having trouble taming our parrot

[sparky2585]

we bought an indian ringneck parrot a week ago she is apparently 4-5 months old the parrot is content in her cage she clicks with her beak eats her food fine plays with her toys .
bought her untamed and have been trying to tame her in the following ways
1 holding her and strocking her head for an hour a day- with this method she nips constantly but does eventually calm down

we did try the click training and were able to reach in and scratch her neck without being bitten, but the next day she returns to normal and she bites whenever we try and hold her or offer treats and she is still very scared of us when we approach her with the exception of the attempt of the click training method
whenever we approach the cage she goes of her perch and over to the back corner of her cage and tries to fly away from us it just seems that our attempts are not acheiveing anything positive she is just as scared as she was the first day we bought her

please offer any advice on what to do next

[Polarn]

I'm sorry if I come across as harsh here. But I think your missing a couple of things here.well we'll start with a couple, first off I think you lack the insight to look at it from the birds perspective. How would you feel if you we're terrified of elephants and you had one pin you down for an hour a day, I guess you wouldn't feel that good about it... Holding a bird striking its head will result in a somewhat apathic bird that doesn't learn to trust or like you, all it creates is a bird that gives up because it knows there are no point in saying no. Pretty much as an abused kid won't argue about bending forward when a belt is coming out, because they learn that the beating their back will take hurts less than if they argue about it, the back will be bruised in the end anyways. Now beating and holding is not the same thing bu the fact that you can learn to choose one bad over another plus this one is.

Second thing, either your really good at clicker training having a successful result already after a week, I'd look into what the clicker actually is and how you condition a bird, or any other pet to the clicker. The clicker basically does nothing good for you unless you have thought the bird what a clicker does for it. And I doubt your bird in any way understand what the clicker is there for. If you bought an untamed bird it isn't uncommon to take a month just to get the bird to willingly come to you to eat from your hands. Then imagine what it will take for it to trust you enough to willingly be grabbed.

[sparky2585]

thank you for your advice, no it doesn't come across harsh we would rather be told where we are going wrong, the reason we did this was because we were advised by a bird breeder of 35 years to do this method of taking her out and holding her and stroking her no matter how much she struggles, we were told that this would help calm her down and get her used to being held etc.

we read about the clicker method on several other sites and we did attempt it and on the first attempt as I previously said we had good results but long term this Is not working.

I understand what you are saying about the elephant thing and youre probably right about that.

do you have any other suggestions on how to approach the bird? should we stop trying to hold her? we have previously read that talking to the bird through the cage for several hours a day would be a positive method and then eventually offering treats etc but this seemed a bit long- winded...what do you think?

[Polarn]

well, to be honest taming a wild animal is a long-winded process. The old methods were to pin the bird or whatever animal down and force it to accept touch, but this doesn't make for a relationship that is benefitial and it doesn't really make the bird want to be with you but merely accept it has no choice, however using this method will result in more fits where biting and screaming will be present when you try to handle the bird. Giving the bird a choice and find out on its own weather or not it finds being with you rewarding (make sure it is rewarding for the bird) you will train the bird to WANT to be with you, making for a good relationship. But this requires patience and a will to make whats best for the bird. it will require numerous hours of talking through the bars and placing treats for the bird to go fetch. I'd say once the bird will accept a treat from your hands, that is when you can move on to something else (stepping up will probably not be what the bird will be comftible with thoguh) I'd suggest targeting since that isnt that intrusive and it gives you a good tool for future training as well as a method of moving the bird in/out of the cage when needed etcetera.

But for now I would make sure to work on being able to get up to the cage without the bird being scared, so the talking through bars may not even be sitting at the cage talking, it may be sitting at the other end of the room talking/reading a book out loud/singing or whatever you prefer doing. Could get a good book on training/behavior or whatever and "kill two birds with one stone" and read it loud to your bird, this will provide you with more knowledge as well as the bird getting to hear your voice while your not forcing the bird in any way or intruding.

And the clicker is used as a bridge pretty much the simplest terms to ever explain what the click is:

Click=good boy

The click is easier to time than a phrase and it is consistant this is why clicker traiing is effective, the click itself may just as well be a buzz, a plopp or whatever easily timed. the click itself is not a magic sound making an animal behave or something. I'm guessing you used the clicker as a distraction (I encounter people quite often that try clicker training but has no idea what it really is) so they go clicking away to distract their dog/whatever, eventually (and pretty quick) the animal wont be distracted by this sound anymore and you would have to find something else... however this is a poointless thing to strive for since the goal isn't to distract the animal in question the goal is to possitively reinforce the animal making it WANT todo what you want it todo, simply because it finds it rewarding.

Taking home a parrot (or any bird for that matter) can not be compared to taking home a dog or a cat, both these animals are bred where they have constant human interaction and they are domesticated animals, a puppy will most likely be playful and cuddly the same day it arrives and a kitten may be slightly scared and hide over the sofa and try catch your feet, whereas most people start playing with the cat making it chase strings or whatever to get the cat less scared (now this is a pretty quick process usually with kittens) for numerous reasons, they are not forced to cuddle, their distracted by the chase and rewarded by catching the string. so basically you do push the cat to come forth while constantly reward it, everytime the cat touches your sock/string or whatever it chases it is rewarded, if you ever brought a kitten home that was scared to begin with try recollect how many times this kitten was rewarded by "catching" you or a toy before it was comftible with you even petting it, then try think of again how many more times it took before it willingly came climbing to your lap for cuddles...

basically find a way to reward the bird and then try reward it to coming to you rather than forcing it..

[Polarn]

At work so got cut short on last post. Anyways just wanted to add that even though I used a kitten as comparisment... Pestering a bird to chases a stick with a string on is not at all rewarding to the bird. And tamig a bird is usually a much much longer process than taming a kitten. If your bird is currently becoming afraid when you walk up to the cage, I will almost guarantee that the biggest reward right now for your bird is you backing off, creating space, and leaving it alone.. Now of course you can not leave it totally alone and expect him to take down. However you can use it as a reward. By getting up til the point where he starts to be wary about your present and then just freeze stand still and wait for the bird to be totally relaxed. Once relaxed you take a few steps back, wait a second then redo it. This is using you leaving it alone as a reward for keeping calm when you move closer. If you want you can introduce the clicker already here, by clicking it as soon as he relaxes and then move away, but only click it once and only when the bird is relaxed and when your about to step back. But at this stage a "good boy" in a calm voice will probably serve you just as good.