Your bird’s beak is quite a powerful tool, your fingers are quite soft and fragile objects, so, a bird biting your finger would be quite painful
If you want this behavior to discontinue in your bird then you’d need to know why your bird does this.
This article looks into why your bird may bite your fingers.
Table of Contents
Why does my bird bite my fingers?
You may love your bird to bits, and it biting you will likely upset you.
Knowing why birds do this can help you possibly stop this behavior. This is why your bird may be biting your fingers:
Beaking:
If you’re raising a young bird, then the biting may simply be the bird beaking.
Beaking is equivalent to a puppy chewing on its toys or human babies biting on their teething rings.
What to do:
You can let your bird beak you if you like. This is fine up until the bird starts to increase the pressure.
Once your bird starts increasing the pressure, stop this behavior by saying no to the bird and moving your hand away from the bird.
Help your pet get through the beaking by giving the bird two to three types of soft food.
Exploring:
Birds use their beaks to explore their environment and this may be what your bird is doing.
These animals use their claws like we use our feet and they use their beaks like we use our hands.
If a bird is new to you then it may be using its beak to explore you.
This exploration may look like biting you when you offer your finger to it.
Thankfully these bites aren’t usually painful.
Explorative biting isn’t usually hard because the bird doesn’t feel threatened as it explores.
If the bird feels threatened then it may bite hard but if it simply exploring then it likely won’t bite hard.
This behavior may still continue as the bird gets older as the bird will still have the instinct to clamp down on the fingers you offer them.
What to do:
This isn’t something to worry about, this behavior is quite normal.
If you don’t want your bird exploring your fingers then keep your fingers away from the bird’s mouth at all times.
Playfulness/wanting attention:
Another reason why your bird may bite your fingers may be to get your attention and to get you to want to play with it.
Your bird will try to catch your attention in any way it can, and one way it may do this is by gently nibbling on your fingers.
This craving for attention is more common in younger birds. but, can be seen in older birds as well.
The fake biting may also be the bird telling you that it likes you and feels comfortable around you.
What to do:
This is an example of playful behavior in your bird and isn’t something that you’d need to worry about.
If you want to play with your bird you can go ahead and do that and if you don’t want to play with your bird you can simply put the bird away when it starts biting your fingers.
Make sure that your bird has access to a variety of toys in its cage so it doesn’t get bored in there.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Why Is My Budgie Chirping At Night?, Why Is My Budgie’s Tail Shivering?, Why Does My Bird Bite Me Softly?, Baby Conure Biting Hard, Why Has My Budgie Stopped Eating His Seed, What Does It Mean When A Bird Pecks You?, Why Does My Bird Scream When I Play Music?,
