My Meyers Parrot Training Progress

[Wolf]

I would say that it would be fine to stop the treats, but then I always give a head scratch when my birds step up or fly over to me for any reason. So although I don't give treats for it I guess that I am still rewarding them with attention.

[modifieddesign]

That's exactly what I was thinking of doing. Make attention the reward for things like that. I cut it off today and she is doing good with it still. Thanks for the advice.

[modifieddesign]

I have been teaching her to eat different foods, which she likes to make difficult, but apparently pumpkin seeds are amazing.

I have eaten greens in front of her, which made her try them, but she spits them out and now won't try them again. Any ideas on how to get her to take them?

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[Pajarita]

I've never had to reward a bird for stepping up, not even with scritches. I might have to reward them to get OFF me but not to get ON me

[Wolf]

With my birds I try everything that I can think of, I cut and chop and shred the vegetables and fruits into all sizes and shapes, just one or two different ones at a time such as finely diced carrots and shredded ones and string cut apples and so on. But the key seems to keep on eating some of it until they start asking to try it and then offering it to them. The issue appears to be not that they don't like the foods, but rather that they don't recognize them as food. I think that this is the reason why the parent birds continue to feed the young birds after they fledge, to teach them what the food looks like as well as how to find it. The sharing of food also appears to be a social activity as well as another way of bonding with them. There seems to be evidence to support this but it is mostly my opinion.

[modifieddesign]

I've never had to reward a bird for stepping up, not even with scritches. I might have to reward them to get OFF me but not to get ON me

Haha, that's what I'm working on now is stepping off consistently. She steps up easily 100% of the time. She steps off about 50% of the time.

[modifieddesign]

With my birds I try everything that I can think of, I cut and chop and shred the vegetables and fruits into all sizes and shapes, just one or two different ones at a time such as finely diced carrots and shredded ones and string cut apples and so on. But the key seems to keep on eating some of it until they start asking to try it and then offering it to them. The issue appears to be not that they don't like the foods, but rather that they don't recognize them as food. I think that this is the reason why the parent birds continue to feed the young birds after they fledge, to teach them what the food looks like as well as how to find it. The sharing of food also appears to be a social activity as well as another way of bonding with them. There seems to be evidence to support this but it is mostly my opinion.

That makes a lot sense. I'll try putting her in my lap and snacking on greens. She tried a peach today, but only ate a third of the small chunk.

[Wolf]

Well, it is not that I have ever had to train any of my birds to step up for me, it really is more like they usually come to me on their own or I ask them if they want to step up and they do and so I give them a head scratch. It is accompanied by my telling them thank you and it is so good to see you type of thing rather than an intentional reward. But I am not fooling myself as it is a reward if you look at it from the aspect of training.
Step down is another animal altogether. I usually give a piece of a nut, the reason for this is that they want to stay with me and prefer a higher value item in exchange for letting me go do other things and in addition to not always putting them in their cage when I take them over to it to step down, it makes it much easier to get them to go in their cage when they don't want to without any resentment from them.
I have to be careful when giving my birds certain fruits as they like the fruit or at least they like the juice as they extract and drink the juice and then flick the left over mash all over the place. Slobs !

[modifieddesign]

Yeah I think I didn't "train" her to step up as much as I just won her trust with tasty snacks. The stepping down definitely feels like training, lol.

[liz]

I've never had to reward a bird for stepping up, not even with scritches. I might have to reward them to get OFF me but not to get ON me

Ha ha ha. I know what you mean. I taught Myrtle the word fly so she knew when to get off me but it doesn't always work.