Not so friendly Derbyan

[Derbyan_Frank]

Hello all,

I recently (as of January) got my first bird, a Lord Derby's Parakeet. He had been in the store for 7 months because someone decided they didn't want him after asking the store to get him and one other Derbyan from the breeder. I'll admit that I made a huge mistake and jumped into bird ownership without doing a whole lot of research beforehand. That being said, I'm trying very hard to provide this little guy with a good home and keep him healthy and happy.

I've been working with Frank (aka "Mittens") and seem to be stuck on the handling/taming part. He steps up without issue, especially when I'm taking him out of the cage. He likes spending time near me but doesn't like being handled or touched, which I understand is typical for his species, but I would like to get him to be able to tolerate being handled our touched. Specifically, I want him to not try and bite the vet or vet techs...

Another issue I'm having is that he will often leave his play gym and walk up to my arm and start nibbling on me. From what I've read this is a sign that he feels like he's not getting enough attention. When he does this I try some training (basic stuff, like "touch") or try talking to him. I feel that maybe it might help him feel like he's getting more attention if I can safely give him a neck scratch every once and a while as well but again, he hates being touched.

From what I understand I'm supposed to train him to be ok with being handled by clicking/giving a treat whenever he DOESN'T attempt to bite or nibble if I put my hand close to him. What do I do if he ALWAYS attempts to bite/nibble? Note that he has never bitten hard (yet).

[Wolf]

Welcome to the forum that is a nice looking bird that you got yourself, I like the colors. I was going to answer your post, but at the moment I have a bird demanding my attention so check back in a little while for my answer as I really can't type this with my bird chewing on my hands. I will be back soon.

[Wolf]

Sorry about the interruption.
Assuming that you are inexperienced as well as a new bird owner, is probably the best way to approach this. I mean no disrespect to you by this, but I don't know what you do or don't know and I want to be thorough.
'When I bring a new bird home, I have removed that from all that they knew and were familiar to them, with me being the only thing that is remotely familiar but they don't know me. So they have very little to hold on to, and the are very scared in a strange and unknown place without any protection from a flock or anything familiar, and then they don't know me and have no reason to trust me, after all I took them from everything they knew. So for the first 30 to 90 days or longer depending on the bird. I spend most of the time just hanging out with the bird, singing and talking and watching and studying my new friend. You have to be careful on how you watch your bird because they are prey and you are a predator, but you don't want them to think of you as one, so you don't look or stare at the bird you watch from the corner of your eye and in passing. You want to watch the birds body posture and how it holds its feathers or its wings or tail and more. This is the birds body language and it is a big part of how a bird talks to each other and you if you will learn its body language. It is a very beneficial thing to know and can keep you from getting a nasty bite. We can provide you with a link to understanding your birds body language if you need us to.
Spending a lot of time with the bird just talking and singing to them give me the time that I need to learn the body language as well as to assess the birds diet and know what it is actually eating and not just what I am giving it to eat. It lets me see what foods it eats first and second and so on, so I can tell what food my bird likes the best. If I know what the bird like the best then I will know what to give it for a treat and this will be useful when it is time to start training the bird. It also allows me to adjust or change my birds diet to give it the best possible diet that I can to keep the bird happy and healthy.
After letting the bird settle for a day or two with me just hanging out and talking to the bird, it is time to see if the bird is willing to let me approach it in the cage. To do this, I let the bird know that I am there by saying hi or something to it and while watching the bird from the corner of my eye I start approaching the cage and if the bird starts moving around or retreats from me I stop and take one step back. I am talking to the bird and I continue to talk to the bird and wait for it to relax. When it relaxes I move towards the cage and when the bird gets nervous I stop and back off I step. And I keep on talking to the bird, reassuring it and trying to help it calm down and relax. When I reach the cage I start offering the bird a treat through the bars of the cage. On an average I use about three treats per session which last about 10 to 15 minutes. Two or three session a day of this is plenty as you will make more progress with short sessions than long sessions. Continue with these session until the bird is coming to great you ask asks you for a treat. On an average your bird will need to spend about four hours a day with you and longer if possible with at least one hour a day being on you. When the bird is glad to see you and approaches you when you come into the room it is in then you can begin with the first training sessions but keep them short, no more than 10 minutes to start, and no more than 3 times per day. here is the link for this initial training.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227
I hope that this was interesting and useful to you and if there are any questions please feel free to ask.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum! Derbyans are beautiful, beautiful birds! But they are psittaculas and, as such, they are not easy bird to keep 'tame' and yours lived for too long without human intervention so that's the reason why he is the way he is. Psittaculas are never recommended as first time birds because they require expert and very frequent daily handling or they revert to what people call their 'wild' ways - which is what yours have done. They are also not very touchy-feeling birds and I doubt you will ever get to a point where he will be wiling to be touched often so, in my personal opinion, if you have already achieved scratching his head every now and then, you have done an excellent job and should be more than happy with it. His beaking is normal and it might indicate a need to chew - they are great chewers and require material for this so, please, re-evaluate his toys and see if you cannot improve his enrichment. It doesn't need to be expensive, in most cases, a rolled-up unread catalog garners more attention from them than an expensive toy. But regardless of how many chewies they have in their cage, they always end up chewing our clothes, hair, ears, etc because, as far as they are concerned, this is allo-preening and a form of affection so do yourself and him a favor and separate a number of old TShirts as 'parrot clothes' so he can make holes in them to his heart's content.

