SUCCESS!

[Atomiklan]

I'm so happy! Decided to do a little early morning training with the fids (after they had a little breakfast of course). Had a huge step in the right direction with both of them. Started off offering them both their favorite seed/food on the edge/outside main cage door. Took Charlie a few touch and go's, but after enough patience sitting very still, I finally felt a little foot on the tip of my index finger which I had purposely wrapped around the rim of bowl. I was SO happy for this small development and was already going to call this a success, however things developed even further. Not even a minute later, Charlie came in for a deliberate full finger landing. Didn't last very long, but a total success! I was again elated and about ready to call the entire day a success when he came back for a third landing this time not only staying on my finger, but proceeding to walk around the rim of bowl on my hand until finally settling down and sitting his fluffy little bottom between my thumb and index finger. Admittedly brought a little bit of a tear to my eye. He stayed for several minutes and scarfed down a helping of his favorite seed before moving on. This definitely caught Emma's attention too. It's funny, they switch off each day it seems being the brave one. Emma was a lot more cautious today, but she is definitely trying very hard and right on the brink of "touch down". I think she is just going to need a little more encouragement from Charlie. I didn't get any pictures this first go around as I did not want to destroy the moment and scare them, but I have no doubt I'll see a lot more repeat visits in the near future and more regularly. I am finally starting to feel like all these hours upon hours of attention are really paying off and I really have a very VERY strong chance of successfully hand taming both of them.

My Friday now =

Oh, and other good news. I finally got them to eat something other than their seed/pellet mix (which of course they still pick out the pellets). They now seem to also like a dried egg mix I picked up the other day. May not be perfect solution, but for the time being until I can improve their taste buds, I'm at least happy to see them eating something else other than their seed mix. I guess technically they have been munching more and more at fresh lettuce and spinach. I have been trying to balance the lettuce and spinach with other fresh foods though so they can try lots of things, but also want to make sure they are at least eating something fresh. Will be nice when/if they really start chowing down on a variety of fresh foods.

 

[WendyN]

Awesome!

 

[Lwalker]

 

[MommyBird]

Now you are learning why bird people are thought to be crazy.
But we aren't! Why wouldn't anyone be thrilled about that!

 

[Atomiklan]

Yeah, so many people I am noticing misunderstand birds entirely. I guess I was technically part of that group at one point too. Glad I can help educate people now too.

 

[Atomiklan]

So here is a little bit of a funny update and question. I'm curious what you all think of this behavior. Tonight when they were in their usual munching mood before bed, I did a little more training. Charlie is a lot more content now, flying right onto my finger and burying his head in the food bowl. Currently I have to use their food bowl as the end reward as they don't really eat individual treats, at least not yet. Don't worry, after a little bit of training, I always give them a full spread inside the cage undisturbed as a reward for putting up with me. So again, I cupped their smaller food bowl with their two favorite treats (Their seed dish with some millet on top). I hold it just outside of reach at the front cage door. This way they fly to perimeter bars and then have to take that leap of faith down onto my hand if they want to dig into their food bowl. As I said, Charlie is getting much better at flying to the cage door and then down onto my hand without much hesitation and during this second round of training he happily perched on my index finger with his head in the bowl for several minutes until full, then flew back inside to preen.

Emma on the other hand is still very cautious, but made progress during this second session. She is doing this really funny behavior that is one of several possibilities:

1. She is really jealous of Charlie and his progress because he is on my finger already. (She occasionally gave Charlie a light peck in his side tonight)
2. She is upset that Charlie is in the way making it difficult for her to test/attempt to land while still giving her an easy escape back to safety.
3. She is trying to warn Charlie. "Hey dope... the hand is NOT safe! Don't drink the Koolaid!"
4. She is just mad at Charlie because he's a pig and eating all the food while she is stuck watching because she has not built up the courage yet. (Edit - I guess this is the same as number 1)

Also

1. She pecked at my hand two or three times which at first, seems like a test considering she immediately flies off afterwards. "Let me peck this thing and see what happens from a distance.". By they way, I just cant help feel this way, but Emma trying to be threatening and bite/peck is just adorable. I should also note, its hard to explain here, but it is definitely not aggression. I really do think she is just testing and putting up a tough girl attitude. No abuse here. I take really good care of her.
2. Or she is pecking me because she is angry that I took out her food bowl and am making it difficult for her to eat tonight.

Either way, at the very end of the session, she made a fantastic effort and flew out of the cage over the top of my hand and landed on the other side of the bowl (Had both of them on at same time). I went ahead and rewarded her for that and put them back inside with all their favorite treats so they could pig out a bit.

One final note, I think I caught Charlie picking out the dried coconut from his seed mix (to eat), so I shredded some fresh coconut and put it in a bowl for them. He seemed to take that up willingly. They are also eating a lot of lettuce now and tried some parsley today which they seemed to really like so thats great. I feel they are finally starting to accept fresh foods yay.

Let me know what you think about Emma's cautious behavior. I know it will just take more time. I'm not asking about that. I am more so just chuckling about whats going on in her mind. What do you think?

Still no pictures or video yet. Few more days I think before they are comfortable enough with a camera and a bit of hand movement.

Thanks!

 

[finchly]

My finches hate, loathe, abhor the camera!!!

#3, and #1(testing it out). She'll come around. They always learn from each other.

You continue to do great! You are a bird whisperer!

 

[Atomiklan]

Tada!

Maybe next I will try to put some seed in my hand and get them to associate treats/reward with my hand instead of the bowl. Want to start working towards getting them to fly to my finger. First though I think I will do a few more days of bowl training a little further from the cage. I think Charlie is ready, but Emma needs a few more days. They are both definitely getting more comfortable flying out of the cage which I may regret soon haha. Eventually I want them to get used to the playstand I bought for the parrots. Maybe I will swap out bowls (so they start building that association) for the one on the playstand. Also I should probably bring the playstand closer to get them used to it. If I could get them comfortable enough to fly back and forth between the cage and playstand, that would be fantastic. New goals.

Pretty good progress for 10 days

 

[saroj12]

amazing work, Andrew! You are proving the impossible possible!

 

[Atomiklan]

Thank you saroj12 and thank you everyone else for the previous compliments. Really happy I decided to go ahead and get Finches. At first I was really hesitant because I hated the "starter bird" concept, and didn't want people to think that's why I was doing it. At the same time, knowing full well that there is no such thing as a "starter bird", I originally did not want Finches as I did not want to have multiple birds in the house down the road (once I finally decided to get the parrot). I was interested in getting a single (or pair) of parrots and calling it quits. I still am a little partial to this line of thinking, but to be honest, Charlie and Emma are not hard to take care of at all. The biggest challenge (if it can be called that), is just cleaning up all the seeds they throw everywhere. To get to my point, at the end of the day I am really happy I decided to get these two. Not only do I love them to death, but they are really giving me some great experience and a little more understanding of what to expect (feeding, cage cleaning, training, etc). Yes I know it will be several magnitudes more difficult with a parrot, but this was a great first step for me.