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[Ringo295]

So I got my Indian Ringneck named Ringo about a month ago. He has access to my entire room, but really only sits on top of his cage, and sometimes screams. I fill his bowl with food, and another with water, and another with fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. He does not seem interested at all in the fresh food dish, and throws out the fresh nuts. He is scared of me still. I talk to him, I haven’t chased him down or anything because that would scare him. When I move an inch towards him, he moves like 10 inches away from me. I really don’t know what to do. I have looked online for tips or videos, and all of them they could at least touch their parrot. I cannot touch Ringo at all. I try to give him his favorite treats, sunflower seeds, but he will not move an inch towards my hand with the treat. He sometimes is interested when I talk to him, but not enough to move towards me at all. I would like to start target training with him, but how would I do that if I can’t even move a step towards him. He is in my bedroom, so it’s not like he isn't used to me, because I am in there a lot. I also think he might be plucking his feathers in one specific spot under his left wing, but no where else. He does not touch any of his toys either. He seems healthy other than the plucking under one wing (which I can’t really get a good look at because he won’t let me touch him anyway). He is comfortable enough to sleep and preen in my presence though. I just don’t know how to even start taming him. I talk to him a lot too, any tips on anything?!

 

[Shezbug]

Bump

 

[Pixiebeak]

Welcome to the forum,!

@Parutti has an African ring neck who she has worked with and made progress

 

[Parutti]

Welcome!

My ringneck Cotton was 18 months and wanting nothing to do with humans when I got him last year. Just like Ringo, he walked away if I got near him, but would sleep and preen and chatter if I was just hanging out in the room.

It's been slow progress, but he'll now take walnuts from my hand and just in the last month we've made progress desensitizing a target stick - I can get about 2 feet away while holding the stick without him walking away.

This is just my opinion, but I think ringneck body language is sometimes more subtle than other species. It's taken me much longer to be able to read Cotton than it has with my Quaker. At first with Cotton, I could definitely tell when he was really relaxed - fluffy head, "soft" eyes, sitting kinda squat. And I could tell when he was REALLY nervous - tall skinny posture, flat feathers, big eyes. But I couldn't tell at all when he would very FIRST start to be suspicious - so I know I made a lot of mistakes trying to build trust, because I didn't notice the 10 things he was doing BEFORE he walked away to tell me I was making him uncomfortable.

Ringnecks also, to my understanding, live in parts of the world with the highest number of natural predators around them. I've also read that they are not monogamous and are not allopreeners, so they really are wired to be standoffish and suspicious of anything new. I honestly think the super social, friendly ringnecks we see and hear of are not the norm. Learning that for me was helpful because I felt so "behind" and probably tried pushing Cotton a little hard here and there and set us back over and over.

For building trust, I did pretty much the same things as you - sat by his cage and talked to him. I added a little metal bowl just inside his cage nearest to where I would sit, and then if he was relaxed and happy while I was talking, I'd drop a piece of walnut (his favorite treat - for Ringo it sounds like sunflower seeds would be what you'd want to use) in the bowl. I used metal so that it makes a little sound when I put something in it. He learned really quickly what the "treat bowl" is.

I also talk through EVERYTHING I'm doing when I'm around him. I talk in a normal voice and until very very recently I never used an excited happy tone - he really did NOT like any show of excitement or attention. It's literally in the last couple of weeks that he's started being okay with me saying "Good boy!" - so it was a big adjustment compared to other birds I've met that would do anything for attention and praise. For example I would have a running monologue the whole time I'd change his food/water/cage papers, "Ok Cotton I'm going to give you food now and take this old bowl out, don't worry, I'm not going to touch you, and it's okay if you move away but I'm not going to reach toward you with my hand, I'm only reaching with the bowl, everything will be just fine and it won't be scary" etc etc non stop.

I have a local parrot store owned by someone SUPER knowledgeable and he said to me once that for birds that are naturally more fearful or suspicious, they are going to be more nervous if you're quiet, because we are a predator, and when predators get quiet that usually means prey is about to be lunch.

I had a hard time breaking things down into different steps, because all the animals I've worked with before pretty quickly decided they'd work with me to get treats. Cotton is motivated to get walnuts, but only on his terms. I kind of have to let everything be his decision or he just won't participate.

