Scared of hands?

[Midnight]

Hello, I have an eight month old conure who's been with me for a little over a month now. She does not really like people touching her. If I try she will usually move far away or make a sound. I'm not moving fast at all and the breeder I got her from could get my bird to do anything. Does she still need more time or am I not doing something that I'm supposed to do? She's fine with taking food from my hands as well.
Thanks

[Chantilly]

Hello, I have an eight month old conure who's been with me for a little over a month now. She does not really like people touching her. If I try she will usually move far away or make a sound. I'm not moving fast at all and the breeder I got her from could get my bird to do anything. Does she still need more time or am I not doing something that I'm supposed to do? She's fine with taking food from my hands as well.
Thanks

I think you are doing fine, she is still warming up to you Try finding her favourite food and 'pretend' to eat it (and love it) and when she gets really intrested hold it out form her to have a bite and pretend to eat some more My always will come to me for this, even if she is in a bad mood.
She still wont let you do everything you want (possibly ever ) because that is what partots are like, you want them to do this, but they want to do that.. but right now your baby is just getting to know you... and she is quite shy! If I were you id just keep on doing what you are doing, and I will bet you that she will love your attention in a moth or two!

[Wolf]

After reading all of your posts, it appears to me that this is your first bird. That is fine as it was not all that long ago that Kiki was my very first parrot as well and we all make some mistakes.

Parrots are very different than the animals that we are familiar with and are accustomed to living with and this begins with the fact that they are tricked into even accepting us as a part of their natural flock, despite being so large and funny looking. We make terrible birds, you know. Even though the bird was accustomed to the breeder and they may have been able to handle her and do all sorts of things with her, this only shows you that the bird is tamable for you as this is not something that transfers from one person to another one. Birds do not just like or even accept just anyone, you have to pay the piper so to speak and teach the bird that you are worthy of its trust among many other things. I am sure that none of this was fully explained to you when you started looking for a bird to be your friend and companion. I should probably stop right here and come back to finish this because it is starting to get light and almost time for me to feed my birds and since I am rather slow at typing it will take me a while to go this. So I think that is what I am going to do. When I come back to this, you may as well get comfortable and relax as it should take you at least as long as it is going to take me to type this out for you and I want you to take your time and think about what I am going to be saying.

[Wolf]

Alright, I am back. Are you comfortable? You can read this to your bird if you want to, he may not understand it but will appreciate that you are talking to him as that is a bonding activity and works even better if he is willing to remain perched on you while you read it to him.

First of all it is very stressful for a parrot to be rehomed for any reason as they lose everything that they are familiar with even if it was a bad place for them to be. Parrots are flock creatures and they depend on the presence of the flock to help protect them from predators as well as for security and a sense of well being and they suffer when they are removed from that flock. They would never spend one day of their natural life alone from before they hatch until the time of their death, they are always with someone, either their parents, or their mate or the rest of the flock, they are never alone. This fact alone makes living with humans who can not provide this level of companionship to them to be stressful to them. So when the bird came to live with you he was and is terrified and although he is afraid of you he also depends on you for understanding and comfort during this difficult time. At first all that you can do other than providing for his physical needs, food, water and a clean cage, is to talk to him. Sometimes this must be done from across the room until he becomes accustomed to your presence and then begins to look forward to it.

At this point he is accustomed to you and even though he is not yet hand tamed or looking forward to your coming over to visit with him, this will soon become a thing of the past. There are many things that you need to be aware of and pay attention to during this period of time, things like his diet, what do you feed him and when do you feed him what foods, what foods he is actually eating and which ones he throws out or just ignores. Of the foods that you give him which ones are his favorite ones, these are the ones that he eats first from whatever mixture of foods he gets. In the beginning this selection of foods is probably rather small as most parrots are weaned onto a seed diet with little else in the way of variety and nutrition, this often leaves it up to you to teach him to eat a much larger variety of foods, many of which he has never seen before and refuses simply because he does not recognize them as food and not because he doesn't like them. There is a period of time when the learning about what foods to eat is most natural to them and becomes more difficult once this period has passed. But I don't expect that the breeder told you about any of this as they usually don't, leaving it up to you to learn about it the hard way, when the bird gets sick fro malnutrition and the vet has to tell about this.

