Step Up

[RavenclawPrefect]

Step up is such a basic thing, all my birds...even the ones who prefer to be left alone, will step up if I ask them to. The three chicks that hatched here, we just said step up from a very early age as we handled them for handfeeding. The other birds learned step up before they came home. (And my quaker yells STEP UP from his cage if we take too long to open his door in the morning)

Kyma, an orange winged amazon who is approximately 9 years old, recently joined our family, less than a week ago. She does not know how to step up and it appears she never learned how to step up to a person. To move her from her cage to her stand, a dishtowel is needed (She will lunge and bite a hand attempting to move her right now). She does not object to this, she stands while I put the towel on her and doesn't struggle or complain about it but will chew the towel. She is a biter at the moment so I attempted a t-stand step up and all she did was flutter off the perch she was on, backwards, rather than attempt to step on to the stand.

Any suggestions would be appreciated since everything I find on the web says a gentle nudge will cause her to step up onto the stand.

She is a sweetie who allows head scratches, takes food very gently from my hand, will run over to stand next to me and leans waaayyyy over. I really think she would like to step up but doesn't have a clue how to make the leap. And since I have never attempted to teach step up on a bird who had no clue, I don't know where to start with her.

 

[Holiday]

Step up is such a basic thing, all my birds...even the ones who prefer to be left alone, will step up if I ask them to. The three chicks that hatched here, we just said step up from a very early age as we handled them for handfeeding. The other birds learned step up before they came home. (And my quaker yells STEP UP from his cage if we take too long to open his door in the morning)

Kyma, an orange winged amazon who is approximately 9 years old, recently joined our family, less than a week ago. She does not know how to step up and it appears she never learned how to step up to a person. To move her from her cage to her stand, a dishtowel is needed (She will lunge and bite a hand attempting to move her right now). She does not object to this, she stands while I put the towel on her and doesn't struggle or complain about it but will chew the towel. She is a biter at the moment so I attempted a t-stand step up and all she did was flutter off the perch she was on, backwards, rather than attempt to step on to the stand.

Any suggestions would be appreciated since everything I find on the web says a gentle nudge will cause her to step up onto the stand.

She is a sweetie who allows head scratches, takes food very gently from my hand, will run over to stand next to me and leans waaayyyy over. I really think she would like to step up but doesn't have a clue how to make the leap. And since I have never attempted to teach step up on a bird who had no clue, I don't know where to start with her.

Well, every bird is a little different, and I don't know how you feel about hand-training a zon, but I can share what I did with my young rehomed Hahn's who had been force-taught to step up and wouldn't do it for me at all when he got here.

He hates the words "step up." So, if I brought my hand up for him to step up and said those words, he would immediately nip or bite. But, he would take treats from my hand. So, I held the treat up so he could see it, just out of reach, and put my hand up so that if he stepped onto it, he could reach the treat. When he stepped onto the hand reaching for the treat, I said "good boy!" and let him have the treat.

I now cue him to step up with "come here" and let him have the treat and it works great. But I nearly always have to have the treat where he can see it. He still has bad associations with hands, but it gets a little better every day, though. If you are uncomfortable using your hand, maybe you could use a short stick with this technique?

 

[CeddysMum]

^^^ Yep, I agree.

Also, if she's scared of hands (which is natural instinct, to birds hands are the equivalent to the 'paw' or 'claws' of a predator), maybe try to teach her to step up on your forearm instead.

Ceddy still won't step up onto my hand (we're working on her losing the discomfort of perching on my hands) but she'll very happily step up onto my forearms.