Update on Needing to Rehome Conure

[Rosiedoll]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.. to all of you that posted such thoughtful and encouraging responses. It has now almost been a week. My Husband and I had a serious talk Saturday morning and were on the verge of throwing in the towel. The screaming and biting were just unbearable! But.. we decided to give it more time. We've only had her a short time, but already love her. We've found that putting her in the guest bedroom works best. We go in each morning and talk to her and give her fresh fruit or veggies and refill her water and seed. When we get home from work, we roll her large cage out into the living room and have her there with us while we watch TV, etc. We talk to her quite a bit and let her just get used to the sound of our voices. When she starts screaming, she is put back into her room. Once she's placed in her room, she stops screaming and we can go bak in there to interact with her more. Once it's time for her to go to bed, we put her in the room and cover her cage.
So.. there has been some progress made. I have been able to speak with a lady who worked with rehomed parrots and she gave me some other great suggestions on her behavior issues.
My Husband and I have also looked into some books and read some articles. We are going to buy "The Beak Book" as it looks to have alot of information on the issues we are having.
My finger has stopped throbbing from the pain of the bite and is beginning to heal pretty well. We are still giving it time and hoping to eventually win her over. So thank you all once again for the support. It was greatly needed and very reassuring. By the way, she is a white eyed Conure and is about 4 years old. She was originally in one home and rehomed to another and this is the home we got her from. They had her for a year and got rid of her after she bit. Come to find out (I called the previous owner again), they used to let her fly free in the house all day long and then would put her in her cage at night. We are unable to let her fly free during the day, so she is slowly learning this. We are looking to buy some bird handling gloves and will hopefully only have to use for a short time. We have named her Emma and when I learn how to post a picture, I will share. Thanks again!

[Sashagirl]

I'm really glad you are giving Emma a chance.

Marcia

[hollyhawkz]

Well in that case... congratulations on your new baby! LOL

[my-africangrey-echo]

Awesome news. So glad to hear. Keep up the good work. You may not want to use the gloves though.. It may cause her not to trust your hands. She needs to get to know your hands are a good thing. After all they hold goodies for them to eat!!

[Icednova625]

Great news! I'm glad you could start to work things out. I agree that gloves wouldn't be a good idea.

[Valo's Moirana]

These are the kind of responses that make being on this board so rewarding. We have a great group of people here, some of them we decades of experience, who don't hesitate to share their knowledge. And if advice and encouragement can help for a situation where humans are willing, it's a great thing.
I'm very glad you're giving Emma another chance (love the name ). [Btw - we all run into these situations... I was close to having conure-stew for dinner last weekend ]

I think you're in pretty good shape as I have the impression you looked around for information. There's also lots of threads dealing with biting birds on this board.
One thing I would like to recommend is B.Heidenreich's books and dvds. Good Bird Inc. Companion Parrot Training Through Positive Reinforcement It was recommended by numerous people to me, also lots of people at the Gabriel Foundation think very highly of her training methods to reduce biting and screaming behaviors through positive reinforcement. I've read her books, and really like them as she gives good insight into body language as well as natural rhythms of parrots, which makes a lot of things easier to understand when we observe them in our homes.
I'm currently working with Nino using her techniques and his fear of hands dramatically decreased since he came to live with me (still won't step up though, the little stinker LOL)

Agree with previous posts - I'd leave the gloves out. We work with towels with Valo - he loves them, and it protects the hands. (Probably won't work as well if birdie doesn't like towels... like Nino )

[catschair]

I am so glad BB was able to help and that Emma is settling into her forever home!

[cashmerekiddy]

Fantastic - I'm sure it'll work out. I read tons of info on parrots/training etc when i first got my gcc and learnt alot of useful info - gcc's are the kind of birds that you need to be one step ahead of - great birds but attitude plus sometimes. I love my Cisco and I'm sure that Emma will be loved (and spoilt) as much by you and your hubby. Ther's a huge number of bird experts on BB that will help too. Good luck with the her.

[Rosiedoll]

Thanks again.. I'm going to look at getting the book suggested. Though I have to admit that I am a little skeptical of using no gloves. I'll have to read to see how to approach this because we literally can't even change her food and water without getting bit at. So there's no way I'm sticking my bare hand into her cage. If she was just threatening to bite, then that wouldn't be as bad.. But she will seriously latch onto my hand every chance she gets.

[lisark]

The key to getting a bird (or any other animal, for that matter) to change its behaviour is to STOP the rehearsal of the behaviour you wish to change! This means you stop giving the bird the opportunity to bite. You figure out a way to handle her that prevents the possibility of a bite.

Think about it...how do we all, and all animals, get better at something? We practice. The more you allow her to practice biting (and to learn that biting produces immediate results) the better she is going to get at it.

SO. No more situations where she can bite. This means those gloves are not a good idea. Even if the bites don't hurt you, she'll still be practicing biting you.

I suggest you go to Yahoo! Groups - Join or create groups, clubs, forums & communities and subscribe to Bird-Click, an email list which will give you ways to train your bird so that you don't have to touch her right away. You can teach her to step up onto a hand-held perch/stick and move her around. Doing this you will be able to allow her to play on top of her cage and fly around without having the stress of having to be man-handled into or out of her cage.

Anyway, best of luck...try the hand-held perch technique...enjoy your new baby!