Will Clicker Training Help with my rescue African Grey

[Leanna]

I would like some feedback to find the best method with my newest rescue an African Grey. He is a Congo and there is no accurate information on his age. I have only been told that the original owner died and had the parrot for many years and that he did not like other birds and was a one person bird. The Son sold me the parrot because he was not eating and would not come out of the cage. It has taken me several months to get him to start eating well again and his weight is getting better. I did not place him in one of the aviaries, with the other rescues because he was not eating, and instead housed him in the living room in a quiet corner, partially covered, in the same room as my birds that came to me as babies, and are very well socialized. They taught him to eat again, more than I did. He has not feather plucked that I can see, but he really looks sad. The vet said he was underweight but he has no illnesses that can be detected. I am able to sit about 3 feet from him, and talk to him, mostly not looking at him. He is not aggressive, is very quiet, and has not bit. He is complacent and lets you clean his cage and put food in. My experience with Greys is saying it will take at least a year for him to reach out. I am wondering if clicker training or some other method might work better now that he is eating again.

[Wolf]

I don't really know how to answer your question, but I would at least give clicker and target training a reasonable chance to work. It just might be what is needed to reach this bird and to spark some more interest in things going on around him.
I really don't know if you will even be able to use clicker training with your Grey. M Grey is very funny in that she not only does not respond to clickers, she also refuses treats in exchange for work or training. She loves almonds and would do almost anything for one except training. This is not to say that she is untrainable, far from it, she is quite trainable and will willingly accept praise and the occasional head scratch in return for cooperating in training. It is just that if you offer her a treat for cooperating she will refuse to take the treat and will refuse any further training for the day. She will accept a treat from me only as a gesture of love and respect, but never as a bribe or payment for her cooperation.

[Leanna]

I am just hoping for anything that will help him more. I would feel better if he bit even. he is just so apathetic and depressed. I have had a small success using a towel. The son had picked him up in a towel when I got him and he had not resisted but snuggled in farther instead. I have been able to get him to step up on a similar colored towel, (green) a few times and he just wants to be under the towel and will work to get under it. Then I have been able to clean his cage or sit beside him talking to him If he can see me, he does not want to be close. The son described him as a happy bird, always wanting to be near his owner, and a good eater and talker, but that he has been depressed since his owner died of a heart attack and even though the son knows him, he stopped eating and interacting with anyone. I worked really hard to get him to start eating, but his apathetic state is really sad to see. I was wondering if there was some clicker technique where I could incorporate the green towel. He steps up on it fine, with my flat palm under it. and the first thing I could get him to eat regularily is almonds. But he is not interested enough in food to figure out what treat to use. Maybe all he needs is time and I know Greys bond very seriouslly and take their owners death hard. My other Grey bit when I rescued him and was eating fine right away. My other Grey is a male too and I had thought I would get a female if I took in another Grey, but when I heard about this one I had to take him.

[Wolf]

I hear you and would have probably done much the same as you did. This is indeed a bad situation as this Grey is still caught up in the throes of grief and with your help will hopefully be able to find his way back to his normal self and regain his interest in life. There is no way to put any sort of timeline on his recovery as some birds love so deeply that they are unable to find their way back and I truly hope that you can help him with this. This is a very different situation than most of us will encounter and although I am deeply concerned that you have found such a bird in need of this type of new lease on life as this one, I am also glad that you did find him and that you have the love, compassion, patience and persistence to help him find himself again.
After reading about the cause of the birds apathy, in both your opening post and then again in this latest posting, do I think that clicker training will help you with this bird? I still stand with my original reply, but have more to say and my answer will appear to be contradictory at least on the surface. Clicker training, in and of itself, if you can get this bird to even respond to it al all will not help this bird. Still, I would not write it off entirely as it may still provide the beginnings of reaching him and so it is well worth the attempt. If you can get any response to it from him, good or bad, I would stay with it.
What this bird needs has absolutely nothing to do with clicker training, but I think that you are probably very much aware of this, but anything that can elicit any response from him at this point is going to be a good thing regardless of what that response is, even if it only serves to anger him. Achieving a response from him will be the opening that is needed to help him find his way back to himself and life itself. The love and compassion involved in trying is what is important in this particular instance and the bird seeing this love and caring for him is what it is going to take to reach through this level of grief. He needs desperately to see and feel that he is loved and that you are not going to leave or give up on him.
I have seen and been through this before although it was not involving a bird, and this is the very best answer that I know how to give in regards to this. I can only hope that my words are adequate to say what I am seeing ,feeling and know from experiencing this before .

