Teaching my baby cockatiel to "stay"??

[jessandbeaker]

Hello

I am new to the forum and to bird ownership in general! We got our cockatiel , Beaker, about 3 weeks ago and he is awesome. He is coming up on 13 weeks old. However, he can also be rather 'clingy'. He gets very agitated if he can see my husband and I in the room and he is stuck in his cage; when he is out of his cage he only wants to sit on one of us and cuddle/nibble/attempt to destroy jewellery We have lots of bright and fun toys for him but he really couldn't care less.

Whilst we love hanging out with him in this way, I am concerned because I simply can't get him to stay put if I perch him somewhere other than on us. This mostly concerns me for his own safety - last night we put him on his playpen and within a minute he flew into my husband's (very hot) dinner in an attempt to reach us!!

In the mornings when I'm getting ready for work I have been perching him elsewhere for short periods - 2-3 minutes at a time - and rewarding him with a "good boy" and a nice scratch when he doesn't fly off. Is there any way I could be formalising this training? I know he's still very young, but I want him to be safe when he's out of his cage.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

J

[friend2parrots]

Hello and welcome to the forum

I just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts about clinginess and velcro behavior in birds, from my own experience with my Green cheek conure, in case it might be helpful to you.

I have found that the absolute best way to teach a bird independent play is not to teach it to "stay" or "wait" anywhere, but instead, to build up its emotional independence and confidence overall, so that it develops the interest to do things on its own, rather than constantly bug its owners. the single most important thing, in my opinion, in teaching a bird independence and emotional security is flight recall exercises.

My GCC went through a spookout last summer, and, after a period of fear-related aggression, became excessively clingy, to the point where he sought to be surgically attached to me constantly. He refused to play on his own, showed no interest in his toys, foraging stations, playstands, etc. The SINGLE MOST EFFECTIVE thing that has transformed him over the past three months has been flight recall exercises. this is when you ask the bird to fly to you across a distance. after doing at least an hour of vigorous flight recall exercises with my GCC each day across the longest continuous width of my house (half an hour in the morning when he first wakes up, and then some exercises during the day), for three months, i am now noticing that he has transformed in personality. he now has a renewed curiosity, calmness, confidence and independence that i did not know was possible in a bird that was SO extremely clingy just a little while back.

this forum and Michael (forum owner)'s blog has a lot of info for people who are new to bird ownership. please go to the blog's sitemap for an index of articles:

http://trainedparrot.com/sitemap.php

please read through all the entries, esp. the ones that guide you through first bringing a bird home, early stages of training,etc. , then the blog entries on how to train a flighted bird, and how to teach your bird flighted recall exercises.

a flighted lifestyle will mean the entire house has to be birdproofed and secured, and safety precautions taken. the blog will explain this as well.

for your situation, i believe flight recall exercises will really help you build a strong foundation of independent behavior in your baby bird.

i hope this helps - all the best, and good luck with your