[Derbyan_Frank]

I don't feel that he's reverted to his wild state; he doesn't seem to be scared of me in the least (though I still need to socialize him). He seems perfectly happy to sit and chew on his toys within inches of my hands while I'm at my desk (and he's on his play gym on top of the same desk).

My issue is that I want him to be safe for the vet/vet-tech or groomer to handle him or inspect him. I know he'll almost certainly never be cuddly like a cockatoo or conure.

[Wolf]

All it takes for that to happen is to practice with him to slowly get him accustomed to lifting and spreading his wings and having his toes lifted, use lots of treats as a reward. The vet or vet tech should be proficient with toweling as many of their procedures will require this because no bird is going to readily accept the invasiveness of these procedures although Pajarita posted a thread on how to make toweling much less stressful for your bird. Here is the link to that,
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12970
Now that I have tried to give you the answer that you are looking for, I would like to add a thought or two of my own.
It occurs to me that there is really very little need for groomers for a bird as unless your bird is sick with something like liver disease or needs corrective trims on its beak these two things beaks and toenails are pretty much never in need of trimming as they do not typically over grow. and if they do then these are procedures that I would much prefer being done by my vet. The only other reason for a groomer is to clip a birds wings and unless there is a medical reason for this it should never be done to a bird as it has not real benefits for either human or bird and is more often than not detrimental to the birds well being.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is correct. Healthy birds don't need grooming and avian vets will always towel a bird for the simple reason that no matter how tame a bird is, it will never accept the kind of handling a vet needs to do in order to conduct a complete physical examination from a stranger and, in most cases, not even from its owner (no bird is going to allow anybody to draw blood from under the wing or the jugular without a fight!). Aside from that, even 'bad' birds behave when they go to the vet. It's like a super intense honeymoon period that only lasts a few hours - birds are always on their 'best behavior' when scared. I've had birds that I could NEVER handle eagerly climb to my shoulder and huddle against my neck when at the vet and it's not because I am special or the bird whisperer, it's that they are very smart and know it's 'better devil you know than the devil you don't'

As to 'wild' ways, it's not what you are thinking. The 'wild' ways that people talk about are not really wild ways as in the behavior of a wild bird. That only happens to severely abused birds because imprinting is real hard to erase in a hand-fed bird. A wild bird would not allow you to get close to him/her unless it was grounded for some reason while a human imprinted bird is not really afraid of humans. What people mean by 'wild' ways when it comes to psittaculas is that they lose the need for human affection and become aloof.

[Derbyan_Frank]

Sounds like I don't have much to worry about, then! I recently got him one of those rough perches that is supposed to help wear down his nails and am letting his flight feathers grow out again. I honestly don't feel any intense need to pet him and am perfectly content to let him enjoy being in my company by sitting on his play perch or play gym and chewing on his myriad toys.

Training, of course, is a must, so I'll not be leaving that out. I read an article posted on another forum recently which more or less suggested this method of interaction (as opposed to touching/petting) was a good way to help the bird see you as a "flock leader" rather than a potential mate and might help prevent health issues stemming from sexual frustration.

[Wolf]

Parrots live in a flock setting which operates on the principle of voluntary cooperation for the benefit of the entire flock and due to this there are no flock leaders. There are no alphas male or female and theirs is not a dominance based hierarchy such as we find in horses, dogs, or even humans.
While birds can become sexually frustrated because of petting, this is due to the fact that almost their entire body is an errogeneous zone, so if training reduces our impulse to touch them in an inappropriate manner which would be any place other than their head, neck or beak then perhaps training can help reduce sexual frustration. I find that I have much better results in this area by keeping them on an appropriate light schedule, feeding them a proper diet and no inappropriate touching than by any other means.

[Pajarita]

I just love it when people write articles as if they were experts and then screw it up royally by utilizing a concept that is so utterly unnatural as 'flock leader'? Like Wolf said, there ain't no such animal. Flocks don't have leaders so it's impossible for a human to be regarded by his parrots as one regardless of what they do or don't do. Neither does training change hormonal production... not really. It does benefit the bird if you don't touch his body but training per se does not have any effect on the endocrine system unless we are talking about high stress when done incorrectly.