So it's not "taming" as a big catch all action that we're doing. It's all these separate things - "taking sunflower seeds from my hand" - "being relaxed when I approach" - "being relaxed around a target stick" - and even though success in one area can build on another area, Ringo might react totally differently to one thing than the other.

Our progression has looked like this -

Cotton would take treats through the cage bars while I was seated, and retreat to eat them.

Then he started coming back to the cage bars "asking" for more.

Then he started taking treats from me while outside his cage (on top, his preferred place to be, always) and would walk fast away to the opposite side to eat it.

Then he started taking treats, walking all the way away, then coming back to ask for more.

Then he started taking treats, walking only a couple steps away.

Now we're working on him being ok with a target stick in my hand.

So the first thing I worked on by itself was getting Cotton used to what "training time" meant - for me I wanted him to know that training time means I'll get close to you and nothing scary will happen.

At first his reward was me STOPPING giving him attention. He wanted me to leave him alone, so that's what I used to help reinforce him staying calm.

I started across the room and started talking, like "hey Cotton, it's training time now, we're going to work on how we communicate to each other and I'm going to work on getting better at knowing when you're relaxed and when you're nervous. I'm going to walk a little closer now" and then I would take a couple steps. You want to get just close enough Ringo is on alert, but not so close that he moves away. The second he looks even a tiny bit alert or nervous, stop. Then wait (while talking softly and looking away now and then so you aren't staring) until he relaxes again. As soon as he does, say "good boy" or "yes" or whatever "marker word" you want to use, then take a step backward or turn around completely.

The goal is to teach Ringo that staying calm gets him what he wants.

If you can get close enough to drop treats for him in a bowl, you can add that step before moving away again.

That's where I would start, anyway, just work on Ringo starting to learn that he doesn't have to be on high alert every time you're moving around. It took about 6 months for Cotton to let me come right up to the cage and offer him treats from my hand, so I think it's great that Ringo is already doing that even if he's super nervous about everything else happening.

For food and toys -
Some birds haven't learned how to play with toys. It's expensive at first for sure, but you might have to keep trying different toys and put sunflower seeds in them to try to get him to investigate.

Most ringnecks love foraging for their food, so once he's eating a more varied diet you can definitely use foraging to get him interacting with more things around his environment. You can start with putting a few toys or crumpled pieces of paper over top of seeds in his bowl, so he has to move the paper/toys to get to the food.

If he likes all seeds, take all the sunflower seeds out of his mix, then when you feed him veggies you can sprinkle a few seeds (minus sunflower seeds, save those for training) on them to try to get him to accidentally eat some veggies.

You can try doing veggies in all different ways, too - Cotton likes it best when everything except sweet peppers are chopped really small. He HATES broccoli or anything green so now that he'll eat pellets and try more new foods (after months and months and months of only eating peppers and seeds!) I use a skewer and put slices of peppers in between green veggies and green leaves like spinach - and he does take bites here and there.

Only recently he's started trying new foods if I put them in his bowl, but most everything still gets tossed on the ground. I think he trusts that I'm offering what *I* think is food now, but he thinks my taste sucks haha

I'm sorry this is SO LONG!!!

But I really do think that what you're going through right now is VERY common with ringnecks! I've definitely met way more people that have been in your shoes, than people who have friendly talkative ringnecks.

You can also pretend in your head that he just came home today - that has helped me on days where I feel like all our progress disappeared. Kind of resetting my mind to start from scratch and not try to make things happen too fast.

Hang in there, you already have enough patience and willingness to make it work, and you both will get there

 

[Pixiebeak]

@Parutti that was so well written,!

Love hearing about your progress and steps with Cotton!

 

[Ringo295]

Welcome!

My ringneck Cotton was 18 months and wanting nothing to do with humans when I got him last year. Just like Ringo, he walked away if I got near him, but would sleep and preen and chatter if I was just hanging out in the room.

It's been slow progress, but he'll now take walnuts from my hand and just in the last month we've made progress desensitizing a target stick - I can get about 2 feet away while holding the stick without him walking away.

