Treats?

[nataliestegall]

My African Grey is extremely picky with food. I have started reading the parrot wizard guide book and would like to start some of the training from the book, but am held up by the fact that Drake will not eat anything from my hand. I have tried multiple treats, fruits, vegetables, etc. I am looking for suggestions. It doesn't matter if he is hungry or not he will not do it. He is pretty tame and is not scared of me and I can handle him so it is not that. Thanks for any advice.

[Harpmaker]

Is he afraid of your hand? Can you try feeding him with chopsticks? Or put a nut between two fingers palm-side-down for him to retrieve on his own? Will he take treats from a saucer?

Depending on which of these, if any, work, Drake may have either bonding, hand, or other issues, and we can figure out which to work on.

[nataliestegall]

I dont think he is scared of my hand. He loves it when I scratch his head and he has never really bite me and I play with him often. He will eat from his food bowels I have many different ones and he will eat out of all of them, depending on what I put in it (he is very very picky). He will not eat out of my hand though, when I try he will put his head down and look at it but then walk away from it. He kinda refuses to eat out of anything but his dish. For instance I just ate myself had some chicken, stuffing and vegies and he was very interested in it when I tried to give him some or put my plate down to share he freaks out and wont have none of it, but when I am eating it and if he cant get to it he paces and tries to get my attention to share then I do and he dont want it. :S. I am not sure what to do. He will not take anything from my hand for me to treat him for training to work.

[Michael]

Just wrote a new one about this. http://TrainedParrot.com/Pos_Reinforcement

Also take a look at http://TrainedParrot.com/Treats

[Wolf]

You mention that you have several dishes of food out at any given time. May I enquire as to how many dishes and what I could expect to find in them at any given time during the day. Also how much food is in each dish and how often are you feeding them this buffet?

[nataliestegall]

Wolf there is no buffet, I was just stating that I use several different bowels not at the same time. I wash them between feedings and sometimes one is still in the dish washer etc so he eats out of several different bowels but not at once. He gets fed many different things depending on the time of day and whats going on. For example for breakfast I try to give him something warm he loves the goldenfeast line that you add boiling water to and let cool, he likes that a little warm. Then around noon he gets seed mix and vegetables or fruit depending on what I have handy. Then around supper time I give him some more warm food and/or pellets.

[Wolf]

Awww; No buffet, what a shame! I was thinking that maybe I could come and be one of your birds. ours sounded like the best food deal that I have heard of. No buffet,$&$*@.

My grey is a bit picky as well and will only on rare occasions take food from my hand. Also if I attempt to teach her tricks that are for my amusement, she looks at me like I am off my rocker. She will listen and watch intently, right at first and it appears that she then thinks about it for a couple of minutes, then it seems that she makes a decision. Mostly it seems that if I want to teach her a word, she will try, but tricks? No way! She doesn't take treats for words either but will accept a little petting. Very smart birds.

[Pajarita]

Well, the problem, my dear, is that there are no 'high value' items for your bird for the simple reason that he gets everything all the time. For one thing, parrots don't need lunch. This concept doesn't exist in the wild, birds do not do lunch so the first thing you need to do is eliminate this meal. Give him some type of soft, healthy food in the morning like gloop, mash, chop, etc with raw produce. I tried to find a Goldenfeast product meant to be cooked but didn't see anything on their website that looked as if it was meant to be eaten this way (everything was seeds, nuts or dried fruit) so I can't comment on what it is that you are now feeding for breakfast in terms of nutrition but the problem might be that it's too high in protein (parrots fed high protein don't 'take' to 'reward' items as well as the ones that don't). And, for dinner, offer a good quality seed mix but just enough for him to fill his crop and no more. If you do this, he will be more than happy to take an almond from your hand in no time at all.

And, PLEASE! no human food! You have a blank canvass on your hands, don't mess it up with bad food because unless you are a vegetarian (which you are not), eat organic with no salt and all your food is homemade and prepared from scratch, your food is not good for him.

BUT, if I were you, I would hold off on the training because he is still a baby and he hasn't been with you long enough, just a couple of weeks. He needs to grow up and become bonded to you before you even think of training. Grays are highstrung and extremely sensitive to stress and pushing them has real bad consequences later on...

[nataliestegall]

I figured someone would get on to me for the lunch thing, but I read that younger birds could be fed up to 3 times a day and since my bird is younger hatch date of March 22 that is what I have been doing. I also have been doing it because he lost a little weight when he first got here from not really eating much for the first few days which I also read is normal. I have had him since the 28th of August. I really just want to start training him so he has something to do. He seems bored and my efforts to play with him seem not to be entertaining (for him not for me) He just wants to sit there and whistle at me. The goldenfeast food is not really a food you cook, you just add boiling water to it and then let cool. Its not really a mash per say, but it has different things in it like brown rice, almonds, pasta, pineapple, bananas, apples, carrots, peas, peppers, beets, beans, berries, corn, etc in it.

[Wolf]

I understand your reasoning with the extra meal, and am not faulting you for it, but with your plans for training you may want to cut it from the menu. A good alternative is just to make a small increase in his evening meal and see if his weight starts to pick up. The reason for this suggestion is that you want him to be a little hungry when you begin your training sessions and this means that the best time for training would be before breakfast. Another time is after letting him out for exercise and then do your training about 2 hours before the evening meal.