Parent reared hahns macaw

ashleighanscombe

Regular Member
Registered
Hey
Looking for some guidance
We brought Arlo home weekends just gone so very early days!
But he has been amazing so far.
We gave him time to settle and tried to follow his lead.
So far we have fed him through the bars and while I was cleaning his cage he was being super nosie so I tried holding some seeds in my flat hand to see what would happen he took it. He now actively takes food from our hand in the cage and has also started target training. Which he has taken to very well.
Next step is stepping on to our hands?
So he has nudged my hand with his foot and also stepped for a millisecond onto my hand with 1 foot (of course the clicker slipped and I wasn't able to clicker :rolleyes: )
But what is the best way to do this so far he hasent been out of his cage we don't want to get him out to have a palava and cause him to be nervous of going back in?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated on the next steps
Thank you :budgie:
 
First thing to do is try and bird proof the room a bit, anything breakable you don't want damaged best to remove someplace safe. You'd be surprised how much mischief these guys can cause 🤣🤣

Ensure doors are closed, you don't want any escapades around the place and also you don't want any accidents with doors being shut on the little one.

Windows, try and cover them partially so the little one knows they can't fly through it, some people use stickers others use blinds or net curtains. Same goes for mirrors. Once the little one is comfortable sitting on your hand or arm you can walk them over to windows and mirror and introduce them to them by tapping on the glass so they can learn its solid.

I'm sure Roz is going to come in with lots of training information for you to go through 🙂
 
Sounds like you are doing extremely well already! You can certainly teach him to step up inside the cage. That's pretty good that he touched your hand with a foot. Even though the clicker slipped, did you reinforce the behaviour? The most important part of training is the reinforcer/reward. The click is the "bridge" to say "yes, you did well!" and you can just as easily use a short verbal bridge eg. "good!" so that you aren't fumbling for the clicker. Whatever bridge you are using it needs to be immediately followed by the reinforcer. You can read about how to shape stepping up here:


Re letting him out of the cage, I would wait until he knows his feeding routine. When he is immediately and consistently going down to eat after you slot in his breakfast bowl, then think about opening the door to his cage maybe an hour or so before breakfast when he's hungriest. Let him choose to come out if he wants to. He may or may not, but if he does, hopefully when he sees you slot in his breakfast bowl, he will go back in of his own accord. I'd do this on a day that you are home all day just in case it goes wrong!

Even though you train him to step up inside his cage, it may not immediately generalise to outside of his cage. It would need retraining in a different location but the training shouldn't take as long.
 
Sounds like you are doing extremely well already! You can certainly teach him to step up inside the cage. That's pretty good that he touched your hand with a foot. Even though the clicker slipped, did you reinforce the behaviour? The most important part of training is the reinforcer/reward. The click is the "bridge" to say "yes, you did well!" and you can just as easily use a short verbal bridge eg. "good!" so that you aren't fumbling for the clicker. Whatever bridge you are using it needs to be immediately followed by the reinforcer. You can read about how to shape stepping up here:


Re letting him out of the cage, I would wait until he knows his feeding routine. When he is immediately and consistently going down to eat after you slot in his breakfast bowl, then think about opening the door to his cage maybe an hour or so before breakfast when he's hungriest. Let him choose to come out if he wants to. He may or may not, but if he does, hopefully when he sees you slot in his breakfast bowl, he will go back in of his own accord. I'd do this on a day that you are home all day just in case it goes wrong!

Even though you train him to step up inside his cage, it may not immediately generalise to outside of his cage. It would need retraining in a different location but the training shouldn't take as long.
Yes I verbally praised him as such and gave him a treat.
My husband suggested using a perch to get him to step on to first rather then hand? Or would this be confusing ?
Ah yes he isn't quite like that yet with his food in the morning, but I have changed his feeding routine as he always had food avalible before where as I am giving him a feeding routine rather then constant supply.
I am also changing his seeds as he was on a mix that had monkey nuts and sunflower seeds in which I wanted to change.
I have put a perch on his door ready for when he is coming out
Thank you will have a look at the links now.
 
Usually parrots should have access to food throughout the day. But you can take the food out during the night. :)
Sorry yes thats what I meant so I put food down so he has food throughout the day but not of a night his not taking any veg at the moment but just going to keep offering dont want to chnage to much qt once for him
 
A lovely bird. My Hahns macaws used to love pine/cedar nuts and would do anything for them...they can be great inducements to 'step up'. They also really loved warm peas - lightly boiled or steamed. Anyway, the main thing I'd say with regard to taming is to take it slowly. There's no rush and most young birds become tame quite naturally. And of course following Roz's advice is the best thing to do in most cases!
 
Little update for you all.
he now steps up onto out hands not everytime, but he does come onto our hands which is amazing!
They do love to feel dont they before they step onto things, which is certainly a little scary 😅.
We have also got him stepping onto a training perch so we have that to use aswell
 
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