Congratulations on your new one! Great that you joined, so many wonderful people here .
Sounds like you have done great, really.
I have a new re home , I think she
, steps up great , wont get off me tho and bites bites and yes those GCC can bite hard ! Guess the universe decided I needed a refresher in behavior, but with a different twist. ..
its sounds like yours at some point had forced interaction or negative association with the step up . My pet store quaker definitely did, and a huge fear of hands . Took six months to get her past it , and after close to 4 years together something caused us a set back again . Took a month to earn back her trust .
its just really easy for parrots to have a fear of hands , or to not exactly get our weirdling arms and hands I don't know, but it's common.
i will share ideas, and hopefully the group shares their ideas as you never know what will click fur you guys . And read other threads and posts , and join in! You never know what good stuff you might pic up.
share a pic of your baby too;
sounds like you guys are friends with being able to preen that's definitely a friend thing with birds !
ok one way is to do a little targeting. I will link a video I like , because it does a good job if the basics, and shares some hiccups too. For myself, I don't do the full on target training with clicker type, but you can . I kinda do a modified version because I just personally dislike clickers totally just a the sound bugs me and trying to manage it thing , absolutely not against fir others lol . The concept is the same tho, shaping and rewarding and linking with a que .
ok for me I link good birdie, so I teach/ associate good birdie with all good things . For new, birds or as starting points, I do this by saying good birdie when the eat , when they preen, when they take a bath, as they start to nap , when they play with a toy ,abd every time they take a treat. Anything they do that is postive and good to them I link with good birdie. I think they they make the connection pretty quick , and fir me it helpful in shaping all kinds of things down the road .
ok for the targeting. Man...this is already long...I should just stick the video in! Anyway, I use a safflower seed as my treat. I tap a spot near the bird and show them the treat , when they walk over I say good birdie and give the treat. I keep sessions short about 3 reps and break. I will do several times a day , over days until they have it down and I can move them around.
Up a perch down a perch. I should put in here, I do this out of the cage on top of cage . I have a lot of perches on the outside of the cage , attached on the outside but the door, and in the outside sides and across the outside top of cage. Because it's much easier to move in perches than climb across the bars in top of the cage and why not make it an extended play area and hang out.
Now that the bird is comfy doing that . I can lay my hand flat on the top of the cage . And target them near it if they are super reactive to just seeing my none moving hand at first . When they are ok with that , I target them to step on my flat non move hand fir a treat then back off. Then walk across my hand to the other side fir a treat . I will keep doing this in short sessions until walking in my nin moving hand , over it around it is nothing. Then I will turn my hand keeping all my fingers together thumb tucked pinky and palm sideways flat ion the cage basically it's in the step up positioning but I'm not going to mive it keeping contact with tge cage. Now I'm going to target the bird to hop up on that hand fir treat , and over fur treat. Until that is no big deal. I will introduce step up ( or different phrase if negative association with that phrase) when they get on my hand . The next step will be the same only I will raise my hand and inch when the step on for treat . You will help that by delaying the treat earlier in the process by standing on you hand fir a few seconds before treat. Then I start raising my hand more and then moving it to me then back to the cage too for treat. Or in my hand to a nearby perch and off fir treat . Pretty much golden after that .
This is just one way , there are other ways.
It's important to shape behavior in little steps you can reward until you reach the desired behavior you want . Fir just about anything you want to do . This is how zoo keepers shape wild creatures to do many behaviors by breaking it down to little steps tgey feel comfortable with a d can grasp what you are asking. Things can move fast or slow through the process it's fluid to them .
Ok I like this target training video. It's called one day miracle fur a reason, not all birds will grasp and move through the concepts at this speed. But the do talk how they take breaks .
