help taming aviary born and bred cockatiel.

[Farli]

I recently rescued a cockatiel from a bad situation in an aviary. He is no longer sick (severe eye infections that required topical antibiotics twice a day). He was never handled a far as anyone could tell me. Once I get him out, he lets me pet and scratch him and he doesn't scream or try to bite, but anytime I come close to his cage he freaks out. I sit near his cage every single day and he is ok with that providing I am at least 2.feet away from the cage. He eats well and I try to offer him all sorts of snacks but he will not eat these until I am gone. He talks and I talk to him and he is ok with that. I have trimmed his wings even though all my other birds are flighted because I read it increaseshis dependency on me. I just want any hints on making this poor little fellow like me...

[cml]

First off, its great that you have rescued him and have helped him recover =)!
Sitting near the cage everyday is going to help make him less sensitive towards the cage proximity. You will need to work on this with small stages, getting closer and closer to the cage. Much like how you train them to accept handling really.

Clipping him wasnt a good idea in my opinion. It makes birds less sure of themself and can lead to depression. The idea that clipping would be a good thing is quite old, and can be found in much literature still, but its an old practise, and by many considered a bad practise.
It also doesnt help that your others birds are flighted, because if there's a fight, he alone now cant fly away. I would let him regrow his flight feathers, and stop clipping.

Keep working with him, it sounds to me like you really care about him and I am sure you will succeed in creating a strong bond between the two of you =)!

Also, dont be discouraged by the fact that he's an aviary bird. One of mine is, and he's the sweetest thing ever!

[Farli]

He is in his own cage as my parakeets are in theirs. I clipped his wings originally so I could catch him to to apply his medication which I know did some damage in our relationship, but it needed to be done. Afterwards I would make it a point to give him lots of affection before returning him to his cage. I am doing ask that I read on this site to try and help taming him, but I just don't know when I can consider steps dooryard or if anyone has tips to help make the process better.

[cham87]

Hey welcome to the forums,

You will be fine. This forum owns and people can point you in the right direction. Just keep doing what you are doing. Read as many of these articles as you can. http://trainedparrot.com/sitemap.php

[Polarn]

one thing about giving affection as a reward for beeing a good buy letting you catch him and takign the medication. I might be wrong here, but if he is untame and wont let you scratch him while he is perched or something, I think the best reward for him is simply to be put down and left alone as soon as he has done something good. As for getting closer and clsoer to him there are two alternatives as i see it.
Either you move closer to the cage little by little day by day, sitting there reading a book out loud or something moving an inch closer each day until you can sit right next to the cage.

The other option is actually training him to let you go close, this is done by finding out how close you can walk to the cage and him still being calm, take an additional step, then he will start look a little nervous, as soon as he is calm and fluff up again you say "good bird" or click with a clicker, then take a few steps back. stay there for 30sec-1min then move closer again until you see he is no longer completely relaxed, once he settles down you bridge and move away. this should allow you to walk closer and closer gradually, and your bird will learn that by going into a relaxed state you will leave him alone. you leaving him alone beeing his treat. I think if your in a calm state doing this and not pushing too hard this is probably the most effective way of getting closer.

I did this with my bluefront aviary and it took me two days of this from moving myself closer, to start moving my hand closer and reward him by removing my hand if he went into a calm state until I could have my hand close enough to offer him a treat, the first couple of times he didnt want to take the treat, so i put it down next to him clicked and removed my hand, then he would take it. but at the end of day two he started to take them from my hand, wich ment i could click as soon as he took the treat and then remove my hand.

Don't get me wrong my bluefront is far from welltrained or close to being where I want him to be when it comes to allowing me to touch him etc. But he is not flinchy, he was against my mother first few times she visited, and I had her do the exact same thing as I did and it took about 30 minutes for him to figure out she is no different from me or any other people visiting, that staying relaxed with her ment he would get rewarded. I've seen the same steps taken with 1personbirds that would bite the other members of the family as well.

Needless to say, i quite prefer this approach however it is important to find that treshhold where he is getting nervous so that he stays where he is and is able to relax, if you take to big steps he will start flying about in his cage and that kind of reduces the effect of the whole thing.