Baby Indian Ringneck question

[loriclare]

Good morning and thank you to whomever is reading this. I am an experienced bird owner, and even bred and handfed budgies and cockatiels for a few years, but I'm stumped with this one. I adopted a baby Indian Ringneck on July 3. He was handfed and is approximately 3 months old. He has been getting more comfortable with his cage and the household, as evidenced by eating well and starting to sing a bit. However, he is absolutely terrified of me. He thrashes about when I change his cage paper, give him food and water. I've spent about 30 minutes a day (in 5 minute increments) sitting nearby and talking/reading/singing to him. He will not come to the side of the cage to get apple, his favorite treat, if my hand is holding the apple. My question is - is there anything else I should be doing? Should I be getting him out of the cage at all? Should I start food management, even though he is still a baby? I'm wondering why he is so afraid of me if he was hand raised? I contacted the breeder and she told me to towel him out and sit with him, but that seems quite cruel and terrifying to him. Help!

[Wolf]

To begin with, I am not very trusting of people who are wanting to sell me something and that includes breeders. All of my birds came to me from individuals that didn't want their birds any longer and all of my birds had been abused before their arrival to my home, some of them for years, so I never really had to deal with breeders. Despite not having any first hand experience with breeders, I am a member of several bird forums and I am constantly reading about breeders that have misrepresented their birds
As you are probably aware of, birds are extremely fearful when they are first brought into a new environment with new humans. They also go through a period of mourning for that which they lost due to the change, even when it was a poor situation. This all give rise to the ' honeymoon' period where they are on their best behavior until they begin to adjust to the new environment.
I do find that short periods of time, several times a day to be useful in gaining and reinforcing trust in me from a new bird and even in birds that do trust me and have been with me a fairly long time. But I have learned that more often than not that long periods of time such as about one or two hours given in a couple of times per day to be much more effective in gaining their initial trust. This appears to be due to their highly social nature as well as that they are hardwired to never be alone from birth until death and as a baby they crave this reassurance as much as they need air. I sit with them as much as I can talking and singing and even just watching TV or listening to music( they all love music). They do need the sound of our voices but they also need just our physical presence and will start coming to the same side of their cage as we are on in due time as their curiosity and trust begin to grow and it is at this time that I start offering treats through the cage bars while talking to them. I never insist that they do anything and I don't even begin to ask them for anything until they show me that they are ready to try more. Doing otherwise is counterproductive as it can easily destroy all of the new trust in you that you have worked to gain faster than you can gain it from them.
I hope that this helps you. If you need more let me know.
I am sorry, I had to edit this post as I forgot to answer your question concerning time out of the cage and a couple of others.
I would never use food management on a bird this young and as a matter of fact I find that in a companion bird that this is not normally needed. Getting a bird to be motivated by food is simply a matter of using the right high value treat and timing your training sessions to those times when the bird is naturally the hungriest.
Towelling a bird is normally a very stressful thing for any bird and because of this I do not use it to force my will on the bird, I only use toweling in those instances where it is needed such as for a medical exam or if the bird is in danger unless I towel it to remove it from the danger. Neither of these occur on a frequent level, however you can reduce the stress that a bird experiences when they must be toweled through training, please read this viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12970
I always try to give all of my birds time out of their cages each and every day as they need the exercise and they need to become more comfortable with their surroundings and you as well. In the beginning I let them out about an hour before their dinner time as if they don't return on their own or easily then it is easier to get them in when it gets dark than at any other time. They normally need at least 4 hours of time out of their cage with at least one hour of it being on you or with as much physical contact as they will accept at first.

[loriclare]

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm sitting right next to his cage and he is eating his veggies next to me, so I can tell he's becoming more comfy in my presence. Just to clarify, are you saying that I should get him out for a time every day, even though he is terrified of me? I know how smart he is, and I don't want to do anything now that will cause me to lose what fragile trust he has in me. Thanks in advance for your clarification.

[Wolf]

I would give them time out every day. Since he is new as well as frightened I would limit the time to just in the evenings about an hour before dinner time and make sure he knows that you put his food in his cage for him and I would put it in the cage at the same time each evening.
All of my birds came to me abused and it seems to me that the time out helped them gain confidence in themselves much quicker than the ones that I didn't do this with. Still it depends on you and what you are comfortable with, I can only let you know what I have done and its effects on the birds. Also understand that do to their nature, they are all individuals and they respond accordingly, so what works for one bird may or may not work for the next one.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum. It doesn't sound as if your bird was really handfed and, going by the advice given by the breeder, it would seem that he/she is not really up to date on methods because the 'towel it and force him to accept your touch' hasn't been used in many years (it's a flooding technique and none of them are recommended any longer).

One thing you can do is ask the breeder what she/he used to handfeed. It could be a syringe, a pipette or a crop needle (it could also be a spoon but few breeders use it). If the answer is a crop needle, then you know why the poor baby is so terrified of humans and you are, basically, out of luck because it would take a long time and a lot of work to get that poor thing to trust humans again (no good breeder uses them any longer) and, I might as well tell you that he/she might never be 100% (studies show that birds that are stressed out when very young, remain high-strung the rest of their lives). But, if the reply is a syringe or a pipette, I would get myself some and offer it to the baby because handfeeding is an excellent bonding method and he can benefit from not only the baby food (he is still very much just a little baby and needs two types of soft food served fresh twice a day) but also from the comfort and closeness it brings.

I do not EVER recommend food management. I know it's very effective in getting birds to learn and do tricks but what you are doing is using hunger as a tool and, in my mind, that is completely unacceptable. I would never consider making a child or an animal hungry just to get what I want out of it... 100% performance or obedience doesn't even rate on my 'important things' list. I would also forget all about training because you have deeper problems which cannot be resolved with it. The bird needs to learn to trust you implicitly as well as love you so bonding is what you need right now... especially with an IRN which is, already, a difficult bird to keep bonded to its human. So, love, love, love, treat, treats, treats and lots, and lots and lots of time spent keeping him company is what you need to do right now. There is always time for training in the future (years and years).

[loriclare]

Thank you thank you for that excellent suggestion. I contacted the breeder and he was syringe fed. I will go out today and get some food and syringes and give that a try. I am actually also considering asking to return him - I have never, ever seen such a timid bird, especially a hand-fed. As I mentioned, I'm a fairly experienced bird owner but this one has me stumped.