I suppose that you can teach them about foods at the same time as you are teaching him that you are a friend who brings good things to eat when you come over to visit and spend time with him. But I would use the periods of time just before feeding breakfast and dinner to teach him about eating a better variety of foods. This is best done at these times due to his naturally being the hungriest at these times and is accomplished by preparing fresh raw fruits and vegetables in advance and sitting in front of him and eating from these small pieces of food without offering them to him. You need to be sure to impress on him that this is very special and utterly the best food in the world which is why you are not offering it to him and are eating it yourself, so ramp up the sounds of your enjoyment of these foods, even if you hate eating raw sweet peas for breakfast. Then after he goes through the stages of becoming curious about this food to beginning to ask and then begging for it to the point that he begins to demand that you share with him, that is when you want to offer him a little bite of this special food, but do not be surprised at whatever he does with it as he might actually eat it or more likely he will spit it out at first. Don't worry about that, just be sure that once you show it to him that you stay with it until you can give him a piece of it and then leave some of it in his food dish. Don't forget to give him his regular breakfast after this. The sharing of food is very important to a parrot as it is not only a social event it is also a bonding experience for a parrot and will help you in this manner with hand taming him.

Now on to the means of hand taming this little bird and the becoming his friend. Due to what you have described to us I think we can begin with you sitting outside of his cage where you can easily reach the highest perch from the outside of the cage, this is probably from one side of the cage instead of from in front of it depending on how that perch was placed. The use of a treat is the normal route that is used as an aid to the process and it could be sprig type millet or it could be one of his favorite foods that you removed from his normal diet for the express purpose of being able to use it as a treat in training your bird. the process is really quite simple in that you sit next to the cage and talk to your bird using a slightly higher pitched voice than you normally use and it is also helpful to speak in a somewhat sing song manner as both of these things tend to help calm the bird. Singing to the bird is also very helpful as birds just love music and do not care about how well you sing they all enjoy it just the same, They may even decide to join in with you if you sing to them although it will probably sound more like screaming to you than singing. but that is fine just sing along with him if he does this. Spend a lot of time giving him praise of the " good bird" type of praise making certain to use his name a lot in what ever talking, singing and praise that you use with him. Parrots are given their name by their parents in much the same manner as humans are named by their parents and their parent birds always use that name for them for their entire lives. I can only give you the basic outline for this as you need to work out your own style but these particular sessions should only last for 10 to 15 minutes and should be accompanied by the offering of a treat every few minutes although probably not more than three to four treats during the session and then do only about three sessions like this during the day. You should also go by the cage often during the day just to say hi and to drop in a tiny treat and then spend a fair amount of time just talking to the bird while in the same room but doing something else such as watching tv or reading or whatever else you tend to do.

After a few days of this he will probably start coming to the side of the cage that you normally sit on, or to the side you approach from and be calmly sitting there before you get to the cage waiting for you and your shared time as well as for the treats that you will have for him. Once he is doing this as well as calmly taking the treat from you through the cage bars you are ready to move to the front of the cage and do exactly the same thing while sitting in front of the open cage door. It is important that from the very beginning of these sessions that once you show him a treat that even if he does not take and eat it that it is left for him in his food dish, Never show him a traet and take it away with you, it is vry important that it is left for him. And when you start working with him in front of the open cage do not reach inside of the cage, wait and allow him to come to you. This was easy to do when you were on the outside of the cage working through the bars, but it is also important that this be continued with the door open. The reason is to allow the bird to choose to come to you or not. The bird that chooses to come to you of its own free will is the bird that is showing you the extent of its trust in you and is exactly what you are after. In time it will become very apparent to you that every interaction that you will ever have with this bird must be based on the birds trust and willingness to be with and on you. Without this type of and level of trust you have nothing. When the bird comes to the front of the cage to visit with you and calmly takes and eats its treats from you it will be time to begin the step up. Many times this is not anything other than just adding in the verbal request to step up to what the bird is already doing. If you need to help with the process of step up you just need to use two hands instead of one. You would hold the treat in one hand and let the bird stretch just a little to reach the treat and the bird will do that soon enough and then as long as you maintain everything the same with the bird having to stretch just a bit to get the treat it will begin to step up for it. From there just spend lots of time with the bird perched on you and allowing it an adequate amount of time out of the cage to explore and exercise, usually about 4 hours minimum per day.

