Need help making a bird hand reared again.

Hi.
Last year I was given a cockatiel by my grandparents, the bird was hand reared from birth and use to be a very friendly bird.
The last owners of the bird, however, did not know how to properly take care of a friendly bird and would often grab it harshly to pick it up, which must have made the bird scared of hands.
I've had this bird for a year now, and I was hoping she would get better and I could make her trust hands again but she hasn't really changed.
I usually leave her cage open so she can sit at the top and fly to us if she wants, and she often does, though she does not like it when our hands are anywhere near her.
I wanted to ask some tips or tricks on how to make her trust hands again, or how we can treat her like a normal hand reared bird and be able to pat her.
She lives in a big cage in our living room so she can be with people all the time, and she does love flying to us.
We do not know how old she is, but we think she may be 3 or 4 years old, so hopefully we can still hand train her and make her use to hands. She seems to be quite comfortable to my Mother, but she still doesn't let her hands anywhere near her.
Please if you have any advice i would really appreciate it!, her name is Penny by the way, and we think shes a girl

Hello, and welcome to the Parrot Forums family!

Well first, I'll just say that there's no way of knowing whether you'll ever be able to get Penny back to exactly where she was. I say this because I don't know the extent to which she was traumatized while in another home. And birds have the unfortunate combination of being both stubborn and having loooooong memories. (One of my ekkies, Jolly, held a grudge against my niece for six months because she once wore lilac nail polish to my house. Once!!! So for the next 6 months, he refused to be within ten feet of her at any given time. Lol! Good news, though? He did eventually get over it.)

All that said, there are definitely steps that can be taken to help minimize her fear of hands. And it certainly doesn't hurt that she was once tame and friendly.

First thing is to get a time table out of your mind. Focus more on the gradual building of trust rather than reaching a goal set in your mind. And how do you build that trust? By making her feel like getting closer to you is her idea. If she feels like she is initiating the contact, she'll eventually become less fearful of approaching you.

The key here will be consistency. And yummy treats. Find the treats she goes the craziest over. Whatever she finds sinfully delicious. And keep them as training treats. They shouldn't be made available at any other time. Not during regular meals. Only when she's working with you.

Next is to work with her using target-training. Here is a video on it that explains it perfectly: [ame="https://youtu.be/HaOicTtwIZo"]Beginners guide to target training parrots - YouTube[/ame]

Once she begins to reliably target, and the association has been strongly built in her mind between going where you ask and receiving her favorite treat, she'll look forward to these sessions and going where you'd like her to. Including your arm - or even your hand. With time, the very site of you will become associated with her favorite treat. And as she begins to relax and trust you more (a process that could conceivably take months) she may start to let her guard down.

Once she does become comfortable enough to let your hand approach, remember to approach her head from the front. A bird letting your hand approach from behind is the ultimate in trust. Rushing that could freak her out.

But remember to be patient. It won't necessarily be easy, but it'll be worth it. Oh, keep training sessions relatively short. Find your bird's attention span and work with that. Most range somewhere between 5-15 minutes at a time. (Mine go as long as 25, but that tends to be more of the exception than the rule.)

And try to work with her between meals when she will be at he hungriest and, therefore most treat-motivated. Good luck!