If you have a brand new bird that is not accustomed to petting or if yours loves it and is demanding about it, here are some tips for you.

If your bird does not let you pet it doesn’t mean you can’t use a little bit of training to allow you to do it. There is no guarantee whether your bird will like it or not. There is a good chance that it will but needs to give you the chance to do it. If you try to force pet a fearful or aggressive bird, it will only worsen the situation. Of course you may feel that if you just do it, the bird can enjoy it but the fact of the matter is that if you do it in an unpleasant way, the bird will never trust you like that.

One thing to consider is scale. While you may be able to use your entire hand on a macaw, only a few fingers would be more suitable for a Senegal Parrot. On the other hand, with a budgie even one finger can seem large and intimidating. Scale wise a finger might be like getting pet with a first for a budgie. So definitely try to not be too big to the bird when you touch it.

It is likely that the bird does not want to be touched on its wings, legs, or tail. They can preen/scratch all of those areas themselves so they don’t need or want your touch there. However, they cannot reach their own heads and necks. In the wild birds all preen each other as both a convenience and a socialization ritual. Usually birds allow others to preen them as a sign of social acceptance. So of course your bond with the bird can be reinforced by petting its head and neck.

So if you have never pet your bird before, you will want to see how close you can get and try to see if it will accept petting or not. What I often do with a bird I’m unfamiliar with is put my hand about 12 inches over its head and see if it is calm or really agitated. Unless the bird looks like its ready to bite, I will inch in a little at a time and see its comfort level. If it looks more relaxed, I go a bit closer. Within the last few inches is the deciding point. Now it can reach your hand and bite you. If the bird’s head is still down, it is most likely safe to proceed. If it’s beak is practically on your hands then a bite is likely and continuing will only agitate the bird and it won’t be able to enjoy being pet.

One way I’ve taught birds to accept petting initially (to introduce them to it so they could realize they like it) is by cuing them to do a trick. While I am rewarding the bird for doing the trick I hold my hand closer and closer to its head with consecutive rewards. So on the first reward, while the bird is eating out of my left hand, I will put my right hand a certain distance away that the bird does not get distracted and continues eating. If the bird keeps looking at my hand rather then eating, then it is uncomfortable and I back off a little. I continue this until I can get close enough to touch and the first few times I just touch and don’t pet. Finally once I can definitely touch while it is eating, I start gently stroking the feathers. Once the bird seems more comfortable with petting while being fed, I start phasing out the feeding and just offering petting on occasion.

Now on the other side of the spectrum is a parrot the likes getting pet so much that it will bite you until you do it. This is unacceptable behavior and absolutely should not be rewarded with the action the parrot desires. In this case I try to change the petting request language from bite to a trick behavior. For instance cue the parrot to wave and when it does, you reward it with some head petting. Not only does this give you an alternate treat to use to food, it also teaches the parrot to do tricks instead of biting to get pet.

In this video you can also see that I created a pseudo cue for accepting petting for my parrot. I had two issues with her. First off, she would nip my fingers if I didn’t pet her the way she wanted. Second, I often get requests from children to pet her and even if she looks like she will let them, I am worried about her changing her mind and biting them. So what I started to do is to hold her beak whenever I pet her. She wants the petting so she doesn’t mind the beak hold but for me it guarantees that she can’t nip me because I got her. Now when I let others pet her, I hold her beak. This way I know that she can’t bite and if anything it will be me and not a little child petting her.

Usually I either lean the thumb of the same hand I pet her with on top of her beak or I hold her beak between my fingers on the hand she is perches on. This guarantees me that she won’t nip or bite and also it signals to her that enjoyable petting is on its way for her. This way when I want to give other people an opportunity to pet her, I just hold her beak. This signals to the bird that she is going to be pet and takes her mind and worry off that stranger because I just told her that petting is coming and not harm. She lets them pet her and probably won’t bite them because she knows a good thing is coming. And as backup, I got her beak so I know exactly where it is!