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Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Discuss the methods and techniques of clicker training, target training and bonding. These are usually the first steps in training a young parrot.

Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Wolf » Mon May 09, 2016 10:10 am

A double partition so they can't bite toes either. Parrotlets are naturally very aggressive birds.
Wolf
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby amazhar » Mon May 09, 2016 4:12 pm

I got another cage for one of them . Still can;t get my self to grab one of them and separate them. I feel that they are very attached to each other. Advice?
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Wolf » Mon May 09, 2016 6:24 pm

Do any of the feed doors match up so that they can be opened and placed together so that the bird do not get out? If so place the cages together and place food and water in the new cage with the matching doors open and wait for the bird to move themselves until they are each in a different cage then close these two doors.
Wolf
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Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby amazhar » Tue May 10, 2016 7:43 am

I did it. I wish I didn't have to do that but today I witnessed the fighting happening (as the past days I wasn't always home). I grabbed the male and placed him in the new cage. I will make sure I buy lots of toys for both of them. The male seems "okay" at first he was shocked, I gave him some treats and now he is on the swing making lots of sounds and squeaks. However, the female seems unhappy and at unease. She's been flying around the cage so I put some seeds for her and now she is eating her treats.

Next steps?

Note both the male and the female still take treats from my hand
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Wolf » Tue May 10, 2016 10:32 am

I know that this sounds hard, but this was for the best, so I am glad that you got to see this first hand because now you understand why I first suggested that you just go ahead and catch him and move him, in the long run you have done no damage to either of them and you have saved the female a lot of needless pain. But from a human perspective, I am sorry that you had to go through this event.

Now for the long post that you have been waiting for, the one about hand taming them. You need to approach this without any time expectations on either bird as they will progress at their very own rates and in their own manner. The very first part of handtaming any bird is to gain their trust. You will find that this is a very large part of how I do this because without this trust you will have nothing but a couple of little balls of feathers that bite a lot, not what you are after. It is good that they are taking treats from you right now as this will help them to reach the place that you want them to reach much quicker. Still it is important that you do not skip any of the steps, even though they may be doing what we are asking of them, their repeating it will only reinforce the behavior.

This takes about 10 minutes with each bird as you need to do this like training sessions of 10 minutes each two or three times each day. Set your self up with up two three pieces of sprig type millet for each bird. Or you can just use a long piece that you can break off pieces from. You approach the cage watching to be sure that the bird is relaxed, if the bird acts nervous then retreat a step or two. It is important that you be talking to your bird at this time and that you use its name and give a lot of good bird type of praise as well. For this beginning part you will approach probably from the side of the cage depending on how the perches are set up. the bird will probably go to the highest perch in the cage and for this should be close to eye level. you just talk and praise the bird using its name and then offer it a piece of the millet through the bars of the cage. the bird ideally should come and calmly take a bite of the millet while you are holding it. If the bird does this then we can move on ahead if not then you need to talk to the bird for a while and again offer the bird a bite or two of the millet. This will be repeated up to three times during this birds session. if the bird take the millet, then good, but you have to pay attention as running in and grabbing a bite is not good enough what you are looking for is for the bird to come and calmly take a bite of the millet and remain there while it eats it and to calmly reach and take a second bite and eat it calmly.. when you are finished with this session leave the last piece of the millet in its food dish. If the bird does not came and take any of the millet it is still important that you leave a piece or two of the millet in the food dish when you are done.

Once you have the bird calmly taking the millet from your fingers through the bars of the cage then on the next session you go to the cage and open the front door of the cage and begin talking to the bird just as in the previous step but when you offer the millet you do so at the door of the cage, at no point during the session do you reach into the birds cage. You need for the bird to come to you and calmly take and eat the millet and then to calmly take and eat the second bite. Again you only do this up to three times during the session. When the bird is doing this you can consider adding a different session to work on target training or you can proceed with holding the millet at the cage entrance in one hand while the other is still only at the doorway but the bird has to stretch just a little to reach the millet or step onto your hand with at least one foot in order to get the millet. Again it is important that you talk to the bird using lots of praise and its name.
This is how I get my birds to become hand tame. the bird will only do these things in the manner that I have said ( calmly) if it trusts you and it will only step onto your hand or finger if it trusts you. Should you choose to add in the target training here is a link that will take you through the basics of target training leading up to the step up.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227