This is just my opinion, but I think ringneck body language is sometimes more subtle than other species. It's taken me much longer to be able to read Cotton than it has with my Quaker. At first with Cotton, I could definitely tell when he was really relaxed - fluffy head, "soft" eyes, sitting kinda squat. And I could tell when he was REALLY nervous - tall skinny posture, flat feathers, big eyes. But I couldn't tell at all when he would very FIRST start to be suspicious - so I know I made a lot of mistakes trying to build trust, because I didn't notice the 10 things he was doing BEFORE he walked away to tell me I was making him uncomfortable.

Ringnecks also, to my understanding, live in parts of the world with the highest number of natural predators around them. I've also read that they are not monogamous and are not allopreeners, so they really are wired to be standoffish and suspicious of anything new. I honestly think the super social, friendly ringnecks we see and hear of are not the norm. Learning that for me was helpful because I felt so "behind" and probably tried pushing Cotton a little hard here and there and set us back over and over.

For building trust, I did pretty much the same things as you - sat by his cage and talked to him. I added a little metal bowl just inside his cage nearest to where I would sit, and then if he was relaxed and happy while I was talking, I'd drop a piece of walnut (his favorite treat - for Ringo it sounds like sunflower seeds would be what you'd want to use) in the bowl. I used metal so that it makes a little sound when I put something in it. He learned really quickly what the "treat bowl" is.

I also talk through EVERYTHING I'm doing when I'm around him. I talk in a normal voice and until very very recently I never used an excited happy tone - he really did NOT like any show of excitement or attention. It's literally in the last couple of weeks that he's started being okay with me saying "Good boy!" - so it was a big adjustment compared to other birds I've met that would do anything for attention and praise. For example I would have a running monologue the whole time I'd change his food/water/cage papers, "Ok Cotton I'm going to give you food now and take this old bowl out, don't worry, I'm not going to touch you, and it's okay if you move away but I'm not going to reach toward you with my hand, I'm only reaching with the bowl, everything will be just fine and it won't be scary" etc etc non stop.

I have a local parrot store owned by someone SUPER knowledgeable and he said to me once that for birds that are naturally more fearful or suspicious, they are going to be more nervous if you're quiet, because we are a predator, and when predators get quiet that usually means prey is about to be lunch.

I had a hard time breaking things down into different steps, because all the animals I've worked with before pretty quickly decided they'd work with me to get treats. Cotton is motivated to get walnuts, but only on his terms. I kind of have to let everything be his decision or he just won't participate.

So it's not "taming" as a big catch all action that we're doing. It's all these separate things - "taking sunflower seeds from my hand" - "being relaxed when I approach" - "being relaxed around a target stick" - and even though success in one area can build on another area, Ringo might react totally differently to one thing than the other.

Our progression has looked like this -

Cotton would take treats through the cage bars while I was seated, and retreat to eat them.

Then he started coming back to the cage bars "asking" for more.

Then he started taking treats from me while outside his cage (on top, his preferred place to be, always) and would walk fast away to the opposite side to eat it.

Then he started taking treats, walking all the way away, then coming back to ask for more.

Then he started taking treats, walking only a couple steps away.

Now we're working on him being ok with a target stick in my hand.

So the first thing I worked on by itself was getting Cotton used to what "training time" meant - for me I wanted him to know that training time means I'll get close to you and nothing scary will happen.

At first his reward was me STOPPING giving him attention. He wanted me to leave him alone, so that's what I used to help reinforce him staying calm.

I started across the room and started talking, like "hey Cotton, it's training time now, we're going to work on how we communicate to each other and I'm going to work on getting better at knowing when you're relaxed and when you're nervous. I'm going to walk a little closer now" and then I would take a couple steps. You want to get just close enough Ringo is on alert, but not so close that he moves away. The second he looks even a tiny bit alert or nervous, stop. Then wait (while talking softly and looking away now and then so you aren't staring) until he relaxes again. As soon as he does, say "good boy" or "yes" or whatever "marker word" you want to use, then take a step backward or turn around completely.

The goal is to teach Ringo that staying calm gets him what he wants.

If you can get close enough to drop treats for him in a bowl, you can add that step before moving away again.

That's where I would start, anyway, just work on Ringo starting to learn that he doesn't have to be on high alert every time you're moving around. It took about 6 months for Cotton to let me come right up to the cage and offer him treats from my hand, so I think it's great that Ringo is already doing that even if he's super nervous about everything else happening.

