Lemon Bites WAY Too Much!

[LovingPrettyBird]

Ok i dont know if its cause Lemon is a GIRL or what but all she wants to do now is BITE! The bites are getting kinda hard now too! I ALWAYS tell her NO in a nice and calm voice and then place her back in the cage but its always the samething everyday and everytime i take her out. The others don't do this. They like to nibble on my hair but never my fingers. They have been told NO from the start of any nibbling so i guess they got the idea but Lemon is NONE STOP BITING! I don't know what to do. I can't even let my kids take her out cause all she wants to do is bite. And its not like she is ok when you first take her out, its at the moment that she steps up on your hand that she goes right for the fingers. Any suggestions on what i'm doing wrong?????>:

[LoveBug12]

I'm in the same position. Does Lemon have a mirror in her cage? If so, take it out. I'm hoping that taking out Juniors mirror will improve him behavior. I'm also gettig his wings clipped today so maybe that will help also. It really hurts when he bites, I know how you feel. I don't understand why either...

[LovingPrettyBird]

I'm in the same position. Does Lemon have a mirror in her cage? If so, take it out. I'm hoping that taking out Juniors mirror will improve him behavior. I'm also gettig his wings clipped today so maybe that will help also. It really hurts when he bites, I know how you feel. I don't understand why either...

Yes i have two toys that have mirrors on them but they are up too high for her to get to. I dont know if you read any of my other threads but she is a "stargazer" and cant fly nor can she get the idea that she can climb UP. Or for that fact she doesnt know which way is UP!. I'm thinking that maybe the stargazing is playing a part in it??? But hopefully we can BOTH figure this out. Its beginning to frustrate me!!

[LoveBug12]

It's very frustrating. I let him out to play then he attacks me, flies all over the room, won't let me catch him and the other day it took at least an hour to catch him..I was exhausted. Hopefully we can figure out how to make them behave!

[linda040899]

Lemon is young and she's exploring her world a bit differently than her siblings. Being a hen doesn't help, as aggression can come quite naturally to hens! :) At this point, when she bites, she doesn't realize that she's hurting you so you have to let her know. While she may hear you say No!, she's not associating the word with what she's doing to produce the reactions she's getting from you. Returning her to her cage is not the answer, as you can actually train her to bite when she wants to go "home." They learn quick so that may already be part of the problem!

Most birds love beak rubs so when Lemon goes to bite, try taking her upper beak between your thumb and index fingers and gently rub it. That should get her attention, as it feels good. If the biting stops, praise her and you can offer her a treat to reinforce the words. You may also have small toys near you that you can offer for purposes of chewing.

[Pips mom]

It's very frustrating. I let him out to play then he attacks me, flies all over the room, won't let me catch him and the other day it took at least an hour to catch him..I was exhausted. Hopefully we can figure out how to make them behave!

Sorry, but behave and lovie are not allowed together in the same sentence! :rotflIf you think you are going to figure how to make a lovie behave, you better think again! You'll go crazy trying to figure THAT one out! and hey if you have any luck, please let me know.....but so far Pip has pretty much taught me that it's hopeless if I ever want him to behave!! :rofl: A good wing clip will solve the flying around issue. Honestly.....Pip has his moments where he shocks me....very few and far between though! Every once in a while he'll be good and behave in some situations, but mostly he gives me a hard time every step of the way! I hear so many people say things like this.....oh this lovie is biting and not behaving....this is where people either need to do research on this type of bird beforehand, OR learn to accept their bird the way he/she is. These are lovebirds.....they'll act like lovebirds, and be like lovebirds, no matter what you do! This is their instinct and it's not something they do to bug us....it's just them being the birdie they are.....learn to love your lovie for his/her bold little self....that is what we do. They are amazing lil creatures and they will come to like and love you in their own time.....that doesn't mean they won't bite you! Pip bites me all the time, but I've learned this is just Pip and to accept it and I love him just the way he is! I know sometimes it hurts, and that mostly Pip does not bite hard, but try to do the best you can to not let it bother you that much.....once your lovies are comfortable in your home and with you, you will all reach an understanding with these things....it just happens naturally, love and trust build over time. Love your lovie and try to understand that they just can't help themselves sometimes and this is just instinctive and these are not domesticated pets. I love my lil monster, biter boy! learning more about your lovie, geting to know his/her personality and trying to understand them is a big part of your relationship with them....not just THEM learning to behave.....you have to just trust in time that your lovie will come to love you and will get better about these things in time.....in the mean time, yeah, them bold little lovies will continue to be the bold lil lovies they were meant to be! They're SO cute though, aren't they?? When you have a newborn baby, you don't go around saying.....I have to make this baby behave better and stop crying all the time, do you? I think it's a similar kind of thing.