[Leanna]

This was a very nice and helpfull reply. I believe he needs a lot of love and your reply does not sound contradictory at all. He does seem to find comfort being under a towel, I am not sure if its the comfort of being there or he can block out seeing things that are not what he spent most of his life seeing. I am willing to sit there and talk to Timmy softly and gently under a blanket, and I am willing to sit there and talk to him a few feet from his cage. I even read him stories. I think if he can be coaxed out of the apathy he may have some real anger to work though, and although I dont welcome bites that will be more straighforward to deal with. I am very happy that he started eating. It isnt a very great amount but he isnt getting a lot of exercise so maybe its enough. He is mostly liking nuts, although I offer lots of fruits vegetables and some grains and seeds but anything he want to eat is fine with me right now as long as he eats. You are sure right about responses, when he began eating it was so exciting and heart warming. I let 3 of my parrots eat nuts where he coud see and added one to his bowl. I ate a nut too. Thats when he ate his first nut. He has also responded well to the green towel, so I am thinking a combination of using the green towel, talking to him softy and watching those three. My significant other calls them the three stooges, as they all get along (most of the time anyway) and have quite the antics together. The Jardines is Moe, the Senegal is Larry, and the Red Bellied is Curly. Thats not what I originally named them but it is kind of sticking.

[Greg]

He is a lucky bird to have you in his life. You are doing all the right things, but I know it is hard when they are so sad.

[Leanna]

Awww thanks, you are so right about that.

[liz]

I don't have a grey but I can tell you what worked for my birds. Rambo came to me at 15 years old from a very quiet house. I was afraid my house would scare him but he jumped right in and even hid from his last human when she came to visit. Myrtle came from a quiet and really depressing house. When I saw how she lived I stayed at a motel in town over night so she could investigate me rather than bring her into my kaos. As it turns out, though she was very afraid of everything, her favorite place was the top corner of her cage so she could see everything going on. The more noise and excitement seemed to be the better. It distracted her from her own problems of adjusting.

[Pajarita]

I once took in a female gray (Nina), age unknown, completely plucked (she only had feathers on her head) and almost catatonic. She would not come out of her cage or even take a step in any direction on her perch, she just perched there, in the same spot, day and night, day after day and, if you didn't put the food and water next to her, she would go without. I did not have much background on her, I took her in from a lady living in a farm in upstate NY who had gotten her from a petstore where her previous owners had left her to be resold as a mate for her son's male CAG. But, as she did not work out, she no longer wanted her. When I picked her up, she was in a small cage with a single perch, in a corner of a dining room that had only one window on the opposite wall and one single ceiling fixture (which was not on). She had one bowl with sunflower seeds and one with water. I basically did nothing. I just put her food and water near her and talked to her without even trying to touch her although she did not bite or react in any way to my approaching her but her cage was open and she lived in the birdroom with other birds who also lived cage-free. It took months and months for her to start moving about but, eventually, she did. She also stopped plucking everywhere except for a single spot to the left of her chest that she plucked to the day she died. And, as time went by, she started moving around the birdroom, flying, giving kisses and making happy noises and whistles as well as normal vocalizations. She was the bird that was the hardest to get to eat a good varied diet though (took her five years to try blueberries!). So I think that you are doing real good if you already got him to eat well! And, in my personal opinion and limited experience (I only had only her as an example of a bird so severely depressed to the point of deep apathy), what works is good diet, solar schedule, freedom from a cage (at least, in her case) and, in my opinion, the permanence of not changing homes, the regularity of routines, and the love and patience to allow her to work out her problems on her own time.

I hear you on the worry because I would be worried too but I don't think that clicker training is going to help him. I think that was is going to do the trick you are already doing and that, eventually, he will open up, will bond with you and that he start enjoying life the way he used to.

He needs love more than anything else and you are already giving him this so it's just a matter of time.

[Greg]

My Grey is also a congo and she was a rescue, She had plucked and it took two years for her feathers to grow back in and for her to begin to really make progress with trust. She was on the apathetic side but not as apathetic as what you are describing. I would like to say I did most of the work, but it was my wife who was home all day and spent a lot of time giving that parrot love and keeping her occupied so she wouldnt pluck. I know two years can seem like a long time but some greys love really hard and grieve for a long time. Your Parrot will come around, that he is eating for you is a good sign that you are the right person and that may mean he makes a lot faster progress than mine did.