Help Taming My Indian Ringneck?

[jobcian]

Ive got a 5 month old ringneck, ive had her for 5 weeks, when I approach her she will try to bite me, ive seen video's on how to get them not to bite but I cant get her out of her cage, and when I do she fly's on my curtain's, I talk to her everyday, and I see her everyday, I change her food regulary and her water, She has toys, but she doesnt play with them to much, when i approach her to scratch her beak she lean's forward and bite's me or fly's away, when I give her treats she just bites them then drops them, I really need help with taming my bird thanks

[Imran Ahmed]

well its a difficult job to train, it takes time and would take alot of patience esp in the case of a indian ringnet. My parrot is hand fed, its the same breed and i've realised that its very choosy when it comes to what to do and not to do. Its kinda training me rather than me training him.

However its not a problem. FIrst of all stop giving your parrot all sorts of treats. Give her one that she likes normally and keep the one she likes the most for training session. By giving her all sorts of treat your making her realise that she can get it "all" for no particular reason. Also get her feathers clipped ASAP. Its one of the biggest submission for parrots.

Step two: Take normal treat in hand and just give it to her in the cage and once she eats it just move your hand out of the cage slowly (while praising her) so that she doesn't feel scared by you nor she bites you in return. Repeat this process 5 or six times to bond with your parrot.

Step 3: This time show her the treat but slowly pull your hands toward yourself so that she will move forward in your direction to get the treat, and then simply treat her. Do this 5 or six time till the point she comes really near you from inside the cage to get her treat. You may mix her fav treat with the normal ones at the beginning of this step so that she starts to know that she is doing something right which is getting her that extra nice treat.

Step 4: Now place her fav treat in one hand, open the cage and slightly move the hand with treat in the cage and give it to the parrot. Once she eats it, she'll become acustomed with your hand inside the cage and won't bit you. but you gotta be patient.... it takes time and coolness. Once this is done, simply put the parrots fav treat in one hand, let her come to you and eat the treat. Then slowly slowly begin touching her gently behind the head and give her the treat as well.

Maybe this would be of help to you......

[NuItch]

I recently read an article which may also be of help.
https://companionparrotonline.com/chair_exercise.html
I don't personally agree with her training methods but as far as taming goes it may be helpful.

[imdnt]

I just sit there and do my own thing and ignore them which has worked a treat. Alpha was a bit flighty at first but now is fine with me being near the cage nor does he fly away when he's out of his cage. Next step is for him to trust my hand.

One tip I came across is to use negative reinforcement (still learning this). I'm not sure what you mean by approach; either you're walking to them or putting your hand inside?

Basically you approach the bird and when you see them starting to react, stop where you are and wait for them to chill out. Once they have calmed down either turn your back to them or leave the room for a few seconds. Repeat this process until you get near the cage without them reacting.

If it's a hand approach, give Imran's suggestion a go. If that fails, try the method above but this time with the hand. In theory it should work but I haven't tried it yet

[Imran Ahmed]

Negative reinforcement is when you treat a wrong behaviour as a postive behaviour, signalling the parrot to repeat this mistake again. For e.g. You give him banana to shut him from yelling the whole time. No this is Negative reinforcement. You should ignore him and not give him treats other wise he's going to yell all the time when he wants a banana.

[Michael]

Negative reinforcement is when you treat a wrong behaviour as a postive behaviour, signalling the parrot to repeat this mistake again. For e.g. You give him banana to shut him from yelling the whole time. No this is Negative reinforcement. You should ignore him and not give him treats other wise he's going to yell all the time when he wants a banana.

Sorry but this does not make any sense. Negative reinforcement is increasing behavior by taking something away. An example of negative reinforcement at work with a favorable outcome to the trainer:

A parrot is scared of an object and screams when it sees it. The owner shows the object and the bird begins to scream. Eventually it gets tired or distracted and stops. The owner takes away the object to reward the bird for not screaming. The bird was negatively reinforced by the object being removed and no longer causing it discomfort by its presence. The bird thus learns that by not screaming at the sight of the object, it will make it go away faster. Negative reinforcement is basically useful for taming a parrot to hands and novel objects.

Here is an example of negative reinforcement working against the owner:

A parrot bites the owner's hand when he tries to pet the parrot because it is not accustomed to being pet. The owner stops trying to pet the bird whenever it bites. The bird bites more often or just because the owner is nearby. In this case the parrot was negatively reinforced to bite. The parrot learned that by biting, it will make the aversive (approaching hand) more likely to withdraw and thus biting behavior increased.

But to the original poster, if the bird isn't clipped and flees you whenever it is out of the cage, you should tame it either in a small room or in the cage. I outlined the basics of taming in this article. Once you can get the bird used to accepting treats from your hand, you will be able to use positive (rather than negative) reinforcement and from there on out, training will get quicker and easier. However, it does take a lot of negative reinforcement, desensitization, and patience until you can initially get the bird to take treats from your hand if it is really scared. The good news is that eating is contrary to biting. So as long as you can get treats into its beak, it will be busy eating them rather than biting.

Oh and clipping is absolutely not requisite for parrot training. Beginners may still opt to do it because they don't know what they are doing. However, if the training methods are applied properly, flighted parrots are actually easier to train and less likely to bite than clipped ones.

[Imran Ahmed]

woahhhhh....... Man i never realised this about negative reinforcement because my parrot use to yell all the time and then i read some where on this forrum that in order to make parrot's stop screaming you should take away something they like (i.e. negative reinforcement) and return the particular thing when they quiet down. This brings dicipline in them.
In parctical i used this technique and it worked. When ever jeff was quiet i use to give him his fav fruit and he just stopped doing the shouts. Now he yells only when he's really hungry or Wants more banana's

[Michael]

That's negative punishment. And aside from taking away attention, there is little else that we can or should successfully take away.

Positive means adding something
Negative means taking something away

Reinforcement means making it more likely to happen again
Punishment means making it less likely to happen again

So negative punishment is taking something away (like attention) in order to reduce that behavior.

[Vicki5280]

Imran - These are all terms used in Operant Conditioning which is a method of shaping behavior in animals (remember that humans are animals! ).

I found this on a website:
"Operant Conditioning is the term used by B.F. Skinner to describe the effects of the consequences of a particular behavior on the future occurrence of that behavior. There are four types of Operant Conditioning: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Punishment, and Extinction. Both Positive and Negative Reinforcement strengthen behavior while both Punishment and Extinction weaken behavior." http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/opcond.html

It also has a very brief explanation and example of each of the four types of conditioning if you want to check it out. It helped me understand how each of them works in shaping behaviors. (And yes, they work on children too!)

[Imran Ahmed]

LOLZ Viki.... I'd rather not read the article for Jefee boi but now that you mentioned it works for childeren too.... Im definately going to read it .

@ Micheal, Thanx buddy you've been great with this