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earlybirdx

earlybirdx

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Hi all, can you kindly give me some advice!!!
I have had my Sun Conure for approx 6 months, he is 10 months old. He is very friendly flying on my shoulder and taking food out of my hand however I cannot get him used to letting me touch him/he does not step up or anything. He comes to me on his terms only. As I am home based for work he is always out of his cage (I dont like him being in it except to sleep and if I go out) from first thing until approx 8pm.
Please help ... I am fed up chasing him to get him back in his cage.
:budgie:
 
Hi there. I'm no expert, but I have two mini macaws who need to go into their cage together every night so I trained them using their favourite treat, pine nuts. It took some time and patience, but now it is just part of their routine and they look forward to going to bed because they know they will get a treat. They usually start telling me "come, come" which is Hahn's macaw for "bedtime" about 7PM (their bedtime is 7:30 PM. To be fair though, the don't get out during the day as I need to work and can't do that with Madame Ziggy trying to eat my laptop, so they come out when I'm finished at 4PM. They are perfectly happy in their cage, but then again there are two of them.

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cazimodo said:
Hi there. I'm no expert, but I have two mini macaws who need to go into their cage together every night so I trained them using their favourite treat, pine nuts. It took some time and patience, but now it is just part of their routine and they look forward to going to bed because they know they will get a treat. They usually start telling me "come, come" which is Hahn's macaw for "bedtime" about 7PM (their bedtime is 7:30 PM. To be fair though, the don't get out during the day as I need to work and can't do that with Madame Ziggy trying to eat my laptop, so they come out when I'm finished at 4PM. They are perfectly happy in their cage, but then again there are two of them.

Sent from my Moto Z2 Play using Tapatalk
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Thanks, I will try him with some treats.
 
One of my caiques doesn't like stepping up on demand but she just gets in the sleep/travel cage when I need her to without me asking her to step up, it becomes routine and your bird will get it eventually

I would definitely try target training if I were you, no hands on touching then, so the bird feels comfortable and knows what you want it to do.
 
Try reading through Roz's training threads
Will tag her she is great with explaining these kind of things and what things to watch for and either encourage or ignore birdie body language wise
@Roz
 
Heather2131 said:
One of my caiques doesn't like stepping up on demand but she just gets in the sleep/travel cage when I need her to without me asking her to step up, it becomes routine and your bird will get it eventually

I would definitely try target training if I were you, no hands on touching then, so the bird feels comfortable and knows what you want it to do.
Click to expand...
Thanks
 
Hi and :welcome:to the forum.
I would suggest a little more in cage time wouldn’t go amiss, so that your bird learns to entertain himself a bit more, Chewing and foraging toys will keep him occupied. Having to play chase isn’t a good experience for either f you, and it seems that it is bringing in negative reinforcement, that he doesn’t want to go into the cage. You need to make cage a fun and happy place to be, so use a favourite treat to give him when he steps up, and returns to his cage.

Here is a link to a thread which Roz has done on step up
https://theparrotclub.co.uk/communi...-reliable-step-up-and-trouble-shooting.21605/
 
TomsMum said:
Hi and :welcome:to the forum.
I would suggest a little more in cage time wouldn’t go amiss, so that your bird learns to entertain himself a bit more, Chewing and foraging toys will keep him occupied. Having to play chase isn’t a good experience for either f you, and it seems that it is bringing in negative reinforcement, that he doesn’t want to go into the cage. You need to make cage a fun and happy place to be, so use a favourite treat to give him when he steps up, and returns to his cage.

Here is a link to a thread which Roz has done on step up
https://theparrotclub.co.uk/communi...-reliable-step-up-and-trouble-shooting.21605/
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
Yes, as everyone is saying, make it more reinforcing to be in the cage. It's absolutely brilliant that he will take food from your fingers. You can work with this! Give him a favourite treat for behaviour you want to see more of. When my Kobe (Pionus) goes into his night cage, he gets his favourite piece of almond. If I didn't make it reinforcing EVERY time by offering him his treat, he would start refusing to go in. Because the almond is so reinforcing, Kobe can't wait to go to bed every night.

earlybirdx said:
He comes to me on his terms only.
Click to expand...

Excellent start! So make those terms very attractive for him. Highly reinforce his coming to you EVERY time. Reinforcement might be giving him a favourite treat, or access to a favourite toy, or a head scratch, or...... as you get to know each other the list of reinforcers will grow and grow. He will begin to look forward to hanging out with you more and more because you are associated with good experiences.

The step up can be a difficult behaviour for a parrot to achieve. There are lots of components to a step up. Looking at your finger. Turning body towards your finger, taking a step towards your finger. Taking more steps towards your finger. Lifting a foot and placing it on your finger. Lifting the other foot to complete the step up. You will achieve success by breaking down the step up into these components and reinforcing (rewarding) each step as the bird achieves them. You can see how to train this in the thread below:
https://theparrotclub.co.uk/community/index.php?threads/shaping-the-step-up-back-to-basics.21349/

If he is not comfortable with your hands, teach him to step up on a hand held perch (which will be useful later when older should he become hormonal/aggressive). You may have to desensitise him to the perch first and use one that is similar to one already in his cage.
 
The first mistake is chasing him, this is stopping your bird from trusting you in every way, do not feed him out side his cage so he has to go back to feed him self. the cage must be seen as his safe place and not a place of punishment. ok you have slightly lost some of the trust your bird has for you but all is not lost. you need to let him settle to a new routine and realise he is safe with your hand. I will leave the training advice to Roz. typed this morning but I had an emergency to go out and deal with and did not post until now
 
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