Hand Taming Questions

[Kirsten]

So I quite literally started to train Skittles today. The only thing prior to this I've bothered to teach him is step up. We've had him since he was about 4 mos. old and now he's around 2 yrs...I know, I'm a bad momma.

Anywho we started working on target and hand taming today. At first, he wasn't very interested in the target. I had to wave the target around a bit for him to be curious enough to try to nibble on it before I started clicking and giving him treats. After that though, he did pretty well and figured out what he was supposed to do quickly.

Then we moved on to hand taming. I read Michael's article here: http://trainedparrot.com/Taming/#handling

I was a little confused on this. I assume that most of the article is meant for new parrots who aren't as comfortable with their owner's touch. So Skittles doesn't really "freak out" per say, he just scoots away from my hand and if he's at the end of the perch, he starts biting at it. So what I basically did was just leave my hand there until he stopped leaning away and if he didn't bite my hand for ten whole seconds, I gave him a treat. By the time I gave him his last treat, my whole hand was lightly cupped over his back and was touching, but he was still keeping his head dipped down as if he was afraid.

Am I doing something wrong? I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right before I move on. Is there a video of the hand taming process being done somewhere that I can watch? That would probably help a lot.

And one last thing, I've decided to wake up an extra 30 minutes early (seeing as I tend to get like...10 hrs of sleep and need to cut down anyway) and let him poop, grab some water and then we start training for 20 minutes. Right now, I'm only planning on doing this once a day, but is that not enough or is that about right?

Looking forward to your suggestions!

[Michael]

Am I doing something wrong? I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right before I move on.

Yeah, expecting to achieve absolute tameness overnight. It sounds like you've made huge progress, probably even too much, in a single training session. You gotta give it time to sink in and have a long term approach. Work on targeting till he'll go anywhere for it.

There's isn't that much to show about the hand taming. The point is to find your bird's comfort level and then slowly push it a little at a time in return for treats. Take your time, don't get discouraged, and have fun.

[Parrot-Tamer]

Yeah, Michael is absolutely right you will never achieve absolute tame mess overnight. Hand taming is pretty straight forwar though ESPECIALLY if you have a clicker.

[Parrot-Tamer]

Sorry tameness not tame mess lol

[marie83]

Agree with the others, slow down.

Parrots learn really fast but too much in one go will overwhelm them and may lead them to regress backwards with their training or become phobic even if they seem to ''get it'' at the time.
You have a lifetime with your bird, savour every moment as you go along your journey. Theres no point rushing through everything even if it does go well because what have you got left to do then? Plus if your not rushing you are more likely to be able to pick up on and fix any mistakes you may make. Trust me, we all make them.