Should I or shouldn’t I?

Beebeebeezy

New member
May 6, 2019
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Lovebird (Coco)
Parakeet (Riley)
Hey guys,
I’ve done all the research I could on whether or not I should let my new bird out of her cage, but I wanna ask your opinion. I’ve had my lovebird Coco for about a month now, still working on gaining trust, she will not let me even come near her to let me try and pick her up. Her wings were clipped when I purchased her, so I figured no big deal to let her out of the cage to let her get a feel of the environment, which I read somewhere online that it also helps them not become so attached to their cage. I had also read it shows them they’re safe and nothing will happen if they are outside of their cage.
To my surprise she seems to navigate around my room well, never has she flown into anything or the walls, she glides without a problem and lands perfectly. She never hangs around where I am normallyl seated, she’ll pick the farthest spot in the room and normally sits there, but when I want to put her back in her cage, of course she freaks out and tries to escape from me.
I recently had read somewhere that chasing them around the room causes them to create negative experiences and it’ll be harder for them to trust you. Trying to get her on a stick and stay while I attempt to move back towards the cage is very hard and takes about 30 minutes of work without her flying off back to the spot she was at.
So now I haven’t let her out of the cage, I figured keeping her in there until I can gain her trust is probably the best way, but now I feel like I stripped her of her freedom, and I want to work with her outside of the cage as well and just let her do her thing while she gets exercise. She desperately tries to get out now though,, climbing on the bars, trying to bite through them and screams all day long.. I feel like this is going to be a very slow process with her because of how aggressive she is towards my hand just being near her cage, but I can see there is progress. Her cage is relatively small btw, I thought this might be the best way to go in taming her a little bit faster, but I feel horrible having her sit in there all day and not having a lot of room.
Should I wait and work with her a bit more before letting her out? Or will her trusting me come naturally if she has free reign of my room?
 

texsize

Supporting Member
Parrot of the Month 🏆
Oct 23, 2015
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Sometimes I end up chasing Lucky and Baby back and forth to get them to go back to there cage.

I think they do it deliberately, help me get my exercise.

But they are not new and it's not what you mean.
 

Vien

New member
May 7, 2019
25
1
Parrots
Indian Ringneck
She hasn’t gotten used to you a lot since it’s only been a month and that’s reasonable, it’s good that you see there’s progress and please take your time! There are lots of topics on the Training and Behaviour forums which made me understand my own new parrot a lot better. My parrot bites HARD and is very protective over her cage, but when she’s out of it and it’s out of reach she’s much calmer. Don’t try to rush things and keep in mind that there’s progress if there’s dedication
 

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