tips on making a parrot very hand tame

[skeetersunconure]

I can handle skeeter and he steps up regularly and eagerly most of the time and he lets me scratch his head. however i want to be able to really handle him and having him be bery comfortable being grabbed and placed on his back on my hand and letting me pick up his foot and stuff like that. so what are some good tips or games or training methods i can use to help him get more hand tame? one of the reasons i am asking this is because he is getting a flight harness and there is touching of the wings and there will be the tightening of the straps and and stuff like that and i want him to be okay with all that. i also want him to have a better bond with me. i think that he loves me but i just dont feel a deep bond between us i mean i love him tp death but i dont know if he feels the same way about me. thanks!!!

[Michael]

Something tells me you haven't read the harness training article because I explained how the same techniques can be applied to hand taming. It's just that rather than working on slapping the harness on right away, you'll have to go through taming touch, grab, wing open, etc. before you can even dream of doing it with a harness in your hand. But do the same things I say to do with harness but just for the purpose of using your hands.

[skeetersunconure]

no i actually did read it i just really wanted to know how to get him hand tame but i just decided to put the question in about the harness to see if anyone else had any input. It was a really good article you wrote i'll probably print it out and refer to it alot.

[Michael]

I hope you watched the videos too then cause I show how I did it. Basically the technique is the same for touching, grabbing, etc. You put your hands as close to the parrot without it freaking out, wait, withdraw, reward. Progressively get closer and closer till you can touch its wing with a finger, then work to cup your hand around the back, then to briefly lift, etc. Basically you just do more and more but without going so far that the parrot doesn't get too freaked out. You hold the duration progressively longer as well. First 1 second touch, next time 2, etc. The concept is exactly the same whether you are doing finger touch or putting on harness. You are just progressively increasing the duration and rewarding the parrot tolerating it. Check out the one person bird article. While it talks about having a second person taming your parrot, the techniques are mostly the same if the first person hasn't already done this to begin with. Basically Kili had to be re-tamed by another person so the original taming techniques were repeated. You can ignore the stuff that is about other people but follow the steps the second person should take yourself.