by Pajarita » Sat Feb 16, 2019 2:50 pm
Hi, Baby Girl, and welcome to the forum. Getting an adult parrot used to you to the point of trust takes a long time so arm yourself of patience and don't rush things. Talking to her and spending time with her is the right thing to do but I am afraid that putting your hand in her cage is exactly the opposite of what you need to do. Parrots are like people in the sense that personal space is very important to them and when you put your hand in her cage what you are doing is actually a sign of disrespect to them so, if I were you, I would stop immediately because you are not helping things at all. Talk, sing, whistle and even dance for her and, every now and then, offer her a treat from your fingers but, if she doesn't take it, simply leave it within her reach because this is not a reward, it's a gift from you to her. As the days go by, she will begin to realize that you are not a threat to her and that you want to be her friend and, if everything goes right and she has not been severely neglected, she will start to look forward to your company and the treats you bring and will start approaching the side of the cage where you are standing. Once you see this, you can start politely asking her to step up BUT if she doesn't do it, do not ask more than twice. Simply walk away and try again later. Do not insist, they don't like pushy, it only backfires.
Now, this might take longer than what you would expect - it all depends on whether she was treated kindly when she was a young bird and handled with love because birds that were not grow up dissaffected and, although no parrot is completely without redemption, it takes a long time to get these birds to trust again and trust is the foundation of a good, long term human/parrot relationship. Yours will take longer because you have been doing the wrong thing for months so now you have to go back to zero from the negative number where you put yourself. I am not trying to criticize you, unfortunately for the birds and their humans, parrots are very difficult to understand because we are used to dogs as pets and dogs have been bred for thousands of generations to be people oriented while parrots are not only undomesticated but also much more intelligent than dogs (mind you, I love dogs with a passion but they are super easy to get them to love us while we need to put a lot of work into a parrot). Think of a parrot as you would a person. When you first meet somebody, you don't want them touching you, hugging you, crowding you and you would certainly would not like them walking into your bedroom and laying down on your bed next to you, right? Treat a parrot with the same respect you would offer a human being and they will reward you with trust and unconditional love.