Desperate for your taming tips!

[kayla]

Hi everyone, I'm Kayla

I got my Ringneck about a month and a half ago, from a local family owned pet store. He was supposedly 6-7 months old when I brought him home, and was being kept in an aviary with wild cockatiels.
The store owners were slightly reluctant in giving me his history, but from what I could gather he might have belonged to an old man who could no longer care for him.
He was completely wild, and would scream (actually he still does this! it's very piercing!) whenever the wild cockatoos fly over my house, and would panic and scramble to the back of his cage whenever i came within 2 metres of him.
Since then I've spent all my time with him, first getting him to relax when I came near just by reading fairytales for days! and when he was comfortable with me being around him, gradually got him to take food through the bars of his cage, and soon after straight from my hand. So now I just keep this up and chat to him.

SO! my question is, what is the next step? I'm desperate for more interaction with him, and being that this is my first parrot I definitely need all the help I can get, so any advice you can give would be hugely appreciated!

Also, he is flighted, and as much as I'm not 100% comfortable with having his wings clipped, especially at a point where we're building trust, would it be a better option to have them clipped for his taming period, and let them grow back out permanently afterward?

Thanks so much!

[ellieelectrons]

Hi Kayla

Sounds like you are your IRN are doing really well. Good job! I'm glad to hear he is settling down so nicely.

Probably the next thing is to get your bird stepping up, although you could also try some trick training such as turnarounds (do a search of the forum for info on this). Trick training is good as it builds a bond between you and your bird. Turnarounds are a good first trick because it doesn't involve you touching the bird. However, stepping up is definitely the most useful behaviour for him to learn next. Generally for trick training and step up training it will be best to have an out of cage t-perch or gym for you to interact with your bird on. Do you have something like that?

Here is a good resource on training parrots to step up.
http://goodbirdinc.blogspot.com.au/2009 ... up_28.html

Your bird will be easier to train if you clip its wings... but it's still not impossible to do when its wings are not clipped... so that decision is up to you. If your bird flies away, keep using food rewards to get him back. Also, if you are finding he is not interested in the food rewards then you can either try: 1) finding a higher value food reward (something he likes more), 2) increasing foraging opportunities (generally birds should get 90% of their food through foraging any way, it prevents cage boredom) and 3) do the training just prior to when you are due to give your bird new food.

Good luck! Let us know how you progress.

Ellie.

[kayla]

Hi Ellie,

Thanks so much for your advice & resources! Incredibly helpful
I'll definitely get started with the turnaround, hopefully all goes well
I'm happy to hear I can still work with him unclipped, I was definitely not up for that!


Thanks again!