[Midnight]

Hello, I have an eight month old conure who's been with me for a little over a month now. She does not really like people touching her. If I try she will usually move far away or make a sound. I'm not moving fast at all and the breeder I got her from could get my bird to do anything. Does she still need more time or am I not doing something that I'm supposed to do? She's fine with taking food from my hands as well.
Thanks

I think you are doing fine, she is still warming up to you Try finding her favourite food and 'pretend' to eat it (and love it) and when she gets really intrested hold it out form her to have a bite and pretend to eat some more My always will come to me for this, even if she is in a bad mood.
She still wont let you do everything you want (possibly ever ) because that is what partots are like, you want them to do this, but they want to do that.. but right now your baby is just getting to know you... and she is quite shy! If I were you id just keep on doing what you are doing, and I will bet you that she will love your attention in a moth or two!

Ok thank you

[Midnight]

Alright, I am back. Are you comfortable? You can read this to your bird if you want to, he may not understand it but will appreciate that you are talking to him as that is a bonding activity and works even better if he is willing to remain perched on you while you read it to him.

First of all it is very stressful for a parrot to be rehomed for any reason as they lose everything that they are familiar with even if it was a bad place for them to be. Parrots are flock creatures and they depend on the presence of the flock to help protect them from predators as well as for security and a sense of well being and they suffer when they are removed from that flock. They would never spend one day of their natural life alone from before they hatch until the time of their death, they are always with someone, either their parents, or their mate or the rest of the flock, they are never alone. This fact alone makes living with humans who can not provide this level of companionship to them to be stressful to them. So when the bird came to live with you he was and is terrified and although he is afraid of you he also depends on you for understanding and comfort during this difficult time. At first all that you can do other than providing for his physical needs, food, water and a clean cage, is to talk to him. Sometimes this must be done from across the room until he becomes accustomed to your presence and then begins to look forward to it.

At this point he is accustomed to you and even though he is not yet hand tamed or looking forward to your coming over to visit with him, this will soon become a thing of the past. There are many things that you need to be aware of and pay attention to during this period of time, things like his diet, what do you feed him and when do you feed him what foods, what foods he is actually eating and which ones he throws out or just ignores. Of the foods that you give him which ones are his favorite ones, these are the ones that he eats first from whatever mixture of foods he gets. In the beginning this selection of foods is probably rather small as most parrots are weaned onto a seed diet with little else in the way of variety and nutrition, this often leaves it up to you to teach him to eat a much larger variety of foods, many of which he has never seen before and refuses simply because he does not recognize them as food and not because he doesn't like them. There is a period of time when the learning about what foods to eat is most natural to them and becomes more difficult once this period has passed. But I don't expect that the breeder told you about any of this as they usually don't, leaving it up to you to learn about it the hard way, when the bird gets sick fro malnutrition and the vet has to tell about this.

I suppose that you can teach them about foods at the same time as you are teaching him that you are a friend who brings good things to eat when you come over to visit and spend time with him. But I would use the periods of time just before feeding breakfast and dinner to teach him about eating a better variety of foods. This is best done at these times due to his naturally being the hungriest at these times and is accomplished by preparing fresh raw fruits and vegetables in advance and sitting in front of him and eating from these small pieces of food without offering them to him. You need to be sure to impress on him that this is very special and utterly the best food in the world which is why you are not offering it to him and are eating it yourself, so ramp up the sounds of your enjoyment of these foods, even if you hate eating raw sweet peas for breakfast. Then after he goes through the stages of becoming curious about this food to beginning to ask and then begging for it to the point that he begins to demand that you share with him, that is when you want to offer him a little bite of this special food, but do not be surprised at whatever he does with it as he might actually eat it or more likely he will spit it out at first. Don't worry about that, just be sure that once you show it to him that you stay with it until you can give him a piece of it and then leave some of it in his food dish. Don't forget to give him his regular breakfast after this. The sharing of food is very important to a parrot as it is not only a social event it is also a bonding experience for a parrot and will help you in this manner with hand taming him.

