Thanks for the advice, I've appreciated the advice and anything I can learn about these guys.
My original intention was only to get one, though I ended up picking up two of them about two weeks or so back. The house they were in and the conditions were pretty bad, so I hope I can kind of turn things around for them. From what I was told, they original came from a bird shop which closed, then the current owners were getting rid of them since their daughter didn't take interest to them. I was informed that they are 9 months old, which from some research into telling age I can believe that number.
The green one seems to be in perfect shape, though the yellow one I'm still a bit concerned about. When I was able to take a closer look I noticed that the yellow's left wing flight feathers has been ripped out. The feathers were just missing and the little stubby end showed amounts of dried blood. I wasn't able to get a story about what happened to him, though with the little dogs in the owner's house I assumed one of them got to him. Also, out of the two he was the one that initially acted the most stressed when I attempted to interact with them.
The birds came very untame, though I'm working on improving them every day. Originally they didn't want anything to do with people and I have a few large gashes in my hand to show for it. Below are the steps I've taken so far and how they have responded.
- First I got them to the house, both set up in a very large cage. They were provided water, pellets as well as cut up veggies. The cage was near my computer desk as well as next to a window. As I said, they didn't want anything to do with me and I can tell they were super stressed. I gave them some time to settle in before interacting with them.
- Not too long after I began with some towel interaction, taking one out of the cage, keeping them snug in the towel, then just sitting with them and talking with them softly. The green one always wanted to escape the towel, where the yellow one would eventually just stay still and look up at me. I did this for a few days and the green one eventually stopped biting at the towel if I had to go pick him up, this was awesome to see some progress.
- Inbetween the towel training, I ended up clipping their wings. They didn't fight all that had when I did it, and it allowed me to let them have a bit more freedom around the house. At this point I would take them to a closed room and let them wander around. I did this with them both individually.
- Although they had been warming up to being handled, they still didn't want anything to do with me and would still bite at my hands. So I decided to stop using the towel and just interact with my hands directly. I've certainly got a few hard bites that are still showing, but I have really been able to see their acceptance of my hand and the biting has toned down to more soft nips that don't hurt at all. Though a day or so in I decided to file down the tips on their beak which has improved the damage to my hand quite a bit.
- I was making progress with them, though I could tell that having them in the same cage might have been an issue. So a few days ago I ended up getting a separate cage and putting them in separate rooms of the house. They didn't seem too disturbed about this, though I could still tell they would have rather not been separated. After a day they began calling out to each other in the house every now and then, which I really don't mind.
This pretty much brings us up to present day. In the short time I've had them they have been slowly improving, though there is still a lot of taming and training to do.
Both of them still don't like it when I get too close to them in the cage, generally climbing to the other side of it. If I go to get them inside the cage, they generally will jump around and do anything they can to avoid my hand. On the up side I've gotten both to sit on my hand for a period of time, even the green one will sit on my shoulder if he can't find something to immediately jump too.
The big thing I'm trying to work on now is trying to give them treats. If I try to give them a treat, they will back away from, eventually fluttering off their cage if I get too close. So for now I'm showing them as stick little pumpkin seeds between their bars, hoping they will eventually associate it with me. My hope is that by establishing this, I can use it as a positive re-reinforcement, since I really don't have much at the moment with them.
Below are pictures of the two. They don't have official names though we have started called them Carrot and Lemon respectively. From what I can tell the green one is starting to develop a bit of a ring, so I believe he will be male. The yellow one, I'm not sure yet on the sex.
https://picasaweb.google.com/Kiro.roo/B ... hsW-v4yWLw#
