- Hey guys, Jamieleigh here from BirdTricks,
and today, I wanna talk to you about the four ways
to stop your bird from biting.
Some of these might seem obvious.
Some of these might seem not so obvious to you guys.
So let's get to the video.
(upbeat music)
So I would love to hear from you guys in the comments
about which of my top four ways to stop biting
resonates the most with you,
that you either apply already,
or that you started applying after hearing in this video.
So make sure to give it a thumbs up
if you enjoy this content,
and subscribe to the channel
if you enjoy more content like this.
So you guys might hear my birds
in the background of this video,
I'm actually in the garden
where I have four of my bird aviaries.
I'll show 'em to you real quick.
So I have my toco toucan here, my Congo African grey,
my galah cockatoo, and my three sun conures.
So they are actually incredibly quiet right now
'cause they just had a huge fly all around the property
and got a lot of their energy out,
so now they're just making grumbly,
like very happy content noises, adorable.
So (laughs), I tried to frame a shot
where you guys could actually see
the aviaries in the background the whole time,
but it was very backlit, so I figured not so much,
but I did try.
So I'll make sure that I get lots of cute footage
of my birds into this video for you guys,
since I'm not having a bird on me right now.
So the number one way to stop your parrots biting
is to figure out what situations
you get yourself in that your parrot
is most likely to bite you and avoiding
getting in those situations,
because the more your bird feels like it has to bite you
to communicate what it does or doesn't want,
the more your relationship is gonna kinda backpedal
and go downhill,
so we wanna avoid the bite in the first place.
If you know that 95% of the time
that you go to get your bird out of the cage,
it's going to bite you, you gotta back up,
avoid that situation
and figure out how else can you get the bird
out of the cage without getting bit.
Can you use target training or stationing,
or even flight training to be able to get your bird
to go from spot to spot?
How can you get your bird out of that situation
in a different way that leads to a non-bite?
So avoiding the bite is number one and is very paramount
for saving your relationship with your bird.
All right, my second tip for stopping biting is to ABC it.
Now we talk about our ABCs
in my "Family Friendly Parrot Formula," volume one and two,
and what this means is figuring out what happens
before and after you get bit,
because more than likely, there's a pattern in your behavior
that your bird is picking up on.
Do you put the bird in the cage as punishment,
or as a timeout every time the bird bites you?
Then your bird might be interpreting that as communicating,
hey, every time I bite the human,
I get to go back in my cage,
so it may not be seeing that as punishment.
It may be hungry or thirsty, or wanna play with toys,
or just wanna be in its safe space.
From hanging out with you,
it might just be tired of hanging out with you,
and that's its signal for wanting to go back.
So there's a lotta patterns that happen in our behavior
that influence our bird's behavior,
and the sooner you pick up on that and spot that pattern
through charting your ABCs or journaling about it,
the quicker you'll be able to reverse that pattern.
So third is a hard one. I feel like this is the most tricky,
and this is one that I always mention in our masterclasses
because a lotta masterclasses are hosted
by veterinarian offices or parrot rescues,
things of that nature,
where there are birds in the facility,
and one of the things that I find is that everybody notices
the really annoying bird.
It's hard not to notice
the screaming cockatoo in the corner,
but nobody notices the quiet bird in the corner.
Nobody pays any attention,
and it's those moments where your bird is being good,
your bird is being quiet, your bird is being cute,
your bird is self-entertaining, that you need to remember
to reward those awesome behaviors,
and a lot of us just tend to forget
and take those moments for granted,
but you've gotta find a way to remember and reward.
Maybe put a timer on your watch
or put reminders in sticky notes around your house.
Just anytime your bird is being awesomely itself,
go ahead and go drop a treat over there
or give it a little scratch on the head,
if that's what it likes,
whatever reinforcement it likes as a reward,
do that, do more of that,
and remember to reward your bird for the behaviors
that tend to go unnoticed that are really good behaviors.
Another way to stay on top of that tip
is to keep little various treats
around the house, and even, clickers.
I sell my clickers in packs of three
for this purpose alone or more,
if you really want a ton of clickers,
which I keep them everywhere,
but I like having clickers all around the house
so that anytime your bird is being good and awesome.
You have a clicker really close by
with a little treat thing,
and you can just click and go over and drop a treat
in the dish for your bird.
So that's one of my tips and tricks
for staying on top of that really good behavior
that you don't always expect
or don't always know is coming.
Okay, and number four, I'm so guilty of this one.
So I'm guilty recently of this one.
