Agressive or playful???

[sammy14]

Hi I have a 8 month old rainbow lorikeet. He seems to be very playful by lying on his back while i scratch him and gently wrestle him with my hand but when i do play with him he uses his beak to grab onto me, sometimes fairly hard...is he being playful or is he showing agression ie - giving me a sign that he is not liking what i am doing to him...should i be correcting this behaviour somehow or is it just compleatly normal???

[BiiRDiiELuV805]

Its normal unless he draws blood, dont be too ruff when playing with him because your basicly telling him its ok to be as ruff as you want.

[Ashling]

Yep- definately normal Annoyingly normal but normal. Lorikeets will bite when overexcited and playing. Since your hand is so big and powerful (to a 130 gram bird), your lorikeet will try to match it in the only way he can- biting! Either way, I'm sure you don't like him biting you hard, and it does him no good either. When he bites you, you can put him down- or put him back in his cage or another safe place that he doesn't want to be- and ignore him, no eye contact or talking, for 5 minutes. Ignore any screams of protest! It can be quite hard to teach them not to bite- and there will usually be times when he reverts back to his old biting games, but since it's a natural lory trait you'll just have to embrace it and love him for what he is! A little lory monster! Although, anything's possible... with time and patience, you might have a lorikeet that never bites, just keep at it!

[sammy14]

Thanks for the replies. Good to know that it is normal and he's not angry at me. I think i will just put up with him with he bites, theres no blood drawn or anything so its nothing to major, i just didn't want to keep playing with him like that if he actually wasn't liking it. Its good to know that he actually is enjoying himself.

Another quick question if anybody reads this. My rainbow is very loud at times (actually alot of the time). I began to cover him when he was loud, but i'd been doing that for a while now and he's still loude, if not louder. So i began to think that i was re-enforcing him and giving him the attention he was squarking for. I now just compleatly ignore him when he is loud and then reward him when he settles down...It seems to work at times but not sure if i am wasting my time....does anybody have any other ideas for me??

Thanks again Sam

[BiiRDiiELuV805]

Welcome to my world lol, my lorikeets scream LOUD its the nature of the bird they are known to be loud, mine will stop if i toss a ball for them to play but that only works for a minute...if that.

[Ashling]

Ash stops SCREAMING when I let her out of the cage. I have to cover her up for a while sometimes though I hate doing that :( I reward her when she settles down too- you're not wasting your time. Keep at it! :D

[Anony]

HAHHAAA, this is funny! They love rough and loud! You'll soon be able to differentiate between loud sounds, they all mean something different but the loudest is calling for attention. A telly or radio close by can help if it's during a time you can't give attention. Have a look on my blog at some rough play games in the movies under the label 'Jack'. There are games you can play where they bite things other than your hands (or ears or any other body part) :)