My Meyers Parrot Training Progress

[liz]

The worst bite I ever got was from a cockatiel named Rosie (Pit Bull).

Did the smokers wash their hands before touching your birdy? I smoke so my hands are always in soap and water. The hands look 20 years older than me.

[modifieddesign]

I don't think anyone was a smoker. If they were they didn't.

[modifieddesign]

Good idea, Wolf. I hope I never feel that.

[Wolf]

I hope not either, but you will likely feel it a few times when puberty sets in, but then again you could be one of the fortunate few that don't get bit during that time. Kiki had to have been going through puberty when she first arrived and had to make up her mind as to who her human was going to be. She started out with that being my Lady and then changed her mind. And it was during this period that I got the most bites. She also didn't know yet who she could trust so that added to it as well as the fact that we started without knowing anything about parrots. The first thing that we learned was that they had a mind all their own and the second thing was that they bite, hard. She was the first.

[modifieddesign]

I had a male golden capped conure for my first parrot and I got him about a year before puberty. But my daughter was born a few months after he started getting moody and hating everyone but me. He got so bad that shamefully I rehomed him. I wish I hadn't of, but a newborn and a hormonal parrot was just too much at the time. I bought him before my wife got pregnant, if it had been planned I wouldn't have bought a parrot.

My daughter is older now and we aren't having anymore kids so I finally decided to get another one. So far so good. Plus by time Norma hits that age my daughter will be almost 8 years old and old enough to understand why the bird is being mean.

Gotta love parrots...

I've done so much research this time that I'm almost on system overload mentally. Haha.

[Wolf]

Kick back with your bird for a few days or even a week, enjoy the time with each other, and let the information settle and gel a bit. sometimes you have to take the conscious mind off of a subject and give the rest of the mind time to work on it.

[Harpmaker]

y By the time my Meyer's reached puberty, I had learned enough of her body language to avoid being bitten (following the rule that parrot bites don't count unless they draw blood). You may be equally lucky.

Corsair hates having her claws messed with, and the last two times anyone here was bitten, it was me and I was doing that. The last time I blunted her nails she broke the top layer of skin, but drew no blood.(Progress!).

My adult children complain about getting hard nips, but they don't get bites. Meyer's hens are pretty mellow. I understand the cocks are less so, but a lot depends on the bird, and the attitude of the person interacting with it.

[modifieddesign]

Wolf, yeah I probably need to. I think I have my head around what I'm going to do for mine now. There is just so much contradiction on the Internet for parrot care. That study I read helped a lot.

Harpmaker, I hope I get lucky like that. She will lay on her back and let me play with her feet but I haven't moved towards clipping them yet. Going to reinforce this behavior for awhile first.

Today she layer on my chest and we had a 20 minute snuggle session. It only ended because I had to go to work. That's the longest she has ever done that.

[modifieddesign]

Update

Today Norma began to spin in place on que. We started practicing this with the target stick, which is mostly still needed, but she has done it 5 times now without the target on que. She definitely seems to enjoy learning this trick. Still more practice to fully reinforce it.

She is fully target trained though. She will cross a room to target. Clicker training definitely works.

[Harpmaker]

Corsair will spin in her cage to get my husband's attention when he gets home. He gives her pieces of peanut toffee. Not good for her, but she gets less than one small piece a day. They are the one treat she NEVER gets from me, so she has to get HIS attention. She is really cute about it.