Help, I can't think of any more tricks to teach Nele!

[InTheAir]

Heyo,

I don't know what to teach the bird next.... I taught him how to strum a ukulele on the weekend and now I'm completely out of new ideas. It was a good challenge, as he had to learn to hold the pick, not just put it somewhere.

I was considering teaching him to lie on his back, but it seems a bit boring from his point of view.

He like manipulating objects best.

Any suggestions?


Regards,
Claire

[ellieelectrons]

Reading your message Claire, so you've taught your bird to use a tool? That's pretty advanced! Well done.

Ellie.

[InTheAir]

I didn't want to risk him near the uke without something in his chompers, uke strings are the most expensive part of the whole instrument
I actually videoed most of the training process this time, um and assessed myself... I'm still pretty all over the place with my cues, lucky Nele hasn't found that a problem.

[InTheAir]

Hey Ellie, did your birds have trouble learning to flip around your finger?
Nele learnt it ages ago, but he still can't do it well... He has to readjust his feet halfway thru and use his wings as well as his beak to get upright.
I don't get him to practise it because I am worried it could be to do with his body being a bit wonky... But then he does some advanced/crazy climbing and hanging maneuvers when he's at leisure that make me think he may just need more practise at the trick to refine his technique.

[ellieelectrons]

My birds don't/can't flip on my finger. They did try it once and they almost clawed my finger off! They only do it on perches. I didn't train the behavior in Janey, I captured it. She would do it when she was excited and wanted me to pick her up off a particular perch, so I attached a cue to it and eventually she learned to generalise it to other perches.

Charlie was a bit harder to teach as he's doesn't show his excitement in the same way as Janey but he eventually started to copy Janey doing it and I eventually captured it and assigned a cue for him too. Sometimes they do it for me without the cue to beg for a treat.

Ellie.

[InTheAir]

Wow, that's cool!
Thanks.