Teaching a Bird to Tolerate Touch

[BirdbrainJan]

Hi all,

I was just curious, as Franklin's training is progressing, how you all got your birds more used to being touched? He's doing very well, and will step up on my hand and put his head down for preening when he's in the mood, but if I try to touch him anywhere else (wings, lower down his shoulders), he gets frightened and will either move away (if he's on his perch), or turn his head, beak open as if to bite (if I move lower while preening his neck).

I watched Michael's videos on the Trained Parrot blog about teaching the bird to tolerate having its wings opened and to lie on its back, but both of these training steps have to start with the bird being comfortable with you touching it.

How did you all get there?

[bmsweb]

There are so many ways to get there but the main requirement is not to rushing the process. With my cockatiel he never liked being touched other than me scratching his neck and head. So what I would do, is give him what he wanted but slowly rest my hand on his shoulders while giving him a scratch. I would only take it to the point that he would tolerate. After a while he would get so caught up with his scratch that he would let me go a little further and so and so.

This basically taught my Cockatiel that with touching his back and wings good things would come his way like a scratch etc

The key point to take from this is my bird lets me touch his back and wings because he now associates it with good things happening to him.

[JadeW]

I've been wondering how to do that myself... My cockatiel didn't let me scratch his head at first, but eventually with gentle persuasion he now lets me scratch his head. I'm now trying to be able to touch his back in the hopes he'll realize that it's not so bad. We seem to be making some progress, but it's going to take a while...

I like the idea of rewarding with head scratches. I toyed with the idea of using treats, but I'm not sure if I want him to need one every time I touch his back or wings. Progress could probably go faster if I did... But then again, I still don't really know what I'm doing

[Brittanyv326]

I did almost the same thing as bmsweb. I would run my hand down her back and wings in between scratches and continue scratching as if it didn't happen. She was very tame when she came to me, but she still didn't entirely trust me. With time, she would not flinch, tighten up, lean away or anything when I did this, so that's when I took it to the next step of wrapping my entire hand around her body to gradually be able to apply pressure enough to lift her up which led to me being able to flip her on her back in my hand. With this though, I wanted not to associate petting with that in case she developed a phobia of me picking her up and think, "when she pets me, bad things happen". So here's where verbal praise and treats came in. I'd be careful of crossing their own personal boundary lines too fast so that this doesn't happen. The simplest way to put this is, you can try to associate good (petting) with something to make both good (petting and touching back and wings) but it may turn out to make what's already good bad in the same way. Good luck! The key is to go slow.

[k9shrink]

Everybody has given great advice.

I live in Turkey and have a wild-caught African Grey. I wanted to emphasize what others have said about taking it slowly. Using clicker training, I had her stepping up in a few days, getting head scritches in about a week or so. By week 14, she was putting on trick shows at schools and universities. So for those things, I believe in fast training.

However, I take it slowly with handling. I took the whole first year to SLOWLY get her used to me touching her beak, feet, back and wings. She also learned to tolerate me putting on and taking off her harness, though she doesn't like it. She accepts it because she likes going outdoors.

Year two was spent putting more and more of my hand around her back, and starting to open her wings. We've now had her for two years and I can put my hand around her back with pressure (but NOT lift her yet or turn her over)... and I can open each wing about halfway.

I estimate that after another year, I'll be able to pick her up from behind, hold her on her back, and fully open both wings.

With parrots living 15-70 years or so, there's no hurry for things like handling, as long as you continue progressing a little more every day.

Sharon in Istanbul

[BirdbrainJan]

Thanks for all of the great replies!

We're working on taking it slow...today he did let me move a little further down the back of his neck, almost between his shoulder blades while getting scritches. I just have to be patient, but it is tricky when I see him catching on to everything else so quickly. It's good to know too just HOW gradual it can be as well, thanks for that insight, Sharon