IndianRingNeck.com

Good Morning all,

Me and my girlfriend have recently aquired an IRN. It is an amazing bird but it seems extremelly afraid of both of us. For example, we have the IRN in a large cage next to our sofa. He will either pace across the perch near the top, keep his back turned on us or sit still whilst facing us. However, if either of us move to stand up he will fly to the far end of the cage, even if we are making no approach to the cage. If we put our hands in the cage for longer than 10 seconds he starts squarking. He will however happily eat and drink from his bowl, with us merely metres away so I wonder if this means he's not totally uncomfortable? I know you must get questions like this all the time but...

What can we do here to build his trust? He won't take treats from our hands (even if we are feeding them through the cage), he tries to fly away and squarks at the sight of our hands in his cage. We have let him out the cage a couple of times (which again he was happy to come out) and seemed content to enter his cage once he was hungry/tired etc. Should we allow him to come and go as he pleases and try to gain his trust that way by hoping he slowly gets accustomed to our presence, or should we only allow him out of the cage once we have gained his trust initially? Would it help to get another IRN (who perhaps has been hand reared)? We both hate the idea that we are causing him upset and distress. We believe that he was perhaps mistreated by the breader (although we have no evidence of this). We do not want to give him up but feel that if we cannot turn this around we will have little choice as we do not want him to be in a constant state of distress.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Was this an aviary raised bird or handraised and allowed to turn wild?

I don't believe it was an aviary raised bird. It would more likely handraised, allowed to turn wild.

Perhaps you can try holding the treat through the bars just above his food bowl for a few moments. Like you said, he won't take treats just yet, but let him see it and then drop it into his bowl. Say something nice and walk away. He should begin to associate you with happy treat time.

It's easiest to pick a treat if you watch what he eats first from his food dish (it's usually sunflower seeds). So now he never gets that food in his dish unless you drop it in. So if it's sunflower seeds, pick them all out (or just switch to a sunflower-free mix lol) and use sunflowers only for treat.

Maybe as you approach, you can ask him if he wants sunflower seeds. Then he should be able to connect the wordsounds with "there's a treat coming!" and might not run so far away. Eventually he might work his way towards the treat. Sometimes I would hold the treat until the scared bird showed definite interest and stepped closer (usually they only take a step or two and stop, too scared to come closer) and then drop it in. Each time nothing bad happens, the bird realises it's not so big a deal and gains more confidence. In a perfect world. Tenacity is your new mantra.

Best wishes

--MissK

Hi there have the exact same problem with my irn young male . Just wondering hw you are getting on with yours any progress thanks