Tips for my two

[MrsG]

I have a Quaker that I have had for a year now. I think it’s a she due to its slightly dull feather colour.
She is very shy. You have to look at her with head on the side or out the corner of your eye. She will fly down and eat next to you but Ive never touched her yet. She has landed on my head once recently so she is getting there in her own time.
We got her a cockatiel friend as a baby 7wks old. He is bringing her on really well as he gives her confidence.
She will go to the cage for bed when I ask her to go to bed. I’ve taught him a whistle that means come to me.
He will fly to me and step up. I’ve taught him some tunes and words. He says hello there and kisses.
They eat Topps pellets and quality seed mix at times. I give them fresh baby sweetcorn, sprouted seeds, apples, green beans, broccoli etc.
I’m trying to get her to go into my finger in the morning to bring her out of the cage the way he does.
Anyone got any tips other than patience and slow movements?
Also what other stuff can I offer them to eat? I’ve heard of cooked things but could do with more info.
Also he sometimes will nip and step back. Is he just testing how hard he is allowed to be or could it be hormonal? Any tips on how to keep them from getting unfriendly durning their growing stages.
Thanks

[Pajarita]

Hi, MrsG, quaker and tiel. First if all, dull plumage is a dietary issue and not gender-related. Female quakers tend to be a bit large than the males and have different behaviors but, if you don't have a pair, is almost impossible to visually sex them. Now, pellets are not really the best food you can feed a bird (too processed, too dry, inferior ingredients, too high protein and, most likely, made with soy)... My birds eat gloop and raw produce for breakfast and nuts (my quakers) and a good seed mix (no sunflowers) with chopped nuts for the smaller birds in the evening -they also get a multivitamin/mineral supplement.

You did not say how old the quaker is, if you got her as a baby or adopted her as an adult and that makes a big difference because, if you got her as a handfed baby, she should not be shy at all with you. Quakers are very social, super affectionate and fearless so, if she had been imprinted to people, she would come to you of her own accord - UNLESS she had previously lived with somebody who had either abused her or severely neglected her OR was parent-raised. Parent-raised birds will learn to trust and even love you but they will never have the degree of familiarity or the bond that hand-fed birds have.

But, in any case, even affectionate, human-imprinted birds should not be taken out of their cage by hand. You should just open the door and let them come outside of their own. Parrots need to have the freedom to make decisions on their own and are never happy when made to conform to human dictates all the time. Captivity takes A LOT from them so we, parrot caregivers, should always strive to give them as much freedom as possible.

If you still have to look at her out of the corner of your eye, it won't do any good to try to teach her to step up because she needs to trust you implicitly first. You need to spend hours in the middle of the day in the same room she is, talk, sing to her and, every now and then offer her a treat (figure out which is her 'high value' item). Now, obviously, if you free-feed protein food, you will never be able to use it as treat or reward so the first thing you need to do is make sure that you are not doing this. Once you figure out what her preference is, offer it to her. If she doesn't take it from your fingers, leave on a surface near her and once you get her to fly/walk over for the treat every time (but don't give her one after the other, the items needs to be spare so it's valued), start putting it closer and closer to you until she is taking it from right next to you. Then offer it on the palm of your hand. When she is taking it, start offering it from your fingers. Once she is taking it all the time, it's time to start the step-up training. Put your hand out as if you were going to shake somebody's hand in front of her legs and, with your other hand, hold the high value item at her beak level and give the command 'Step up'. She won't do it at the beginning but, eventually she will... she might start by putting a single foot on finger and stretching out her neck and body to get to it and that's OK.

Now, this is all going to take a long time but, if you are patient, consistent and persistent, it will happen.

[MrsG]

Yoda my Quaker was bought from a shop. I got eye contact with her from walking past and knew I had to bring her home with me. They used bets to catch the birds I found out when they put her in a box to bring home. I think she is 2 and I got her at around 3 months. I always feed fruit and veg every day sometimes I have sprouted seeds which she loves. I keep the food next to me so they have to come to me to eat. I was told to teach them to step up by putting my hand in the cage and so many people say to do this. But it doesn’t work with her. Ever since I got her she is scared stiff. I’m with them pretty much all day every day in the same room with the food next to me while I am resting or working. My cockatiel lands on me regularly and brings her with him. She will now land on my leg and walk along it watching me or on my lap. She will take food and eat it sitting on my lap watching me instead of flying away with it too. I offer her food holding it in my fingers and she will take it but not every time. She is getting a lot braver. Trouble is that now the two are more friendly the cockatiel is starting to be a little nippy as if he is showing off for her - showing he is preferring her over us I think. But he loves his tickles so he often lands on us and if he nips we say “no nippy” and stop tickling him. We praise him when he gives nice kisses so he learns how gentle he needs to be. I think he is still testing the boundaries as a teen sort of thing.
They both prefer their premium seeds but more than one source told me that pellets are the best staple diet followed up with fresh fruit and veg so they have 3 brands of food they have on offer and nuts, sometimes porridge in the morning, millet for treats eaten while I’m holding onto it. She is an olive colour as opposed to blue and green types but not dull.
I don’t think they could have anything better than what they have now and they behave and go to bed at around 7pm when I ask them to go. They like to perch on the wall bed when it’s bed time and usually need to be asked to go in their cage to sleep and be covers up until morning, but they go nicely. I never need to grab either of them at any time.