This one is about not sabotaging yourself and your bird
by rewarding the not-good behaviors,
and these are the behaviors that are disguised as cute,
that are not good for your overall long-term relationship.
So these are any sort of heightened behaviors, you know,
I remember, oh gosh, where were we?
And somebody was like, oh, the bird, oh, it was my bird.
Okay, so I had a friend of mine working on my aviaries
and my sun conures were not happy about it,
and they were all puffed up and they were doing,
if you guys have sun conures, you know where they get puffed
and they just start doing this, like, I could be big dance.
That's what my conures were doing, and Kyle,
my friend was like, oh, it's so cute, they're dancing,
and I was like, oh lord (laughs),
that's not a good dance if it's a dance at all,
but I was just like, uh, yeah,
it's what they do when they're sacrificing.
It's a sacrificial ritual dance
because I was just laughing
at the fact that like, they wanted to attack him
and get him and he's over there, like, that's adorable.
It wasn't adorable.
So remembering that certain behaviors,
that even though they make us laugh or smile or whatever,
remembering that those might be at a heightened state
and making sure not to reward your bird
at that emotionally heightened state,
because anytime you train a behavior,
you're also capturing with that behavior,
you're capturing the emotional state your bird is in.
So if every time it talks, it's super heightened, jinx,
then you're actually capturing
this aggressive heightened behavior,
and although you may not notice it
because the bird's not that way
to you when you're training it,
you will notice it when your bird
is that way to everybody else.
Oh, sorry, guys.
Camera is having a hard time focusing on me.
There's like a glare in the sun
that's just hitting me just right.
Anyways, so I hope that resonates with you guys.
Just be really careful and mindful
because some of those cute behaviors
are really not cute long-term, so, yeah,
and then I just realized
that I think I have five tips instead of four.
I said four in the beginning.
That's why I don't like intros (laughs).
So my fifth tip,
which is kind of like a bonus extra tip anyway,
is just that when you're getting bit a ton by your bird,
oh my gosh, camera, come on, you can do it, seriously.
Keep in mind that it could go back to health
or a medical reason.
So if your bird is not feeling well,
it's not gonna be in a good mood,
it's not gonna act well.
It's most likely gonna tell you through biting.
So just make sure that your baseline foundation
of your bird's health is really in check from the diet,
to how much sleep it's getting, to its environment,
making sure that you don't have any accidental household
toxins in your home, where you have air fresheners
or perfumes, or you know, what have you,
especially aerosols, anything that can be dispersed
into the air, and that they're inhaling.
They're just so, so, so sensitive
to that with their respiratory systems.
So just making sure that your bird's health
is your bird is actually healthy,
is huge in making sure that you're not getting bit,
because it would be awful to think that it's all behavioral
and be working on training and fixing your relationship
when there's actually an underlying health condition.
So just make sure that if it seems like you cannot get
to the root of it and your bird isn't showing
any other symptoms of being sick,
or you have just never taken your bird to a vet
and never gotten a well-bird exam,
that you go ahead and do that just for the peace of mind
of knowing that your bird is healthy and okay.
All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this video
and got some help out of it with you and your bird.
If you ever are in need of one-on-one help,
you're just having a hard time, self-analyzing
or diagnosing what's going on with your bird,
sometimes it just takes an outside eye,
and that's why my husband and I offer
online consultations through Zoom,
Skype, FaceTime, phone, WhatsApp, all the things,
though we really, really prefer to Zoom,
but we can offer you online consultations.
So go ahead and head over to my website, birdtricks.com,
and under the About Us tab,
we have consultation packages that you can get,
whether you're looking for a one-off
or a multiple consult package,
which is what I really recommend
because sometimes when people do a one-off consult,
they don't feel any sort of accountability
for following through with the advice that they get.
So I like being able to follow up with you guys
and seeing what worked, maybe what didn't work,
and what we can change or modify going forward,
or maybe everything was awesome
and you're ready for the next step.
I really like seeing that all the way through.
So make sure that if you are having a hard time
figuring out why your bird is biting,
that you either start with my beginner course,
which is on my website or you just book a consultation,
in which case, you'll get parts
of my beginner course with that.
Thanks for watching, guys, talk to you soon.
Just found a Rocko feather.
This yours?
This your feather?
This your feather, you toucan? (toucan croaking)
Hi, handsome guy.
Hello.
Looking handsome as I can.
I'm so handsome. (toucan croaking)
Isn't he so cute?
Love you.
Love you so much.
Promised you guys some cute footage of everybody.
You're delivering, Rocko, look at that eye closed.
The other one's open though, that one's open,
that one's open.
Love you.