Hi I’m looking for advice . I recently got a male alexandrine he is 7 months old and untamed . I have had him 3 days and he is very nervous to the point he tries to bite at you if you go near his cage .he is terrified of me. I have been trying to get him used to me by standing by the cage and gradually getting closer. He is in the front room and with everyone all day but if I get with in a couple of feet he gets super aggressive. Am I in the wrong if I just open the cage door and let him come out when he is ready ? What do I do next and how do I get him back in his cage if he douse not let me near him ? Thanks
Rio bird! And congrats on giving Rio a home. Do you know anything about his history? Was he an aviary bird?
My advice is to aim to keep his body language as relaxed as possible at all times so that he begins to pair your presence with a good relaxed feeling. If on the other hand you get too close too quickly and he starts lunging at you, you have gone way too far too fast... and in fact are only teaching him to lunge more. So it may mean staying the other side of the room as much as possible for now.
Of course you will have to go up to his cage to clean him out and change food and water bowls, but try to do that as unobtrusively as possible. Birds feel safer higher up where they can more easily spot predators (bear in mind that humans with their eyes on the front of their heads are predators). In a cage a bird can't get any higher, but you can get lower. So get down low when cleaning the cage out. When my untame Amazon Ollie arrived, I would literally crawl to his cage as that was the only way to keep his body language as relaxed as possible. I also was careful to make no direct eye contact - eye contact can send an untame bird into a melt down (as it did with Ollie) or it can result in aggression. Move slowly and smoothly around him with no jerky movements. With Ollie and the extremely aggressive Chico (another rescue Amazon) I found singing softly or humming as I cleaned them out calmed them because it let them know what I was doing... it became part of the routine. Routine is so important for a new bird. Plus silence is predatory.
Try using negative reinforcement to approach the cage. This is explained in this thread:
Reinforcers and how to use them with a Parrot who is fearful of humans Building a history of Reinforcement from almost nothing We all have to start somewhere. A new parrot will have had no time yet to build a nice long history of reinforcement with us. Maybe that parrot is used to humans and...
theparrotclub.co.uk
Then when you can get close enough you can offer some positive reinforcement in the shape of a favourite piece of food. That might not be for a while yet, and that is ok.
Talking about food, get a routine going. Clean out his cage roughly at the same time every day and feed him roughly the same time every day - morning and evening. Have one bowl full of dry food and one full of fresh fruit and veggies. Notice how quickly he comes to the food bowl after you slot it in. Also notice which foods he goes for first as these will be his favourites which you can use later in training. At the beginning you will have to walk away before he feels courageous enough to check out the food bowls. Plus give him time to get used to his cage and everything inside so that he is comfortable enough to call it home. When he knows the routine, is less scared of you, feels happier in his cage, then try opening the cage door perhaps an hour or two before breakfast (when he is hungriest) so that when you slot in the food bowls, he takes himself back into the cage to eat. That's how I worked it with Ollie - I never had to touch him. There is no point in opening the door whilst he's completely fearful as he will probably panic (fly into walls etc) and you will probably have to towel him to get him back into his cage, thus pairing yourself with an aversive and losing any trust that you might have built.
You have all the time in the world to gain Rio's trust and work with him. Go slowly. Rushing will lose his trust.
Would love to see a picture of Rio and his cage set up as soon as he isn't fearful of a camera.