Rico but to make my sessions much shorter and more often throughout the day and also to pay even closer attention to any teeny difference I saw in the body posture, feathers or eyes. I sucked in the advice and began again.

I tried doing 4 sessions a day. But that didn’t always work depending on other responsibilities and how Rico was feeling. I always accomplished at least three sessions. Session times varied between three minutes and up to eight minutes. I wanted to always end on a good note, and we did most of the time. Note: If the training session sours before you quit, you know you have pushed the bird too much or too long. I learned quickly how to tell what was too long for Rico. Within 2 days I discovered that he was no longer biting at my fingers if I offered him the nut piece from them. Wow, a change of behavior already!!!!! I was thrilled!

Our first days were doing simple things. Waves and step ups were the behaviors I requested the most. However once while asking for the wave I was able to capture him stretching his wing out. I put it on cue and thus added another behavior to his repertoire. When we first moved on to props (ball for basketball) I again had some difficulty, as the ball seemed to bring out a different attitude with Rico. I quit using it for a while and went back to the three simple behaviors he already knew. I then introduced a target stick. This of course was just something for Rico to grab at first but he very quickly learned that grabbing earned him nothing whereas touching earned him a reward. I slowly brought the ball back into training and did extremely short sessions with it until he would put the ball in the hoop.

I learned through our close training contact how his eyes would quiver before they even dilated preceding a bite. When I saw the quiver, the training session was over. Through this exercise of training I now have a bird that has only bitten me once in the last seven months because I am far more attuned to what he is telling me and because he has learned what positive reinforcement in his life is and how he can earn it through our one on one times. While he still doesn’t desire to be touched or pet, which is his decision and perfectly fine with me, he still has a way of being social and earning reinforcers.

In my opinion Rico’s training has paid off.
jimmyjack
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2010 5:54 am
Location: australia

Re: Hello my ringneck is biting HELP...

Post by jimmyjack »

with training, i'd start by sitting him on a T-bar (just a small simple T-shaped stand) infront of you. you could try a similar approach to this, teaching him first to accept you hand, and then once successful, stepup and such.
eggy
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:34 am
Location: Australia

Accidently teached your ringneck to bite

Post by eggy »

If i were you i would stop ignoring him after he bites.
If he bites your hand then taking your hand away from him is a bad move, this teaches the bird, that if he wants your hand to go away then the way to do this is to bite. if this is the case then you will have to 'un-train' your parrot of it's biting habit.
your bird has to learn that if it wants your hand to go away he's gonna have to find a different way instead of biting.
So when your bird bites you stand your ground, wait until the situation cools down and then, if you want, you can remove your hand away from the from the bird.
And a neat little trick of not getting bittin is when you think your bird is just about to bite form a fist and face the top side of your hand to the bird and the side with your fingers and palm towards you. This way there is virtually no place it can bite you.

_Eric
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
poppeottomor
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:30 am

Re: Accidently teached your ringneck to bite

Post by poppeottomor »

eggy wrote:If i were you i would stop ignoring him after he bites.
If he bites your hand then taking your hand away from him is a bad move, this teaches the bird, that if he wants your hand to go away then the way to do this is to bite. if this is the case then you will have to 'un-train' your parrot of it's biting habit.
your bird has to learn that if it wants your hand to go away he's gonna have to find a different way instead of biting.
So when your bird bites you stand your ground, wait until the situation cools down and then, if you want, you can remove your hand away from the from the bird.
And a neat little trick of not getting bittin is when you think your bird is just about to bite form a fist and face the top side of your hand to the bird and the side with your fingers and palm towards you. This way there is virtually no place it can bite you.

_Eric
Hello Eric.
I have done wat you said with stand my ground and the thing with the hand...
I have paid for that with blod, he just bidt me harder and it's the first time he has dravn blod...
Sooo that was not a good idear :(
I just think he is testing me, I don't think he want's me to go away, he want's to play, but i don't think he now's how to teel me that.
I don't think he is mean, I have had him for 4 monts now, and he has gone from a scary cat, to eating from my hand, maby he don't now that my fingers is a part of me ???
I don't now, but he is a sweart bird, when he don't bid me :lol:
S. Charlotte.
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