My 8 months old, male IRN Mike is with me for the past couple of months. Initially, he was a very very scared bird who rushes to the corner of the cage if I am approaching the cage. My mind ran out of ideas and was helpless. Then,I joined this forum
to overcome those hard days where I was unable to create the chance to show how much love I have for him. By reading all the useful tips in this forum, I learnt so many things to understand my feathered friend. Things started to change gradually from that day, my interaction with my feathered friend started to improve as I spent more hours everyday talking to him in a cheerful voice,getting closer to him inch by inch every day, hunting the internet for his favorite foods and toys. And so far, The three major improvements I have seen in these two months with my IRN are
1) Firstly, He wasn't eating well and scared. And then, He started accepting food from the BBQ sticks and I rewarded him with his favorite treat "Apple" every time he shows a good behavior. First accomplishment as a first time owner !
2) I really wanted to get closer to him, lost my patience at that time and tried to tame him through " Flooding" - and he started getting very nervous and seemed to keep on biting my fingers every time I use the towel. I sought help from this forum and "ellieelectrons" helped me to get rid of that false method of taming and suggested to feed him though the cage bars at first. After a couple of failures, he finally accepted food through the cage bars
I used to say" Grab the food from Papa " whenever he accepts food through the cage bars. Such beautiful moments 
This was my second successful accomplishment through this forum3) And then came the day, when he started accept food from my hands
Trust me, Patience was and is the word. Understanding his body language was so crucial to move my hands closer to him ! He now allows me to use my hand to get closer to him with the food in my hand, inches close to his beautiful beak ! He eats apples and grapes at the moment. My third successful accomplishment through this Forum ! Thank You so much guys ! It would have never been possible without your help
I am so grateful to each one of you who replied to my posts !And, I am standing again in front of you people seeking help - over again !
I still can see he is still afraid about my fingers, although he accepts food from my fingers. Occasionally,He does a test bite on my fingers wondering if its an another food and then realizes its something related with me and runs away. If I get close to touch him, while offering food, he somehow guesses it, no matter how slowly I approach ! So what he does at that time is he tries to get far away from the hand(doesn't care even if I have the food in my fingers). And If I get still closer to him, that's it ! Boom - he takes his flight
! He guesses it somehow that I am going to touch him rather than offering food. But he still accepts food from my hands from the next day as usual.1) Can you guys suggest me your ideas to help me touch him and pat him from this stage, please ?
2) He accepts only selected foods like apples and grapes from my hand. Since he's only 8 months old, I want him to introduce to different food types.Whenever I introduce a new food in my hand, he gets scared and moves far away from me. Please help me with hand-feeding different foods ?
3) Can anyone suggest me a good play gym for the IRN. I can see he loves to play and explore new things once he gets used to it. I think he deserves a lot of play time for all his good behaviors.
Is a Birdie Basketball Gym a good choice for a Play-Gym(I couldn't attach off-site URL's with my post since I am a new user) or if you have better choices in your mind, please let me know ?
I know its a quite big post, but I feel its always important to let the new users know how successful this forum has been to me till now ?
and its my duty to be grateful to this forum for all their help !
Awaiting your replies,
Sujith