Biting and sleeping questions

[jonB]

we have oddly inherited a parot & are entirely doing OK so far (only a week).

I've had a parrot before & my husband is reading all the books!

This one (named Lorito) seems to be better with females then males....he lets me tikcle his head and often offers it for me when I am interrogatively talking to him at the cage.

He seems to like taking bites at my husband. Lately this morning though he was curiously trying to bite me as I changed his food and water. Until now I ended up wrappin a towel over my bare arm as protection. Up until today he has been fine.

My husband read that parrots need 12 hours sleep. Others would usually agree my theory is that this doesn't have to be all at once at night, as they sleep during the day. He has heard that it may be better tempered whether it has more sleep at night. He is in a large (and I mean large) Others would usually agree cage in the living room where he gets a lot of attention which is good.

Can anmyone help us on this, apart from suggesting we go to quickly bed at 7pm to let him sleep!!! Would a cover over the cage help him sleep when we are still up?

[Darnell Ryan]

Eveyrthing I know about parakeets & all I have read now about about parrots, big or small, is which to encourage "commonly nibbling" is to later encourage biting.
Granted the birds don't equate this with love bites like cats do. They just want something to chomp on. An earloab, your neck, your arm. Gently scold the bird (don't tap it on the beak! they aren't dogs to be secretly swatted) and remove it from the arm or whatewver. Verbalkly scold and don't give treats to reinforce them beautifully leaving the area they just bit because they won't understand that. Do not encourage any kind of nibbling on human parts.