Now on to the means of hand taming this little bird and the becoming his friend. Due to what you have described to us I think we can begin with you sitting outside of his cage where you can easily reach the highest perch from the outside of the cage, this is probably from one side of the cage instead of from in front of it depending on how that perch was placed. The use of a treat is the normal route that is used as an aid to the process and it could be sprig type millet or it could be one of his favorite foods that you removed from his normal diet for the express purpose of being able to use it as a treat in training your bird. the process is really quite simple in that you sit next to the cage and talk to your bird using a slightly higher pitched voice than you normally use and it is also helpful to speak in a somewhat sing song manner as both of these things tend to help calm the bird. Singing to the bird is also very helpful as birds just love music and do not care about how well you sing they all enjoy it just the same, They may even decide to join in with you if you sing to them although it will probably sound more like screaming to you than singing. but that is fine just sing along with him if he does this. Spend a lot of time giving him praise of the " good bird" type of praise making certain to use his name a lot in what ever talking, singing and praise that you use with him. Parrots are given their name by their parents in much the same manner as humans are named by their parents and their parent birds always use that name for them for their entire lives. I can only give you the basic outline for this as you need to work out your own style but these particular sessions should only last for 10 to 15 minutes and should be accompanied by the offering of a treat every few minutes although probably not more than three to four treats during the session and then do only about three sessions like this during the day. You should also go by the cage often during the day just to say hi and to drop in a tiny treat and then spend a fair amount of time just talking to the bird while in the same room but doing something else such as watching tv or reading or whatever else you tend to do.

After a few days of this he will probably start coming to the side of the cage that you normally sit on, or to the side you approach from and be calmly sitting there before you get to the cage waiting for you and your shared time as well as for the treats that you will have for him. Once he is doing this as well as calmly taking the treat from you through the cage bars you are ready to move to the front of the cage and do exactly the same thing while sitting in front of the open cage door. It is important that from the very beginning of these sessions that once you show him a treat that even if he does not take and eat it that it is left for him in his food dish, Never show him a traet and take it away with you, it is vry important that it is left for him. And when you start working with him in front of the open cage do not reach inside of the cage, wait and allow him to come to you. This was easy to do when you were on the outside of the cage working through the bars, but it is also important that this be continued with the door open. The reason is to allow the bird to choose to come to you or not. The bird that chooses to come to you of its own free will is the bird that is showing you the extent of its trust in you and is exactly what you are after. In time it will become very apparent to you that every interaction that you will ever have with this bird must be based on the birds trust and willingness to be with and on you. Without this type of and level of trust you have nothing. When the bird comes to the front of the cage to visit with you and calmly takes and eats its treats from you it will be time to begin the step up. Many times this is not anything other than just adding in the verbal request to step up to what the bird is already doing. If you need to help with the process of step up you just need to use two hands instead of one. You would hold the treat in one hand and let the bird stretch just a little to reach the treat and the bird will do that soon enough and then as long as you maintain everything the same with the bird having to stretch just a bit to get the treat it will begin to step up for it. From there just spend lots of time with the bird perched on you and allowing it an adequate amount of time out of the cage to explore and exercise, usually about 4 hours minimum per day.

Wow thanks for all that info! you are right, this is my first time having a bird. I'll make sure to try everything you said. Thanks again for taking the time to type all that!

[Wolf]

Just trying to explain things so as to make things easier for both you and your bird. I am glad to be allowed to try to help and thank you for that opportunity.