Sullie - now 9 months old :)

[Sweetedge]

Hi all

Hope you all had a great Christmas & New Year!

Well Sullie is doing really well If you remember, when we first got him he was like a wild bird, terrified of us, even more terrified of hands and would go completely nuts when you went anywhere near his cage...

We started with showing him videos of IRN's from youtube, and he would fly over and land on the phone as we just wanted him to get used to flying to us.

Well.. We've made progress now. He now comes out everyday and runs up to the end of his perch on his stand to be near us. He has started taking food out of our hands, which I think for him is a HUGE step. At first we started off with large things like big monkey nuts, but now he'll take anything right down to tiny sunflower seeds With me, he even walks up to the end of the perch and bangs the end of the perch and then looks at me as if he is demanding a monkey nut lol

A new thing he has started to do now is to fly to my hand to get the food which we're really proud of him for and very very recently... he has started to talk! He has the most amazing cute little voice I have ever heard, and has started shouting 'Hello' and 'What are you doing?' (Which he was practicing at 7am this morning!!) hehe - think he's also trying to say 'Mummy's little baby' and 'Are you ok Sullie?' - but wow, he just sounds sooooo cute!! hehe

I 'think' from what I have read on here he's showing male signs, as he walks up the perch tapping the perch with his beak and never ever puts his head back, always forward when doing his little 'dance'

A question I have now is, now he has started to fly to our hands to take the food off us, how do we get him used to stepping up onto our finger? I know he's still not 100% with hands, but I think he's figured out that we're not going to hurt him and is more wary now of them rather than scared. Has anyone got any ideas? He's never been into stepping up on a perch as he gets scared and flies off so any help would be very much appreciated. I'm worried that if I push my hand on him he'll get scared of them again

Thanks again for all your help - this forum is fantastic!!!

Trace & Sullie xxx

[ellieelectrons]

Congrats. You're doing a great job!

Do you have a gym area for your bird. Eg. a perched area outside the cage where you can approach the bird.

The key is letting the bird come to you to step up and luring with a treat is a good idea.

Also, if you make sure your bird is foraging for most of its food, this will make you the easy way to get treats. Here are some foraging posts if you are interested in reading more:
http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... 01&p=69400
http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... =4&t=13466

http://www.parrotenrichment.com/ - this site has some free ebooks to download

Ellie.

[Sweetedge]

Thanks Ellie

Yes, we have a perched area outside his cage - when he comes out, he jumps straight on this and walks up to the end we sit at. He seems comfortable enough to walk up to my hand and take food from it, so I'll try the next step and try holding it away with the offer of my finger to get to the food and I'll see what he does He's a little cheat sometimes, and tries flying and hovering over my hand to try and grab the food without having to land - I have tried to explain to him he's not a hummingbird!! haha Although the thing that makes my husband and I laugh the most is when I hold the treat away from him, and he stands right at the end of his perch, leans over as far as he can and then stretches his tongue out trying to get it LOL It really makes us giggle!!

We're starting to get him into the habit of foraging - I bought some foraging toys that we can hide food in. I hide food underneath paper for him to find as well etc, but I'll def read those posts for more ideas - thank you

Thanks for your help Ellie

Trace & Sullie xxx

[ellieelectrons]

Another idea would be to introduce clicker training. I don't personally do clicker training but I believe in the principles of it and I'm guessing would be good for birds that are a little scared of hands.

Ellie.

[Sweetedge]

Thanks Ellie - will give that a go as well - We bought a clicker last year not long after we got Sullie. Every time we clicked he jumped out of his feathers lol Now he's settled in though we'll give it another try and see if we have anymore luck lol

Thanks

Trace & Sullie xxx