Teddscau
Active member
- Sep 25, 2015
- 640
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- Parrots
- Budgies: Sunshine, Blanco, Azure; Peach-faced lovebirds: Rosie and Jaybird; YSA: Jasper (♀)
Hey guys, I was wondering if you could help me teach our new parrotlet, Noah, to be more gentle. He's around a year old, and was given to us after his mate crashed into a door and died last week.
Apparently he was hand raised and tame at one point, but he hasn't been handled in several months. He previous guardians seemed completely incompetent. He was on an all seed diet, his "huge" cage is only 18" x 18" (I forget the height), his cage appears to actually be intended for a larger bird such as an amazon (the bars are thick and widely spaced), he only had two perches (a dowel perch for a much larger species and a sand perch) and two toys in his cage, and they thought that the males were green and that the females were blue!
Anyways, he settled in right away and is loving his sprouts! I give him sprouted millet, canary, flax, canola, Kamut wheat, oats, buckwheat, barley, lentils, and mung beans. He'll also eat/shred veggies that I offer him through the bars with my fingers.
Anyways, the problem I'm having with him is how hard he beaks my fingers. I'm trying to get him to be handleable. He really likes me and trusts me, and is quite comfortable around my fingers. He'll eat food from my fingers and will play with toys that I hold from the outside of the cage. Like, he doesn't get upset if I have my fingers sticking in the cage, but he gets a bit nervous when I have my hand in the cage.
Sorry, I'll get to the point. When he's playing with toys or eating from my fingers or whatever, he'll beak my fingers, which is fine. However, he becomes progressively rougher and rougher. He'll nibble on my fingers and run his beak along them, which is fine, but then he'll start preening me or something, and starts clamping down, harder and harder. He's not being aggressive, showing dominance, or trying to hurt me.
The first time he touched me with his beak, he jerked his head back, thinking I was going to be angry. I let him know it was fine for him to touch my fingers, and he was eager to explore my fingers some more. But at some point, he started trying to scrape chunks of skin off as though his beak were an ice cream scoop.
Anyways, I've been trying to teach him to be gentle, and he hasn't broke my skin since. However, instead of breaking the skin, he's now started crushing my finger like a nutcracker!
Anyways, when he's being gentle, I tell him he's a good boy, but when he starts biting to hard, I tell him in a stern voice to be gentle, and I sometimes gently move my finger away (I don't jerk it away or start screaming at him), but I don't think he's understanding. He's definitely not trying to hurt me. He's just never learned to be gentle with his beak. Any suggestions?
Apparently he was hand raised and tame at one point, but he hasn't been handled in several months. He previous guardians seemed completely incompetent. He was on an all seed diet, his "huge" cage is only 18" x 18" (I forget the height), his cage appears to actually be intended for a larger bird such as an amazon (the bars are thick and widely spaced), he only had two perches (a dowel perch for a much larger species and a sand perch) and two toys in his cage, and they thought that the males were green and that the females were blue!
Anyways, he settled in right away and is loving his sprouts! I give him sprouted millet, canary, flax, canola, Kamut wheat, oats, buckwheat, barley, lentils, and mung beans. He'll also eat/shred veggies that I offer him through the bars with my fingers.
Anyways, the problem I'm having with him is how hard he beaks my fingers. I'm trying to get him to be handleable. He really likes me and trusts me, and is quite comfortable around my fingers. He'll eat food from my fingers and will play with toys that I hold from the outside of the cage. Like, he doesn't get upset if I have my fingers sticking in the cage, but he gets a bit nervous when I have my hand in the cage.
Sorry, I'll get to the point. When he's playing with toys or eating from my fingers or whatever, he'll beak my fingers, which is fine. However, he becomes progressively rougher and rougher. He'll nibble on my fingers and run his beak along them, which is fine, but then he'll start preening me or something, and starts clamping down, harder and harder. He's not being aggressive, showing dominance, or trying to hurt me.
The first time he touched me with his beak, he jerked his head back, thinking I was going to be angry. I let him know it was fine for him to touch my fingers, and he was eager to explore my fingers some more. But at some point, he started trying to scrape chunks of skin off as though his beak were an ice cream scoop.
Anyways, I've been trying to teach him to be gentle, and he hasn't broke my skin since. However, instead of breaking the skin, he's now started crushing my finger like a nutcracker!
Anyways, when he's being gentle, I tell him he's a good boy, but when he starts biting to hard, I tell him in a stern voice to be gentle, and I sometimes gently move my finger away (I don't jerk it away or start screaming at him), but I don't think he's understanding. He's definitely not trying to hurt me. He's just never learned to be gentle with his beak. Any suggestions?