Re-Introduction...MEET LOUIS! (a little long sorry)

[trueloveway]

A couple of weeks ago I lost my Senegal parrot Jack, and I really didn't expect to get another one so soon. And by that I mean I wasn't looking for another bird to adopt. Well,I think it's a little soon. I adopted a blue parrotlet named Louis. He's around 3 years old. The woman I got him from had him for 3 years and that's her best guess at his age. Louis was never abused per say, although he didn't get a lot of attention. Which, for the record I know isn't the way to treat a parrot, but my point was he was never hit or anything.

I've had Louis for about 2 weeks now. The woman said that he bit if you tried to get him to step up, but I was making progress with him within hours. Basically she said that Louis wasn't friendly but I think the main problem was that he didn't get enough attention. He's such a sweet little bird. This is my first parrotlet, so could anyone give me anything that they've learned from having this type of parrot?

there are a couple of behaviors that I want to work with Louis on such as not chewing on jewelry etc, going in and out of the cage easily, and flight recall. He's never been trained on any of these. Could anyone help? I would be so grateful! and thanks for sticking through this long post!

[trueloveway]

I should also add that Louis has never had any special food. in fact he's been on millet. his whole life. I really need help in this area. My other parrot Jack was used to a varied diet, but even though I'm introducing Louis to new foods I don't feel I'm doing enough.

Also, even though he's a sweet bird and just needed someone to care enough and take him out of the cage for more than 20 minutes, Louis is extremely phobic of noises in general, especially anything that sounds like a paper bag. When I first saw Louis (the old owner is where we go regularly for Bible study) the lady demonstrated for at least 2 minutes how much this poor bird hated plastic bags. And she laughed. I asked her to stop as it upset Louis too much. Obviously since I know this information I won't go up to my parrot and wave a paper bag in his face, however noise cannot be avoided of this sort such as ripping paper towels or using plastic bags. I really don't want to stress Louis out. Is there anything I'm not doing that I need to?

[marie83]

Welcome (back) to you and louis.

Sounds like your doing a brilliant job with him.
Regarding his fears, see what his noise level/distance tolerance is (start further away and at the quietest volume you can manage) Once you have discovered that then you can work on getting him used to the noise at a level and distance he is comfortable with, hopefully that will allow you to gradually build up to a normal household level of noise.
Good luck with him

[cml]

Welcome back!

[trueloveway]

Thank you so much! I'm going to try your suggestion with the paper bags and I really hope Louis responds to it. He's not a dumb bird, because he gets into all sorts of trouble! I'm excited to be back on the forum to learn even more than I did before.