Treats

[Chris&Akilah]

So I've been teaching Akilah "Target" and "Spin", she has got target down and I think she is getting spin, but it's going slow because of how long it takes her to eat the reward. She chose pine nuts as her favourite, so I use those but even if I chop them up into slivers she delicately nibbles and savours each fragment, and sometimes takes a good minute to eat it. If I give her a whole one, it's basically time to go make a cup of coffee or something. I have tried using tiny bits of her favourite fruits, chopped up sunflower seed, millet and other favourites for training rewards, but nothing yet holds her attention like pine nuts. If I chop them up too small it's too hard for her to take them from my fingers.
I see peoples videos, and to me it looks like most birds just gulp the treat down right away. What do you all use for training treats? Maybe Akilah is just not hungry enough during training sessions?

[iknowwhatiknow]

I chop shelled sunflower seeds into 6 pieces. They're tiny, and sometimes Rory will spend a full minute chewing on them anyway, but they usually work.

[zazanomore]

Millet has always worked best with Einstein. It's a quick treat.

[Chris&Akilah]

For some reason Akilah is picky about millet, some days she goes nuts for it, and others has no interest at all

[zazanomore]

Do you think she would perform with a verbal reward? I taught Einstein to step up without the use of any treat. I can even get him to do some targets without the millet. He loves getting kisses from me and whenever I tell him he's a good boy, his little feathers puff out and I can tell he's proud of himself.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Scooter so far has learned more from attention than treats, but I have done little formal training, mostly more or less casual behavior modification. When I tried trick training with treats, it seemed to me that it was more like a not-very-interesting business transaction to him. Having me make a fuss seems more "fun" than that, but he's a bouncy sort of birdie.

[Shani]

Millet has always worked best with Einstein. It's a quick treat.

I use millet for Barney as well, though tbh it probably wouldn't matter what I used. He accepts even pellets from my hand like they're the best treat that's ever existed.