For food and toys -
Some birds haven't learned how to play with toys. It's expensive at first for sure, but you might have to keep trying different toys and put sunflower seeds in them to try to get him to investigate.

Most ringnecks love foraging for their food, so once he's eating a more varied diet you can definitely use foraging to get him interacting with more things around his environment. You can start with putting a few toys or crumpled pieces of paper over top of seeds in his bowl, so he has to move the paper/toys to get to the food.

If he likes all seeds, take all the sunflower seeds out of his mix, then when you feed him veggies you can sprinkle a few seeds (minus sunflower seeds, save those for training) on them to try to get him to accidentally eat some veggies.

You can try doing veggies in all different ways, too - Cotton likes it best when everything except sweet peppers are chopped really small. He HATES broccoli or anything green so now that he'll eat pellets and try more new foods (after months and months and months of only eating peppers and seeds!) I use a skewer and put slices of peppers in between green veggies and green leaves like spinach - and he does take bites here and there.

Only recently he's started trying new foods if I put them in his bowl, but most everything still gets tossed on the ground. I think he trusts that I'm offering what *I* think is food now, but he thinks my taste sucks haha

I'm sorry this is SO LONG!!!

But I really do think that what you're going through right now is VERY common with ringnecks! I've definitely met way more people that have been in your shoes, than people who have friendly talkative ringnecks.

You can also pretend in your head that he just came home today - that has helped me on days where I feel like all our progress disappeared. Kind of resetting my mind to start from scratch and not try to make things happen too fast.

Hang in there, you already have enough patience and willingness to make it work, and you both will get there

Omg thank you so much, this is going to help a lot. I didn’t even think of leaving him alone, or backing off as a reward! I will definitely try to use all these tips!!!

 

[Ringo295]

Welcome!

My ringneck Cotton was 18 months and wanting nothing to do with humans when I got him last year. Just like Ringo, he walked away if I got near him, but would sleep and preen and chatter if I was just hanging out in the room.

It's been slow progress, but he'll now take walnuts from my hand and just in the last month we've made progress desensitizing a target stick - I can get about 2 feet away while holding the stick without him walking away.

This is just my opinion, but I think ringneck body language is sometimes more subtle than other species. It's taken me much longer to be able to read Cotton than it has with my Quaker. At first with Cotton, I could definitely tell when he was really relaxed - fluffy head, "soft" eyes, sitting kinda squat. And I could tell when he was REALLY nervous - tall skinny posture, flat feathers, big eyes. But I couldn't tell at all when he would very FIRST start to be suspicious - so I know I made a lot of mistakes trying to build trust, because I didn't notice the 10 things he was doing BEFORE he walked away to tell me I was making him uncomfortable.

Ringnecks also, to my understanding, live in parts of the world with the highest number of natural predators around them. I've also read that they are not monogamous and are not allopreeners, so they really are wired to be standoffish and suspicious of anything new. I honestly think the super social, friendly ringnecks we see and hear of are not the norm. Learning that for me was helpful because I felt so "behind" and probably tried pushing Cotton a little hard here and there and set us back over and over.

For building trust, I did pretty much the same things as you - sat by his cage and talked to him. I added a little metal bowl just inside his cage nearest to where I would sit, and then if he was relaxed and happy while I was talking, I'd drop a piece of walnut (his favorite treat - for Ringo it sounds like sunflower seeds would be what you'd want to use) in the bowl. I used metal so that it makes a little sound when I put something in it. He learned really quickly what the "treat bowl" is.

I also talk through EVERYTHING I'm doing when I'm around him. I talk in a normal voice and until very very recently I never used an excited happy tone - he really did NOT like any show of excitement or attention. It's literally in the last couple of weeks that he's started being okay with me saying "Good boy!" - so it was a big adjustment compared to other birds I've met that would do anything for attention and praise. For example I would have a running monologue the whole time I'd change his food/water/cage papers, "Ok Cotton I'm going to give you food now and take this old bowl out, don't worry, I'm not going to touch you, and it's okay if you move away but I'm not going to reach toward you with my hand, I'm only reaching with the bowl, everything will be just fine and it won't be scary" etc etc non stop.

