WiseBudgie
Meeting neighbors
- Joined
- 10/26/20
- Messages
- 37
Hi! I have two male cockatiels, Lenny and Lucy. Recently, I’ve been trying to work with them more and training them, but I’ll admit I’m not the best at doing so. What I want to someday be able to do is have my cockatiels allow me petting them and have them step onto my fingers without hesitation or millet.
The problem is, they tend to back away and hesitate whenever I offer my fingers for them to step up to or even when I get my hands close to them. If I try petting them, they hiss and run off. How can I get them to stop being so untrusting of my hands? They’re fine with eating seeds from my palm, but I have to bribe them with millet to get closer to my hand when I set it down. I do understand I need to take baby steps, but I’m unsure of how to take these steps.
I don’t know if this makes a difference, but they do prefer training together. If I separate them for training, they’ll start calling out for each other and being totally distracted. Not to mention that Lenny is like a leader for Lucy, and whenever Lucy sees Lenny doing something, he’ll feel comfortable doing it too, like how I was able to teach both of them to kiss just by Lucy watching me teach Lenny.
The problem is, they tend to back away and hesitate whenever I offer my fingers for them to step up to or even when I get my hands close to them. If I try petting them, they hiss and run off. How can I get them to stop being so untrusting of my hands? They’re fine with eating seeds from my palm, but I have to bribe them with millet to get closer to my hand when I set it down. I do understand I need to take baby steps, but I’m unsure of how to take these steps.
I don’t know if this makes a difference, but they do prefer training together. If I separate them for training, they’ll start calling out for each other and being totally distracted. Not to mention that Lenny is like a leader for Lucy, and whenever Lucy sees Lenny doing something, he’ll feel comfortable doing it too, like how I was able to teach both of them to kiss just by Lucy watching me teach Lenny.