Narley
Regular Member
Hi all! I hope you’re all well and keeping safe just wanted to pose a question to you parrot folks, Kiko is moving along really nicely although we are working through a few issues though, his target training has gone backwards a little, I think it’s because the motivation aka treats is not quite high enough, it seemed to coincide with me starting to leave me hand in his cage with some of his old seed mix, which has worked amazingly for getting him to happily sit on my hand and chow down (he even fell asleep on my hand yesterday) NOW all he wants is for me to do that rather than target train which I can understand I mean why work for just one treat when you can chow down on a whole handful. I really wanted him to become more comfortable with my hands before i let him out the cage which is going to be this Saturday and in that sense it’s worked amazingly well but I’ve kind of shot myself in the foot or rather hand because I also wanted his targeting to be quite strong before I let him out for the first time. Oh well I know the target training will come along eventually... but yeah back to my main point. I’m just going to outline what my plan is for his first outing out of the cage and see if you guys can give me pointers or things to think about that I may not have, or whether I need to something differently?
basically the plan is... Saturday i’m going to give him his breakfast in his cage, then I’m going to open the door...I’ve not got any plans or need to leave. So I can stay and watch him all day if that’s how long it takes for him to either leave the cage or take himself back inside the cage. I’m not going to try training him or approaching him this first time, it’s up to him to interact with me. I will give him some treats if he does come and check me out so I’m a nice experience for him. But I won’t try to target him to me. All other food will be in his cage and he will have to go back there to eat. In terms of food I’m just going to mix some of his seeds in with his veg meals and then when I really want him to go back in and stay in his cage only then will I let put in his old seed mix in all its glory (with some sneaky pellets mixed in) so that it’s extra rewarding for him to remain in his cage. We’ve really worked on parrot proofing the lounge so I shouldn’t have to intervene or rescue him unnecessarily anyways that’s sort of my “plan” is there anything in there you guys think I should do differently or maybe something I’ve overlooked? So excited to finally let this little dude have his first fly around but also really want it to go perfectly so we don’t take any steps back in terms of trust and bond building.
basically the plan is... Saturday i’m going to give him his breakfast in his cage, then I’m going to open the door...I’ve not got any plans or need to leave. So I can stay and watch him all day if that’s how long it takes for him to either leave the cage or take himself back inside the cage. I’m not going to try training him or approaching him this first time, it’s up to him to interact with me. I will give him some treats if he does come and check me out so I’m a nice experience for him. But I won’t try to target him to me. All other food will be in his cage and he will have to go back there to eat. In terms of food I’m just going to mix some of his seeds in with his veg meals and then when I really want him to go back in and stay in his cage only then will I let put in his old seed mix in all its glory (with some sneaky pellets mixed in) so that it’s extra rewarding for him to remain in his cage. We’ve really worked on parrot proofing the lounge so I shouldn’t have to intervene or rescue him unnecessarily anyways that’s sort of my “plan” is there anything in there you guys think I should do differently or maybe something I’ve overlooked? So excited to finally let this little dude have his first fly around but also really want it to go perfectly so we don’t take any steps back in terms of trust and bond building.