[LovingPrettyBird]

Well im going to try what Linda suggested. I had her out just 10 mins ago for like an hour and a half and she did good till the last 5 mins LOL she bite my finger out of no where and drew blood for the first time! That one HURT LOL So i'm up for anything right about now LOL

[linda040899]

she did good till the last 5 mins LOL she bite my finger out of no where and drew blood for the first time!
Learned behavior. Bite = return to cage, or at least it's always been that way! The lesson didn't take very long..........:omg:

[thebubbleking]

Also remember baby birds use thier beak to taste, feel texture etc in the new world around them. they dont have hands after all :D

[Chickobee]

Have you tried teaching your birds to step up onto a perch when you take them out of their cage? This is what we trained some of our birds to do, and especially one very cage territorial hen. She was usually fine once she was away from her cage.

Other things that would get her going were when we would let her hide in the bottom of Dave's pant leg when he was sitting in the recliner, or letting her hide in a towel. Later we learned that dark places are considered nesting sites and hens will defend them by charging and biting.

Mostly we were doing things that were contributing to the biting and as we learned more about lovebird behavior and started doing things differently the biting diminished.

Possibly offering a distraction and ignoring the biting will work better with your bird than trying to punish it by putting it back in it's cage.

Each bird is different and it takes time to figure out what works, so don't give up. Young birds also go through a bitey stage (adolesence) that they grow out of if you are careful to not reinforce the biting.

Sometimes we inadvertently teach our birds to bite us. They are so smart!!!

[Flapjack]

This worked wonders with Jack...

When she was about 4 months old, she started biting my neck a lot. Then she bit my hands.

When she got into a "mood", I would hold her in both hands and put her beak in the crook of my index finger. You don't have to hold it hard at all, just enough so she can't open her mouth big enough to bite. I would say "No- that hurts". As I was holding her, I started to kiss her head, her belly, her back and sides.

The biting lasted a month or two, but now- none! When I cuddle her up, many times she puts her little beak in the crook of my finger and waits for kisses all over her body. It's like security to her now.

And like Linda said- Jack also LOVES her beak massaged between my fingers.

She'll be 3 in December, and she still bobs like a baby looking for food between my fingers.

[LovingPrettyBird]

Learned behavior. Bite = return to cage, or at least it's always been that way! The lesson didn't take very long..........:omg:

HAHA thanks for pointing that one out! I feel like a dumb dumb LOL ok now im going to really step up to this one cause i want her to stop this. So i will let everyone know how this goes and keep an update!!

Thanks Linda and everyone else who put an input on this!:rofl:

[Mary in Florida]

I don't know if this would work with every lovebird, but our Sweetpea was quite a biter in her heyday. She bit the heck out of everyone except my daughter, whom she'd let cuddle and scratch. She was always tame, and friendly, so we'd play games with her that didn't get our hands close to her- she loved "tunnels", ie, rolled up newspapers, and would come running from wherever she was to zoom into that tunnel, and either imitate the noises we made at her, strip the paper, or whatever, and we could use that tunnel to return her to her cage if need be ( our birds are out whenever anyone is home). We could also dangle a rag or sock in front of her, and she'd play "tug of war" with it, and she loved shoe boxes with the ends cut out- we'd toss a coin in front of it, or a small object, and watch her reach out and grab it, pull it into the box. She's 14 yrs old now, and doesn't bite nearly as much now, mostly cuddling and snuggling.