I have a local parrot store owned by someone SUPER knowledgeable and he said to me once that for birds that are naturally more fearful or suspicious, they are going to be more nervous if you're quiet, because we are a predator, and when predators get quiet that usually means prey is about to be lunch.

I had a hard time breaking things down into different steps, because all the animals I've worked with before pretty quickly decided they'd work with me to get treats. Cotton is motivated to get walnuts, but only on his terms. I kind of have to let everything be his decision or he just won't participate.

So it's not "taming" as a big catch all action that we're doing. It's all these separate things - "taking sunflower seeds from my hand" - "being relaxed when I approach" - "being relaxed around a target stick" - and even though success in one area can build on another area, Ringo might react totally differently to one thing than the other.

Our progression has looked like this -

Cotton would take treats through the cage bars while I was seated, and retreat to eat them.

Then he started coming back to the cage bars "asking" for more.

Then he started taking treats from me while outside his cage (on top, his preferred place to be, always) and would walk fast away to the opposite side to eat it.

Then he started taking treats, walking all the way away, then coming back to ask for more.

Then he started taking treats, walking only a couple steps away.

Now we're working on him being ok with a target stick in my hand.

So the first thing I worked on by itself was getting Cotton used to what "training time" meant - for me I wanted him to know that training time means I'll get close to you and nothing scary will happen.

At first his reward was me STOPPING giving him attention. He wanted me to leave him alone, so that's what I used to help reinforce him staying calm.

I started across the room and started talking, like "hey Cotton, it's training time now, we're going to work on how we communicate to each other and I'm going to work on getting better at knowing when you're relaxed and when you're nervous. I'm going to walk a little closer now" and then I would take a couple steps. You want to get just close enough Ringo is on alert, but not so close that he moves away. The second he looks even a tiny bit alert or nervous, stop. Then wait (while talking softly and looking away now and then so you aren't staring) until he relaxes again. As soon as he does, say "good boy" or "yes" or whatever "marker word" you want to use, then take a step backward or turn around completely.

The goal is to teach Ringo that staying calm gets him what he wants.

If you can get close enough to drop treats for him in a bowl, you can add that step before moving away again.

That's where I would start, anyway, just work on Ringo starting to learn that he doesn't have to be on high alert every time you're moving around. It took about 6 months for Cotton to let me come right up to the cage and offer him treats from my hand, so I think it's great that Ringo is already doing that even if he's super nervous about everything else happening.

For food and toys -
Some birds haven't learned how to play with toys. It's expensive at first for sure, but you might have to keep trying different toys and put sunflower seeds in them to try to get him to investigate.

Most ringnecks love foraging for their food, so once he's eating a more varied diet you can definitely use foraging to get him interacting with more things around his environment. You can start with putting a few toys or crumpled pieces of paper over top of seeds in his bowl, so he has to move the paper/toys to get to the food.

If he likes all seeds, take all the sunflower seeds out of his mix, then when you feed him veggies you can sprinkle a few seeds (minus sunflower seeds, save those for training) on them to try to get him to accidentally eat some veggies.

You can try doing veggies in all different ways, too - Cotton likes it best when everything except sweet peppers are chopped really small. He HATES broccoli or anything green so now that he'll eat pellets and try more new foods (after months and months and months of only eating peppers and seeds!) I use a skewer and put slices of peppers in between green veggies and green leaves like spinach - and he does take bites here and there.

Only recently he's started trying new foods if I put them in his bowl, but most everything still gets tossed on the ground. I think he trusts that I'm offering what *I* think is food now, but he thinks my taste sucks haha

I'm sorry this is SO LONG!!!

But I really do think that what you're going through right now is VERY common with ringnecks! I've definitely met way more people that have been in your shoes, than people who have friendly talkative ringnecks.

You can also pretend in your head that he just came home today - that has helped me on days where I feel like all our progress disappeared. Kind of resetting my mind to start from scratch and not try to make things happen too fast.