Do this with both birds and let them learn at their own pace. Take your time and enjoy the process and the interaction with each one of these birds.
Wolf
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Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Pajarita » Tue May 10, 2016 10:46 am

I don't have plets so I cannot give any advice based on personal experience but I don't think that my choice would have been to separate them. I've had pairs that have fought (recently, the cardinals) but, in every single instance, it was something lacking in my husbandry because this is something that only happens in captivity, never in the wild, so, obviously is the conditions we keep them that are at fault and not the parrots nature. Maybe they need large aviaries... I don't know. There was a reason why most breeders have veered away from plets and maybe this is it.
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Wolf » Wed May 11, 2016 2:45 am

I learned that they ( as breeders) need to be able to here each other but not see each other. If they see other mating pairs the male goes to an extreme and attacks the female and that the only way to stop the attacks is to separate them, but in hopes of them being able to get along at all you still need to keep them close to each other. I don't have it all figured out yet but I am thinking that they really need a much larger space, like a large aviary, so that the female has a way to get away from the male, but I have no way to test this just yet.

My two parrotlets are the only birds on the side of the room that they are in, they are the only parrotlets that I have, the only birds close to the same size are a pair of budgies that are over 20 feet away from them. Still everytime that I try to bring them back together, within the hour the male begins to relentlessly attack the female. She really seems to want to be with him, but I can't risk her being injured or killed by him.

It is a problem that I want resolved and will let you know of any workable solution that I find and if you run across a workable solution to this, I would appreciate learning about it.
Wolf
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Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Pajarita » Wed May 11, 2016 11:02 am

It has to be something relatively simple... only, apparently, we haven't yet figured it out. This doesn't happen in nature so maybe it's a matter of space (large aviary versus cage?) or maybe it has something to do with the nest itself (wood? entrance where? deep or sideways? etc) or the position of it (high or low? covered with vegetation or exposed? etc).

Many years ago, I took in my first 9 lovebirds from a widowed lady living in a penthouse on Park Ave (Manhattan). Her husband bred them and kept them all in separate cages but I wanted, of course, to let them out in the birdroom. Because I had never had any lovies, I went online to ask the experts how to make a colony out of separate pairs. Their answer was consensus: it cannot be done. I was told they would fight to the death if I just opened their cages and let them out. This did not make any sense to me because these birds lived in flocks and bred all together in the same area so, if a colony setting was fine in nature, it had to be fine in captivity, too. So, after quarantine, I released them one pair at a time, waiting a week between one pair and the other... the birdroom was large and there were plenty of branches everywhere for them so I never had a single problem with them - to the point that I ended up with my first menage-a-trois (Marilyn had two husbands). So, sometimes, the expert advice is not so expert after all...
Pajarita
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby amazhar » Wed May 11, 2016 3:46 pm

Extremely useful ideas shared here. I really thank you for that. After all I am an amateur and still a beginner. I hope that I one day have the capacity and knowledge to be a big breeder and experiences pet owner/trainer. Here in Egypt things are still at a very low level.

I have question though, in the attempt to train them, in the occurrence that the bird flies away in the room for any reason or the other, what should I do?
amazhar
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Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Advice over Two Young Parrotlets

Postby Wolf » Thu May 12, 2016 9:04 am

Well, before opening the cage make certain that the bird can't get out of the room and that there are no other animals in the room. Then make sure that your bird has no electrical cords to bite, and that the bird is not likely to get behind anything if they fly to a wall and drop. Then if the bird flies about the room it is not a big deal, you can let it fly until it finds a place to land and then just calmly get up and go to your bird and ask it to step up. If you have done as I have suggested then there should not be a problem. You will be wanting to be able to let them out to fly around any way, if for no other reason than so it can get some exercise, and so that it can explore the room it lives in. Most of my birds want to spend a large portion of their out of cage time perched on me.
Wolf
Macaw
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 8679
Location: Lansing, NC
Number of Birds Owned: 6
Types of Birds Owned: Senegal
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Yellow Naped Amazon
2Celestial Parrotlet
Budgie
Flight: Yes

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