Constant Biter

[oscar-jess]

Help!!!!

I have a thirteen week old male budgie whom I bought from a breeder. My problem is that he is forever trying to chew and bite things as soon as he gets out of the cage. He attacks my fingers if I try to move him. When I change his water and feed bowl daily he has a real go at my fingers.

Please any advice on how I can get him to stop.

Jessica

[Amy]

Maybe he wasn't handled when he was a baby.

Whenever he bites ignore it and try to carry on with normal training.

Maybe try to fill up his food on the outside somehow I do that and its much easier.

Try not to touch him too much but spend alot of time in the same room as him and reguarlly chat to him maybe teach him to talk! (See my thread in budgie articles on talking.)

I hope this has helped you.

From Amy.

[Bea]

Like Amy said, try your hardest to ignore it. Are you certain Ocsar is a boy, it's just it's usually the females who are temperamental and snappy (though not in every case). As Oscar is so temperamental you should probably be changing all toys and perches around to different locations of the cage once a week so that will hopefully stop him becoming cage territorial. Also, change his food and water at exactly the same time everyday so that he knows when it's coming. Never respond to his bites when you're doing this because you really don't want him to think "Oh, that human who yells and screams when i bite is coming over now *sharpens beak*" :p Also, you could try doing step ups and ladders with him (is he finger tame?), once he will step up onto your finger (even if he's biting it) then advance to ladders which is just getting them to continuosly step from one hand to the other, i think this would be useful for you and Oscar because if you were doing that he shouldn't have time to bite. :)

[miss_missy]

mabe you should just leave your hand in his cage for about 5 minutes twice a day for about a week. so he knows you arent out ot hurt him.. then try and get him on your finger??? Thats what i did

[oscar-jess]

Hey thanks heaps for the advice

He tends to try and destroy his cage a lot. He even manages to unhook the swing at the very top of the cage so hopefully if I change it around a bit this will help him settle. This has been an issue ever since I got him. I would love to get him out of the habit of biting me. If i sit him just on my finger, softly talk to him while I have him near my face but not right up against it, he tends to start getting quite agressive and keeps trying to peck at me (very painfuly nips at times). Sometimes he does, other times he doesn't. He won't stop biting me unless I get him off of me when he gets agressive. I just don't know what to do to get him to stop.

[Budgiekin]

I just thought I would share with you another technique I have heard about to deal with those biting beaks.

For budgies that seem to bite because they are trying to exercise their dominance over you (and ignoring is not working), try getting your budgie to repeatedly "step up" from finger to finger several times in a row following a nip. When they realize that this is what will happen every time they bite, they may actually stop. Seems relatively harmless so what the heck, why not give it a try?

Things are different if your budgie is biting out of fear. In that case, it is best to give your budgie some more space and spend lots of time with the little fellow without touching him or her until they have had an opportunity to develop more trust.

[oscar-jess]

Hi thanks for the tip.

Not sure if it's out of fear that he does it because sometimes he will and other times he doesn't. I think you may be right about the dominance thing though! I tried the step up routine with him and for the first few goes he tried to have a good nip at the finger but after about 4-5 goes he stopped trying to bite. I'll keep trying the step up routine and see how progress goes. I've decided that I'm going to write a journal about what happens.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I'll keep you informed about the progress!!!:D ;)

[Amy]

Maybe he's bored of his cage layout? Try to change it around a bit.
How long do you spend with him? Maybe he needs more attention.

[redgirl]

What I did when Eddie was like that I just ignored him and pretended it didn't hurt or bothered me and after that he stopped doing it soo much, try and talk to him a lot and try using a perch to stroke him..mind you go softly though xxx

[1scifi1]

Try gently blowing in his face whenever he bites. My groomer and I have done that with Bert (actually Berta).