Hang in there, you already have enough patience and willingness to make it work, and you both will get there

Oh can I also ask, because you have more experience than I do, do you know why he might be screaming? It’s like a verrry loud chirping, I read that it could be due to stress, boredom, wanting attention, or that they are happy. I just don’t know which one it is. He might want attention, because when I talk to him while he is chirping really loud, he quiets down. I don’t scold him, I just ask him “what” nicely, or “what’s wrong”? Just wondering if you might know y he does this lol

 

[Parutti]

Cotton is an African ringneck and I was surprised to find out his vocals are a lot different than an IRN - but he does do a high pitched very loud call/yell that sounds like the IRN call - I think it's his flock call, because he stops when I answer. And he does it first thing in the morning, and when I come in the back door after work. He's also started doing it at the postal delivery person, after my neighbor's dog barks - he'll go to the window and call

He does a lot of "speeches" with different sounds when he's happy and will definitely throw some loud screeching in there but that high loud chirp seems to be his HEY GUYS sound lol

 

[Pixiebeak]

Silver Sage Aviary has many articles worth reading and has a passion for IRN.
I'm linking one article

TAMING YOUR RINGNECK - Silver Sage Aviaries

PLEASE NOTE: When you pick up your handfed “tame” ringneck, the bird should step up easily and be eager to interact with you. Do not believe sellers who claim the bird is tame but “just nervous” if the bird is clearly afraid to be handled. That is how you end up needing to know how...

silversageaviaries.com

Hopefully more IRN members share too.
But you can read what many members have shared here

The good, the bad, and the ugly about Indian Ringnecks.

The attributes listed in this thread are the experiences of each individual and your experiences may differ with your individual bird. First, THE GOOD! I have had Keiba for a few years now, and my experience has been nothing but joyful. Keiba has a friendly personality, and he is very...

forums.avianavenue.com

 

[Alien J]

Welcome!

My ringneck Cotton was 18 months and wanting nothing to do with humans when I got him last year. Just like Ringo, he walked away if I got near him, but would sleep and preen and chatter if I was just hanging out in the room.

It's been slow progress, but he'll now take walnuts from my hand and just in the last month we've made progress desensitizing a target stick - I can get about 2 feet away while holding the stick without him walking away.

This is just my opinion, but I think ringneck body language is sometimes more subtle than other species. It's taken me much longer to be able to read Cotton than it has with my Quaker. At first with Cotton, I could definitely tell when he was really relaxed - fluffy head, "soft" eyes, sitting kinda squat. And I could tell when he was REALLY nervous - tall skinny posture, flat feathers, big eyes. But I couldn't tell at all when he would very FIRST start to be suspicious - so I know I made a lot of mistakes trying to build trust, because I didn't notice the 10 things he was doing BEFORE he walked away to tell me I was making him uncomfortable.

Ringnecks also, to my understanding, live in parts of the world with the highest number of natural predators around them. I've also read that they are not monogamous and are not allopreeners, so they really are wired to be standoffish and suspicious of anything new. I honestly think the super social, friendly ringnecks we see and hear of are not the norm. Learning that for me was helpful because I felt so "behind" and probably tried pushing Cotton a little hard here and there and set us back over and over.

For building trust, I did pretty much the same things as you - sat by his cage and talked to him. I added a little metal bowl just inside his cage nearest to where I would sit, and then if he was relaxed and happy while I was talking, I'd drop a piece of walnut (his favorite treat - for Ringo it sounds like sunflower seeds would be what you'd want to use) in the bowl. I used metal so that it makes a little sound when I put something in it. He learned really quickly what the "treat bowl" is.

I also talk through EVERYTHING I'm doing when I'm around him. I talk in a normal voice and until very very recently I never used an excited happy tone - he really did NOT like any show of excitement or attention. It's literally in the last couple of weeks that he's started being okay with me saying "Good boy!" - so it was a big adjustment compared to other birds I've met that would do anything for attention and praise. For example I would have a running monologue the whole time I'd change his food/water/cage papers, "Ok Cotton I'm going to give you food now and take this old bowl out, don't worry, I'm not going to touch you, and it's okay if you move away but I'm not going to reach toward you with my hand, I'm only reaching with the bowl, everything will be just fine and it won't be scary" etc etc non stop.

I have a local parrot store owned by someone SUPER knowledgeable and he said to me once that for birds that are naturally more fearful or suspicious, they are going to be more nervous if you're quiet, because we are a predator, and when predators get quiet that usually means prey is about to be lunch.

I had a hard time breaking things down into different steps, because all the animals I've worked with before pretty quickly decided they'd work with me to get treats. Cotton is motivated to get walnuts, but only on his terms. I kind of have to let everything be his decision or he just won't participate.

