I'm confused! Please help me with training my baby...

[Kiwiwade]

Aloha to all,

I just got a Blue Headed Pionus a month ago. She ( sex undetermined but Vet's guess is female) was hatched in early May 2011 so that make her about 5 month old. She is fairly tame, she steps up on cue and simply by putting my finger in front of her. There are times, rarely though, she would reject my cue by turning around to face her back to me but for the most part, I say 99 % of the time she obeys. She is eager to come out of her cage, but never scream to be let out. I have taught her to come to the perch closest to the cage door when she wants to be out, so when i open her cage and ask " wanna come out?" She knows to come to the perch and lifts her leg up and be ready. She also let's my husband and I scratch her and cuddle with her, but weirdly only during the night. My husband and I tKe turn and scratch her head, neck, and back while she snuggle into our neck and make the baby Wee Wee noise. At the time we can touch her under the wing though she is not perfectly comfortable but she allows us. We can also hold her like a pigeon when she is in the cuddly mood in the night time.

What confuses me is that she does not like to be touched during the day. Unlike the night time, she will not lower her head and beg for scratch. She also lean away from my hand when I try to touch her while she is on my hand like Michael Jackson in the " smooth criminal" video or walks away if she was on her perch. Because she is really needy and cuddly during the night, it is really confusing how tame she really is....

Another issue is that she does not take food from our hand. I cannot find her favorite food other than pellets. She does take pellets or some seeds from out hand when she feels like it, but not regularly. For the most part, she will make noise "Ghar" and walks away when we offer foods...
I tried to find her favorite food by placing many kinds of seeds, nuts and pellets in one bowl and offer to her to see what she takes first.... She takes pellets..... Since I want to feed her the pellets for her main diet, I don't want to limit them and use them for treats.

I am als slightly scared to limit her food to motivate her with food since I am not sure exactly how I should limit her food intake and her being a baby, I feel like she should eat plenty at this time of her life. I have read a few books which recommending to only feed birds twice daily at the same time, but als I read books recommending to leave food in her cage at all time. This is another confusion that I encounter!

I know she loves her scratch during the night, but since she does not like to be touched during the day, I cannot use scratch ad her reward either!

What I want for now is basic taming, like be able to touch her every where without her being
scared any time of the day, hold her in my hand on her back, lift her wing and extend freely.... All those are beneficial to basic maintenance of her. I guess I am kind of lost in terms of what and how to start her taming process, and not sure if this is too early to do so since she is a baby and we just got her a month ago.

She has been a wonderful pet and have her basic step up and off done, so I am not in rush to train
her but it will be nice to learn how and where to start our next process of being closer....

Sorry for the long post, but I am really really looking forward to hearing from someone with more experience!

I can tell that she enjoys being around us

[liz]

Welcome to the forum.

My opinion is not always the same as the others but they will correct me if I am wrong.

Double the age. Your bird is 5 months old. You are dealing with a 10 month old baby. How fast would you push a 10 month old baby to learn?

I have a 1 year old Amazon

[liz]

[quote="liz"]Welcome to the forum.

My opinion is not always the same as the others but they will correct me if I am wrong.

Double the age. Your bird is 5 months old. You are dealing with a 10 month old baby. How fast would you push a 10 month old baby to learn?

I have a 1 year old Amazon Myrtle. She is a baby in her "terrible twos". Like a kid of that age she is making me nuts. Instead of tugging on my pantsleg to get my attention, she zooms me. She can say "Momma c'mere". She also tells me "no".

I have a 20 year old Amazon Rambo who not only understands what I say, he will respond. He will tell me what he wants and ask me questions that he wants answered.

[Conure_Concierge]

She sounds like a wonderful little lady.

Morning and Evening are Roosting/Socializing times in the wild. I've observed this behavior in both my GCC and Cape; they are friendlier, cuddlier, more talkative and easier to train in the morning and late afternoon through evening. Mid-day they are both crankier and quicker to take offense. I purchased my GCC at about 7 months of age and my Cape at about 12 months of age. They are both only about 17 months old now and have both mellowed out so that their mid-day grumpiness is no longer a risk to my fingers.

Introducing new foods often takes lots of time and multiple offers. Offer the food in different ways: in her bowl, hand-fed as a treat, as a foot-toy, inside a twisted piece of plain white paper as a foraging toy, when you're in the room and when you're not in the room. Find something she likes as a treat like Sunflower or Safflower Seeds, fruit or birdy bread to use for training; never limit here access to her pellets or basic food. Not all birds respond to food as a reward for training, or good behavior; praise (usually excitedly and loudly) is what some birds crave.

See Michael's Training Tips on this website. I would also recommend starting with clicker and chop-stick training as a good introduction for both you and your baby. In my limited experience your FIDS allowing you to handle her is both a training and trust issue; bonding continues to grow over many months and she will allow you to handle her more as time goes on.


Good luck.

[Kiwiwade]

Hi Liz,

Thank you for the reply. You are right, I guess I don't need to train her so much yet.
She will not be as talkative as your babies being Pionus, but hopefully we will build a great relationship like the one you have with your birds. After all I have a looooooong time together ahead of us, I'm going to take it slow.

Conure_concierge,

Thank you for the detail reply.
Yes, she is such a wonderful and perfect baby. She has never bitten us even when she is startled, she listens well, and cuddly. She does not scream either.
Your explanation make sence, I guess the wild behavior of socializing in certain times may be the reason for her acting differently. I started to train her to turn around in the late afternoon and in two days she got that done. I used a little seeds for motivation treats in the begining, but she does
not even need them anymore. All she needs is a cue. Just like you said, she seems to be motivated
by my excited praise " what a good baby!!".

I also noticed that when she gets to excited, my singing really calms her down! I'm not a good singer
or anything, but just singing softy to her completely calms her....

Buy the way, why conure_concierge? Just curious because I actually am a concierge.
I must say, being a parrot owner and a concierge both requires the same skill, PATIENCE!

[Kiwiwade]

My husband and I have been trying to teach her Turn around for a few days. Last night, my Poe got it right! She seems to love safflower seeds and using them as treats worked well. The cutest and funniest thing was, after we finished quite successful training session, she kept turning around and around on her perch and looked at us like " ok, I did it. Where's my seeds?" guess she wasn't done....it's fun to teach a little trick just as a part of bonding, nothing serious but my husband and I had good laughs and it seems to give her some fun activity to do.

Kiwi

[ruleeet]

The cutest and funniest thing was, after we finished quite successful training session, she kept turning around and around on her perch and looked at us like " ok, I did it. Where's my seeds?" guess she wasn't done....

She got things absolutely right - the more she turns the more seeds she'll get))