Biting IRN

[BudBudtheIRN]

Hi my name is Sam and we have had our IRN, Buddy, for 6 weeks now. We are having a few issues with him and I was wondering if anyone could offer advice as his biting gets a little I guess upsetting sometimes. These are the things he does.

: won't let you put your hand out to ask him to step up or step onto your hand off his cage or our shoulders, he will only let you if he is on the ground and most of the time only if you have a tea towel over your hand.

: he will sit on your shoulders, sometimes he is ok and other times out of the blue he will lunge and bite ears or your neck. And when you go to take him off he doesn't want to get of your shoulder.

: lately if you go to hand feed him he pins and lunges at the food.

He is on a pellet/seed diet like the website says. And he gets fresh fruit and vegies every day and also a little bit of toast most mornings. He has toys but he doesn't really play with them, he likes pine cones. We put a a little hanging mirror in his cage he seems to attack it a bit so I might remove it but his behavior has been going like this from the week after we got him. He is 4months old and he chews everything.

He doesn't like it if we are home and not in the same room, as he is(he is in the lounge room which is were we are majority of the time but say if you left the room to have a shower or packed clothes away etc he will scream.

Is this normal? Is there anything I can do to make the bitting less frequent or for him to enjoy sitting on our hands etc?. Any help will me much appreciated thanks

[midnightflight]

Hi

Have you tried target training him? My Rookie bit me heaps and untill he figured out that my hands weren't scary and were carrying the yummy treats, he stopped. Now I can spend hours with him training him to do tricks.

To target train I like to hold treats in my left fist. A bird will naturally nibble at anything you put in front of its beak. I choose to target with my fist, but if Buddy is just pinning and lunging try using a stick. As soon as he touches the stick (or in my case fist) give him a treat (this can be anything safe, I use almonds, hulled sunflower seeds and occasionaly apples cut really REALLY small), and do it immediately if you can.

Bridge it with a phrase like "good" or any other word you want to use. Once he associates the touch with a treat, start to move the stick away from him and see if he follows. Once you got that down you can slowly target him to your hand. Go to www.goodbird.com for an awesome dvd!

If Buddy is biting your face, you might want to discourage him from getting to your shoulder, easier said than done I know, but most birds (not including Rookie lol) prefer to be on the highest perch so raise your hand up everytime he makes to scramble up your arm.

It takes time to do all this but the effort is DEFINATELY worth it. I got Rookie at 12 weeks old and it took a good month or so to get him happy to launch onto my hand. Now he wont even go back in his cage without his almond treat, and is constantly begging to be out.

I can't really help with the screaming because Rookie is a reasonably quiet bird, and is content to chatter to himself or mimic the budgie... touch wood...

I wish you luck!