Conures

How to Keep a Conure from Biting

By Paula Brown

Like all parrots (and even most animals--including humans!), biting is common among conures. They must be trained not to bite. Training an adult conure is difficult, but it can be done. Try these tips:

1. Never hit or flick your conure when he bites. He will lose trust in you.

2. When she tries to bite, drop your arm slightly, just enough to put her off balance. Birds hate that feeling. Be consistent, so your conure learns to associate this feeling with biting.

3. Until your conure learns not to bite, keep her off your shoulders and away from your face.

4. Always handle your conure gently, but dont act like youre afraid. Like dogs, birds can sense when you are afraid.

5. Make sure your conures wings are clipped to prevent him from flying away.

6. Another trick to stop the biting is to blow on your conure when she bites.

7. Always reward good behavior with praise and a treat. If your conure is about to bite and doesnt, praise him.

8. Teach your conure tricks like playing dead, laying on her back, or fetching objects. Teach her some words, too. The extra attention will keep her from getting bored, and will build her trust in you.

9. Conures need exercise and objects to chew. Give your conure distractions, such as toys and pesticide-free fruit branches as distractions.

10. Make sure your conure gets at least 10-12 hours of rest per day in a darkened cage.

11. Make sure your conure isnt under stress, including a new pet or child in the home, visitors, or a change in her cage location. For those unavoidable stressors, give your conure lots of attention and treat her with patience.

12. If your conure is new to your home, give him some time to acclimate. Give him some peace and quiet for a couple of days; avoid the urge to handle him a lot. When you start handling him, limit your sessions to 10-15 minutes, with gradual increases in time each day.

13. Keep your bird lower than your eye level, to establish that you are the "head bird." Keep in mind that looking a bird in the eye without blinking is a sign of aggression, and blink frequently.

14. Wear heavy gloves at first, so that you dont involuntarily pull away when you are bitten. Your conure will realize that you are not afraid of her nipping, which will again establish you as the "head bird." If you are wearing gloves and your conure tries to bite, hold her beak between your thumb and forefinger for a moment. This will help to calm her down and realize that you cannot be intimidated by her biting.

15. Keep your conure close to you, even sleeping near you at night, to help the bonding process.

16. Be patient! Taming your conure wont happen over night, but with persistence, it will happen eventually.

Paula Brown is an avid pet enthusiast, childrens rights advocate, and writer. She is the content manager for Bookaroo.info: Free ebooks and articles.