Toweling/Holding Tips?

[healthyaddict]

I have a brand new family member, Doctor. Right now he's about a 5 month old cockatiel. He's been wonderful, incredibly active, tame, and great with strangers. We've gone so crazy over him we even created a twitter account for him (https://twitter.com/TheDoctorBird/).

All that being said - after only about 3 weeks of having him he's gotten fairly ill. I took him to an avian vet only to find out he likely has some type of bacterial infection. We got him tested and are waiting on the results. In the meantime however, we have to administer ofloxacin drops in both eyes and nostrils 2x/day & an antibiotic by mouth, azithromycin, every 48 hours.

So here's my problem. My partner travels a lot and he's currently out of town. When he's here I can handle Doctor well enough with both hands so my partner can get the drops in, but it's incredibly difficult to hold him and get them in myself. I've tried watching YouTube videos on getting him in a towel and holding his head still, but I find it incredibly difficult to hold him with one hand. Any tips?

To top it off, before he got sick he finally really started to trust us. Now he doesn't allow us to scratch his head or anything. He's not very happy right now. How do I make this less negative experience for my poor Doctor?

[Eric&Rebecca]

OK, this can be quite difficult.

The first thing is if he's fighting you then he's quite likely to be getting better, really sick birds won't have the strength to fight you that much.

First- to hold a bird correctly you need to hold with one hand over the wings. The head should rest gently between your first and middle finger with your palm and the rest of your hand holding the wings closed. Don't grip to hard, firm but so he can breathe! Make sure his feet are on your chest or somewhere on your body. Tiel's panic when they cannot hold on with their feet. Let him rest there for a minute and talk soothingly. Don't react to bites or raise your voice he's only defending himself.

To open the beak stroke the ear patches. It's an automatic reflex used by my vet to adminster meds or check inside their beak. He's done it with all my birds. This is a good time to get the syringe in.

To actually get to the point of grabbing there's a few methods (not all I agree with) but he needs meds so needs as needs must!

1.Turn the lights off. Tiels don't see to well and will freeze and not be able to see you grabbing

2. Be in a confined space so flying is limited

3. Keep the bird flying till he's too tired to resist

4. Coax him in with a treat

5. The one we use- we can cuddle ours birds. bring him in for a scratch and cuddle. Smoothly transfer cuddling and scritches into the hold I described and administer.


You could always try bread or avicake soaked in the meds. That was it eliminates the syringing and grabbing altogether (providing its consumed in it's entireity)

[Eric&Rebecca]

Also give him a treat afterwards or when you have him in the hold. He'll realise he has done well. It will be a setback to your taming but they tend to forgive and forget pretty quick in my experience

[healthyaddict]

Thanks so much! I'll try this. I feel so bad every time I do it. I'll try to place his feet and work more slowly into it.

Before I was wrapping his body in a wash cloth to hold his wings down while I held his head. Probably didn't help too much with the feet thing.

Thanks. ^_^

[Eric&Rebecca]

Yeah they HATE being on their backs. Maybe try a teatowel, they quite good, bigger too! The correct hold is very important and just let him rest his feet on your chest. With the correct grip biting is minimized and you can stop him turning his head to much. Just be careful not to grip to hard. Keep the fingers the same width apart, like a head support you see on hospital/medical programmes.

[healthyaddict]

Thanks.

We'll see how this works later tonight.

[Michael]

Forget the towel. It's pointless. Just hold the bird with your hand. If you grab the bird right, you will be able to easily hold it in one hand, restrain the head, not get bit, and do what you gotta do. I hate recommending this in a non-positive reinforcement based approach but if you haven't already tamed your bird, it's not gonna happen in time for medication. So for now just do it and then reconcile your relationship later by doing it right.

http://trainedparrot.com/index.php?bid= ... ab+Methods

Meanwhile let this serve as a warning to everyone else to get off your butts and train your birds NOW before you actually need to make use of it. You never know so having a very tame bird that you can handle in every way in advance is the best defense.

http://TrainedParrot.com/Taming

[pionus]

Oh, Micheal, your subtlety always amazes me. but really i do agree that you should train a bird BEFORE it gets sick, it makes sense.

good luck with Doctor!

[Andromeda]

OMG He has a little TARDIS! There is another user on these forums (Dasphatness) who also named their bird after a Doctor Who character (Melody Pond).

You have already been given really good advice and I don't have much to add. I just wanted to say I hope Doctor gets better soon! I agree that you don't need a towel. Tameness will suffer in the short term but once he is better you will be able to improve your relationship using positive reinforcement. Good luck and I look forward to hearing more about Doctor!

[healthyaddict]

Michael - I've only had him about 4 weeks now, but thankfully he knows his step commands already. That part is easy. Working on the grabbing may take a bit more time given he already has the negative associations with the drops. I'll give it a try without the towel when I have to give him his medication later today. I've just been so afraid of hurting him with my hands. Also, I took a look at the video you linked. Seeing it from different angles with the two birds was helpful.

Andromeda - Haha that's awesome! Glad to see fellow Whovians on this board. I'm convinced that my Doctor looks like the 10th. Same hair.

Erik&Rebecca - He's calmed down a bit this afternoon. Letting me scratch him again. He's still a little jittery, but hopefully that'll pass once I get the hang of holding him.

Everyone, thanks again for the well wishes and advice! As a noob to the forum, I'm glad to see everyone's so friendly and that it's active.