Training Bonded Birds

[LynM]

I have two female Quakers, purchased together and extremely bonded. My green, Trilby, is a lovely natured girl and would possibly be quite easy to train. However the blue, Scooter, is an aggressive little lady who doesn't like me much at all. Training the birds together is impossible as Scooter will just lunge at me and/or run away. Trilby will often follow her example. And if Trilby decides to ignore Scooter and do her training, then Scooter will attack her as well.
Separating them for training purposes seems like the way to go, but how? If I take Trilby to another spot in the house, she will be totally distracted by Scooters absence and by her calls.
I have managed to train Scooter to step up and turn around but she often will refuse to do anything for me. If she doesn't attack, or run away, she will simply turn her head away and just refuse any contact. Even if I try to get the party started by giving her a seed, she will simply let it fall to the ground.
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice please?

[Wolf]

Are you certain that they are both female? Certain as in DNA sexing? There is no way to tell by looking at them and although I don't have Quakers, myself, it seems to me that this type of bonding is unlikely between two females, but I could be wrong.
Have you tried setting up a space for training them where they can see each other while you are working with one of them? I know that this is not the way that it is usually done but in this case it sounds like it might be the only way to go without causing resentment and an undue amount of stress for the bird. Are you using target training with or without a clicker?

[LynM]

Yes, we have had them DNA sexed and they are both girls. I do have an area to train them so they can see each other - our house is so small it would be hard not to. My initial training was done just using my hands and a seed as a reward and it worked fine, but as the girls have gotten older, Scooter has become more aggressive. Now I am trying to introduce target training

[Wolf]

Here is a link for you to give a try let me know how it goes viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227

[Pajarita]

Actually, female quakers do bond that deeply. They live in matriarchal societies and daughters hardly ever leave the mother's nest, they just add another room to them. They also help raise each other's babies.

I think the problem is hormones and diet. Hormonal birds are cantankerous and difficult to deal with because all they can think about is sex (one track mind kind of thing) plus, they usually tend to be physically uncomfortable. Quakers are not, as it's often repeated in the net, tropical or semi-tropical birds, they actually come from the temperate zone of South America and, because of this, they are HIGHLY affected by a human light schedule (are they on a strict solar schedule?). An improper diet (free-feeding high protein sources like seeds or pellets) also contributes to the problem PLUS for a reward to be a true reward, it needs to be a high value item but, if you free-feed high protein, nothing is a high value item (do you free-feed protein food?) So, tells us what their light schedule and diet are and we will tell you how to work this out.