How do you get a bird to come out of the cage?

[Eric&Rebecca]

OUr new parakeet is not cage aggressive but he is very shy to come out the cage.

We want to give him time to settle in as grass parakeets (as I've been taught on the forum take a good while to warm up). What would be the best method of training/taming him?

He hates hands and won't let us hand feed and they tend to be very placid and aren't like normal parrots. We leave the cage open all the time in the hope he will eventually leave it? We also try putting our hands in the cage with food but he hasn't reacted to this yet... Once out of the cage you can get him on the finger... just about... very very slowly!

Does anyone have any tips on how to tempt him out the cage... we can use a wooden dowel for this which he will step up on but I feel like we 'forcing' him so I don't want to continue with that.

[cml]

He hates hands and won't let us hand feed and they tend to be very placid and aren't like normal parrots. We leave the cage open all the time in the hope he will eventually leave it? We also try putting our hands in the cage with food but he hasn't reacted to this yet... Once out of the cage you can get him on the finger... just about... very very slowly!

My wife sat for hours offering a treat to Leroy, pretty much everyday after he settled in. I think it took about a week or so before he took it. After that we got him used to accepting treats from hands, and then it was a matter of target training him. When he started responding to that, things sped up, as you can then start building a bond as well as have a way of getting your parrot to move where you wnat it to (most of the time anyway ^^).

This is where and when I think you should allow your parrot out of the cage for the first time, and not before. This is for a few reasons; you've given your parrot time to get used the surroundings, youve built up some trust, and you have a safe and non-negative way of getting your parrot back to the cage.
I also wouldnt let him be in more than the room where the cage's at to start with, and slowly work on getting him used to new rooms etc.

[Eurycerus]

This is where and when I think you should allow your parrot out of the cage for the first time, and not before.

While I agree with you, how did you clean the cage when he wouldn't come out?

[Eric&Rebecca]

I had to sit there with him on a wooden dowel rod for half an hour. He did end up crash landing on a few things because there is a road outside our house and a fire truck went by but we have bird proofed the room already with blinds, bed sheets etc so he cant hurt himself too much. although he did very slightly bruise his wing (the vet said all young birds get these so not to worry)However I had to clean the cage somehow! What I mean is he won't come out unless I get him out and I don't want to force him to do things too much unless necessary. He actually quite likes his travel cage, he went to the vet in this and seemed very relaxed and calm. maybeI will do this next time I clean his cage. He seems more relaxed in there and his bubbly poops are stress gas so we are trying to move him out the cage as little as possible. I clean around him as much as possible with the drawer and the perches everyday but once a week the whole cage is dismantled and sterilised. I don't want to start training till he completely settled which will be soon as he eating plenty and he even took a bath and preen today!

[cml]

The quarantine cage, like the gigantic cage we have now, had trays and bars you could pull out.

[Eric&Rebecca]

Ours does too but you still need to dismantle and disinfect. Especially with a new bird because they more stressed their immune system is weaker. I clean out drawers and base daily and change papers 2 times per day. Then everyday Saturday whole thing gets fully sterilised.

It's not the getting him out the cage once per week to do that that's a particular issue, it's what's the best way to get him to start coming out once he settled. We leave the cage open all day (only when we home of course!) I just don't want to have to force him out to give his wings a stretch, the new cage after quarantine is double the size. Although this one more than adequate, I prefer bigger for him so he can fly a bit.

[Pricey_boy]

put a cat in his cage and it wont be long before he lunges out of there

[marie83]

Let him take his time, he will come out when he is confident to do so. I feel its important they can make the choice. Harlie was abused and cagebound in her last home. She wouldn't entertain the idea of coming out, so we left the cage open and let her decide. It took a long time for her to get the confidence but now she will come out reguarly. When we tried to encourage her she actually saw it as a detterant and made her more determined to stay put because we were noticing what she was doing and I think being noticed made her feel more vulnerable.

Occasionally Harlie still wont come out but 9 times out of 10 she will and it usually isn't long before she flies over and sits on my shoulder.

When the cage is closed there is nothing to stop you sitting outside the cage and talking to him/feed him treats etc though.

Also don't stress too much about getting the cage sterile, I actually think some bacteria is good as it keeps the immune system working. Its a bit like us, we get less colds the older we get as our immune systems recognise different strains. If we weren't exposed to any cold viruses say by being locked in a sterile room for years then released we would almost literally come down with everything because our immune systems wouldn't know what to do.
So again as long as you can clean the bottom trays out, you wont really need to get him out at the end of the week to fully disinfect the cage, if you can get your hands up to the cage then just wipe round any bits which have poop on with a tiny bit of kitchen roll to avoid freaking him out. It honestly is unlikely to do anything to harm him by skipping a week or 2.

[Eric&Rebecca]

[quote="marie83"}



When the cage is closed there is nothing to stop you sitting outside the cage and talking to him/feed him treats etc though.

We can't give him treats because he's really scared of hands... Should we wait till he's got the courage to come out the cage on his own before we start hand training? Or is that going to be difficult with regards to getting him back in the cage?

[Eurycerus]

We can't give him treats because he's really scared of hands... Should we wait till he's got the courage to come out the cage on his own before we start hand training? Or is that going to be difficult with regards to getting him back in the cage?

I would start to familiarize him with hands. With patience he will figure out that it's not so bad to come grab a treat from a hand. Diggy will take treats from me but won't let me touch him or step up (not really anyway). I think treat giving is the first step. You could try a sprig of millet so that way you're holding it but it's away from your hand. :]