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Baby Conure Refusing rewards

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

Baby Conure Refusing rewards

Postby MinaMT » Tue Nov 01, 2022 3:57 pm


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Not sure what to do here. She's about 3 months old and I've had her less than a week. But I'm having a hard time breaking grounds. I've offered her treats from my hands, from a bowl, from a stick, refuses toys.

When I reach my hand in the cage, she's timid and tries to hide. But when I eventually get her out of the cage, she's willing to accept head scratches and she will lay on my chest.

The breeder said she's hand raised and hand fed, but she seems scared of my hand even when I'm offering treats... any recommendations?

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MinaMT
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
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Re: Baby Conure Refusing rewards

Postby Pajarita » Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:59 am

Hi, Mina and baby conure, welcome to the forum. The problem is that you never gave it time to get used to you. Baby parrots are not like puppies which have been bred for thousands of generations to be people-oriented. They are wild birds that were tricked into believing that people are family but the 'family' is the person who hand-fed them. You are stranger and need to show her you are not a threat so stop putting your hand inside the cage and grabbing her (that is a big nono!). Just open the cage and allow it to come out on its own. It might take days (because you kind of traumatized it by forcing it with your hand) but it will happen. Also, offer the baby some juvenile formula in a syringe (BEST way of bonding EVER!) but do not force it to take it. Parrots should NEVER be made to accept anything they don't want to do... this creates distrust and, eventually, despondency. Feed it two kinds of soft food, served warm and fresh, twice a day and save the seeds (a budgie mix, mind you) for dinner and the nuts for treats. I assure you that, if you are patient and do not free-feed protein food (seeds, nuts, pellets, nutriberries, etc), your baby will gladly take the treats.
Spend as much time as possible (minimum 5 hours a day) in the same room, talk, sing, dance for it without asking for anything and wait for the bird to take the first step to take the relationship up a notch. Every now and then, offer it a little piece of a nut, and, if it doesn't take it from your fingers, just leave it where it can reach it.
Oh, and one more thing, do not stare at the baby, she doesn't trust you yet and staring at it will only make things worse (predators stare and, because we have our eyes in front of our face, we are predators to them until we prove we are not).

Do not rush things. With parrots everything takes forever and a day but, when we do things right and they learn to trust and love us, the rewards are more than worth the wait.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
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