[Kiwi08]

As I have posted before, I adopted a 5 year old male senegal about 2 months ago. Everything overall has been going great, he fits in great with us and is generally a very well behaved bird. However, recently he has bitten us on 3 separate occasions. All three times felt quite random, as I am usually very good at reading his body language. They have all happened when he was on top of his cage and I picked him up. I believe it is because he doesn't want to be put away... ?

First of all, his bites seem very violent. He clamped onto my thumb twice and would not let go, and this last time it was the side of my hand. Each time I did not make a reaction, noise, nothing. I very gently said "no biting Marvin" until he let go. Then put him in his cage and ignored him for a few minutes. The most recent time (yesterday) when he bit the side of my hand he would not let go. He just kept biting and clamping down. It started to bleed so finally I had to actually pull his beak out of my hand (because I didn't want blood to get in his mouth!!) he then kept his feet clamped onto my finger and wouldn't let go. This last bite was so violent, and I seriously wonder how long he would have kept biting and biting... that doesn't seem like a normal parrot bite to me, but I don't know?

Anyway, other than just those 3 bites in 2 months he doesn't show signs of aggression. Its frustrating because it just seems so out of the blue. (But I know its not, they always have a reason).

So, I'm going to try a few things to try to curb the aggression. First, get a separate sleep cage for him and second, whenever he is out I will never let him sit on top of his cage. I already have never let him sit on shoulders, or be any place higher than us.

I have a theory that since he can't fly (drops like a rock) he possibly gets frustrated when he doesn't want to do something, and since he knows he cant fly away he has to somehow communicate he doesn't want to do something by biting.

I realize only 3 bites in 2 months is not bad. Plus he has been pushed from home to home (don't worry, even if he always bites he is staying with me!) and his last home gave him pretty much no human interaction for 1 year. So I know he is doing great considering his past. I'm mostly just wondering what else I can do to try to stop the biting (or at least so its not so violent) and hope it wont escalate.

Thank you in advance for your help, and sorry this is so long!