Ringneck biting my face?

[blurr]

Hi guys,

I've let my ringneck fly around my room a couple of times and she seems to like flying to my shoulder to sit. However, lately when I let her out she likes to fly to my shoulder and bite my face. She's drawn blood a few times on my face, as well as my hands (which is expected). Most painfully, she's drawn blood from my lip and left a nasty blister scar. As vain as it sounds, I do value how my face looks so I am wondering if there's any way to:

1. Stop her from flying onto or sitting on my shoulder
2. Biting my face when on my shoulder

I've had her for about a week now and have not yet trained her to step up. I bought a little parrot stand thinking that I could work with her on it, but am having troubles getting her onto the stand at all... or getting her to even step up onto a perch. She doesn't attack my hands sometimes, but most times she will (when I'm changing water etc.). I haven't yet tried to touch her or anything, but she will usually go out of her way to bite my hand no matter where it is in her cage.

I let her out of her cage just to let her fly around and get used to me. I'm not fussed about her biting my hands and ripping my hair out, but my FACE is definitely a no-go. She will not bite my face or ears when I have my hood on my head (attached to my hoodie/jumper), but she will go out of her way to bite my lips!! I'm aware it's not good to positively punish a parrot, but rather reinforce, so what can I do?

[ellieelectrons]

Hi Blurr

I don't have the answer to your problem but I'll give you some starting ideas for you and hopefully others will respond too.

I have two birds, one that flies to my shoulder all the time and I am comfortable with him doing that and one that I try very hard to keep off my shoulder because she is occasionally prone to bite ears and faces and can draw blood (she's currently nesting so it's not too much of a problem right now).

Since your bird is new and still getting used to you, you may like to consider clipping her wings. This will give you a little more control (but not complete control) over whether she can get on your shoulder. It also makes it a little easier to get her used to her playstand. Both of my birds are currently fully flighted but I did clip them for a couple of seasons whilst they were getting used to us. I completely understand if you do not want to clip her wings... but it is an option.

Some other things you can do that won't address the behaviour directly but will help strengthen the bond with your bird:
1. get her taking treats from your hands whilst in her cage (if she isn't doing it already)
2. once she is doing that, use the treats to lure her to step up onto your hand and teach her the step up command
3. use treats to lure her to spend time on her playstand
4. use treats to train her to do some tricks such as the turnaround.

I have a feeling the biting your lips, although not acceptable, in birdie language it isn't necessarily a negative behaviour unless it's done particularly aggressively. You do need to discourage your bird from doing it as you shouldn't be putting up with your bird hurting you on a regular basis. Both my birds will "give me a kiss" and occasionally Charlie gets a bit over-excited and bites instead of just touching his beak to my lips. Somehow, he seems to be gradually learning that I don't like that.

The other thing to do is to try to work out what is causing your bird to bite your face: is something exciting her or scaring her or something else and then try to address the problem. Our Janey bit my ear once because I opened the door to the linen cupboard and picked up a table cloth. For whatever reason, linen always gets her excited. So now I know to never open the linen cupboard when she is with me. I addressed the cause of the problem. She bites for other reasons too that I haven't been able to get to the bottom of - but there's one biting cue that I can actively avoid.

With Janey, I also work hard at not letting her on my shoulder. When I hear her fly, I turn and face her (if I can) and hold my hand up for her to land on instead.... or I try to step out of the way so she has to land somewhere else. If I can't avoid her landing on my shoulder, I don't let her stay there, I use treats to lure her off my shoulder onto her playstand. I can then present my hand for her to step up onto. I have also tried to train them to step onto my hand from my shoulder with limited success. They do it well during "training time" but are more likely to bite my hand when I do this during regular interactions.

Hopefully others might have something to add too.

Oh, and if you do get a bite, do your best not to react but do get the bird away from you gently. Don't let it keep biting you. Afterwards, try to figure out what caused it if you can.

Good luck and best wishes.

Ellie.