by Pajarita » Thu Aug 29, 2019 9:43 am
Hi, Fabi, welcome to the forum! Whether it's a baby or an adult is easy to tell most of the time. If there is a black spot on the beak, the bird is under 6 months of age BUT there are mutations that never get the black and there are some that lose it at 3 months of age so I would strongly suggest you feed it as if it was a baby, just to make sure. Babies and juveniles should get two different kinds of soft food served warm and fresh twice a day (breakfast and dinner).
Now, as to how to tame it... First of all, a parent-raised aviary species is never going to bond with you deeply. It's not a matter of how much work you put into it or whether you are an expert on this, it's that the only way to get a deeper bond is to handfeed them when they are tiny babies and, once this is not done, it never happens again because there is no imprinting (not my opinion, a scientific fact). You can get it to trust you by spening A LOT of time with it, talking, whistling, singing, offering treats, etc. without asking for anything in return (meaning, not trying to get the bird to step up, recall or anything). Do not put your hand inside his cage unless you need to clean it, do not clip it and do not force it to accept your touch (these are all flooding techniques that we used to use but stopped when we realized they only worked in the short time and backfired in the long term).
A word of caution. You are going to have to rethink your expectations of the relationship you will have with this bird because it will never be satisfied or even completely happy with a human as 'his partner'... it might not even be completly healthy, either, because little aviary species never feel completely safe when alone and this ends up creating chronic stress - which, in turn, depresses their immune system. Man has the tendency to believe it knows more than nature and can reverse evolutionary traits just by sheer will but it's nothing but arrogance... Nature always knows best.
I am an animal lover and rights activist and, as such, I feel compelled to recommend to you that you have this little bird DNAd to find out if it's a male or a female and get another of the same species and opposite gender for it because it's the only way to make it happy and healthy for the long run. If what you want is a companion parrot and you have MANY hours to spend with it, I recommend you adopt an adult conure.