[Pajarita]

Well, no wonder she doesn't trust people! She was traumatized in the pet store! Now, I know a lot of people think that pellets are good for birds but that's because they never did in-depth rresearch on their natural diets (not even avian vets study parrot nutrition). I was born and raised in one of the South American countries where they originated, a baby quaker was my first bird and have been researching and studying parrots natural diets since 1994 and I'll share with you what I learned: parrots natural diets are between 85 and 95% moisture (pellets have a max of 10% - HUGE difference), they eat raw, natural plant material (pellets are processed), their diets are seasonal (less potein during the resting season), soy is toxic in nature (it needs to be cooked so animals and people can eat it), ALL pellets have too much protein. You do the math.

Personally, I would never force a bird to come to me so it can eat. This is called a 'flooding' technique -flooding is any technique where you give the bird no choice but to do it or accept it - in your case, it's 'if you don't come to me, you don't eat'. We used to use flooding many years ago but we no longer do because it backfires. They never work to actually make the bird like you, quite the contrary, it breeds distrust. Quakers are, in my personal opinion, one of the most intelligent parrots, she knows you are forcing her and she doesn't like it.

What I recommend to people that have trouble bonding with their birds is actually the opposite! Allow the bird to make decisions by itself and give them treats as gifts. You see, to a parrot eating is not only something they do to survive, it's a pleasant social occasion but you are taking the pleasure out of it by making it stressful for her. I would suggest that instead you open the door to the cage and allow her to decide when and if to come out, put out her food sat dawn in her cage, sit down close to them and eat your breakfast with them (so you become part of the flock all eating together) and without asking her for anything, offer her a high value item every now and then and, if she doesn't take it from your fingers, leave it where she can reach it. This is not a bribe or a reward, it is a gift from you to her to show her you want to become her friend. Mind you, if you free-feed protein, the high value item does not work well.

Don't underestimate her intelligence, try to fool her or force her to do anything. Parrots (and quakers in particular) are not only super smart, they actually reach conclusions the same way people do, through what is called 'general intelligence' and 'fluid reasoning' which is the ability to figure things out by utilizing knowledge acquired from not only different sources but also experience from situations that are similar but not identical so, make no mistake, she knows you are forcing her to come to you to eat.

As to the tiel... well, you do know that cockatiels are not companion but aviary parrots, right? The distinction is very important because even if a tiel is hand-fed (and they rarely are), it can never bond with a human the way a companion parrot does. They can learn to trust and love you but. once they reach sexual maturrity, they need to live with, at least, a mate -if not a flock- to be happy.

Oh, one more thing, I hope your birds are not clipped because depriving them of flight does not only stress them out something terrible (the ONLY predator and danger avoidance mechanism is taken from them, leaving them vulnerable and defenseless) but also does things to their brains (not my opinion, a scientific fact).

I hope this helps you and, please, do not hesitate to ask as many questions as you want. I ADORE quakers, they are one of my favorite species of parrots.

[MrsG]

Ok so I’m not sure why you think I am starving my bird and forcing it to come to me. My birds are the most spoilt creatures. Up until last week they were let out in the morning and they fly free all day until 7pm when I sim the lights ask them to go to bed.
I offer them a nut and they come down to take it. They have treat wheels with nuts in and nuts hidden in their foraging areas so I don’t deprive them of anything.
My cockatiel was hand reared. We got him at 7 weeks and continued the hand feeding. He loves our attention but is developing a friendship with the Quaker and I think is trying to be more bird than human now. I thought posting on here would get a few tips or answers but I seem to have managed to get myself a telling off by someone who doesn’t realise how spoilt my birds are.
They fly free all day and sometimes I think they don’t appreciate this so my idea is to try to tame them a little in order for everyone to have a share in the room and a relationship with them instead of them being more wild as it is.
I may not be born and bred in their country but I have done my reading and they get a variety of advised fruit and veg fees every day plus their pellets and seeds

[Pajarita]

I am sorry you find that I was offensive. It was not my intention. I was simply going by what you had posted - namely: " I keep the food next to me so they have to come to me to eat." You did not explain that you only kept nuts and that other food was available to them. i can only go by what people tell me...

Now, if you free-feed protein food (the seeds and pellets you mentioned), the nuts, which would be the 'high value item' decrease in value immensely to them because, aside from a personal preference of one particular nut over another, the main attraction of a high value item is that they are ALL high in protein but, if they have protein food available 24/7, they will not be that interested in it. And their livers and kidneys are being damaged. Parrots crave protein because they need it for life, health and breeding but they also crave it because, even though is super necessary, it's never found in the wild in abundant quantities or all year round. I can assure you that quakers don't eat nuts or seeds every day - they mostly eat fresh plant material and LOVE fruit. My parents had a summer house in a beach town that had a large backyard with some fruit trees. One of them was a HUGE, very old fig tree and because we spent the entire month of February (the equivalent of August in USA), the figs would ripen while we were there. Well, let me tell you that we had to literally fight the quakers for them! They always won because they got up before we did and the best figs were on top of the tree and on end of the branches (where the tree would get the most sun) and, because fig wood is very treacherous (even when the branches are thick, they don't withstand much weight), we were not allowed to climb it (we still did it when our parents took a nap) so they always got the most and best figs. A flock would come at dawn and eat and eat figs until they were full and leave, then they would come back later in the day and the next day and the next until they ate ALL the figs. My quakers also adore fresh leafy greens - They get a variety of greens (escarole, endive, chicory, Swiss Chard, dandelion, broccoli, etc) but their favorite is lettuce so I always save the very heart of the Romaine to which I cut the end so it's like a V and I stick it on the top of their cage (it's an empty cage with open door and just paper on the bottom) and they always go for the lettuce before they eat anything else.