So it's not "taming" as a big catch all action that we're doing. It's all these separate things - "taking sunflower seeds from my hand" - "being relaxed when I approach" - "being relaxed around a target stick" - and even though success in one area can build on another area, Ringo might react totally differently to one thing than the other.

Our progression has looked like this -

Cotton would take treats through the cage bars while I was seated, and retreat to eat them.

Then he started coming back to the cage bars "asking" for more.

Then he started taking treats from me while outside his cage (on top, his preferred place to be, always) and would walk fast away to the opposite side to eat it.

Then he started taking treats, walking all the way away, then coming back to ask for more.

Then he started taking treats, walking only a couple steps away.

Now we're working on him being ok with a target stick in my hand.

So the first thing I worked on by itself was getting Cotton used to what "training time" meant - for me I wanted him to know that training time means I'll get close to you and nothing scary will happen.

At first his reward was me STOPPING giving him attention. He wanted me to leave him alone, so that's what I used to help reinforce him staying calm.

I started across the room and started talking, like "hey Cotton, it's training time now, we're going to work on how we communicate to each other and I'm going to work on getting better at knowing when you're relaxed and when you're nervous. I'm going to walk a little closer now" and then I would take a couple steps. You want to get just close enough Ringo is on alert, but not so close that he moves away. The second he looks even a tiny bit alert or nervous, stop. Then wait (while talking softly and looking away now and then so you aren't staring) until he relaxes again. As soon as he does, say "good boy" or "yes" or whatever "marker word" you want to use, then take a step backward or turn around completely.

The goal is to teach Ringo that staying calm gets him what he wants.

If you can get close enough to drop treats for him in a bowl, you can add that step before moving away again.

That's where I would start, anyway, just work on Ringo starting to learn that he doesn't have to be on high alert every time you're moving around. It took about 6 months for Cotton to let me come right up to the cage and offer him treats from my hand, so I think it's great that Ringo is already doing that even if he's super nervous about everything else happening.

For food and toys -
Some birds haven't learned how to play with toys. It's expensive at first for sure, but you might have to keep trying different toys and put sunflower seeds in them to try to get him to investigate.

Most ringnecks love foraging for their food, so once he's eating a more varied diet you can definitely use foraging to get him interacting with more things around his environment. You can start with putting a few toys or crumpled pieces of paper over top of seeds in his bowl, so he has to move the paper/toys to get to the food.

If he likes all seeds, take all the sunflower seeds out of his mix, then when you feed him veggies you can sprinkle a few seeds (minus sunflower seeds, save those for training) on them to try to get him to accidentally eat some veggies.

You can try doing veggies in all different ways, too - Cotton likes it best when everything except sweet peppers are chopped really small. He HATES broccoli or anything green so now that he'll eat pellets and try more new foods (after months and months and months of only eating peppers and seeds!) I use a skewer and put slices of peppers in between green veggies and green leaves like spinach - and he does take bites here and there.

Only recently he's started trying new foods if I put them in his bowl, but most everything still gets tossed on the ground. I think he trusts that I'm offering what *I* think is food now, but he thinks my taste sucks haha

I'm sorry this is SO LONG!!!

But I really do think that what you're going through right now is VERY common with ringnecks! I've definitely met way more people that have been in your shoes, than people who have friendly talkative ringnecks.

You can also pretend in your head that he just came home today - that has helped me on days where I feel like all our progress disappeared. Kind of resetting my mind to start from scratch and not try to make things happen too fast.

Hang in there, you already have enough patience and willingness to make it work, and you both will get there

I have to say that this was one of the best, most informative replies I've ever read. For any bird. It sure would have helped me with Noki. I broke his trust every time I got it back, bcuz by the time I would get it back it would be time to take him out of his cage and put him in the travel cage to clean his big cage and put down 5 or 6 layers of his bedding. He had a complete femeral fracture, so I would put in layers with a potty pad for puppies in between each layer so I could just roll up a layer without taking him out for a week or so. Your explanation and instruction are amazing and I'm going to copy it and save it. Once we get settled in our new home and off the road in this RV, TD will finally have his own bird safe room and I'm sure I'll be referring to this a lot as we begin this new chapter of our life together. Thank you!