He doesn't like me! :-(

[miloslave]

Hi all

So Charlie has been with me for almost two weeks now. His previous owner tells me he use to sit with her and snuggle with his head in her hand for scratches.
Two weeks in I am nursing three propper bites, two from offering to take him out of the cage and one when putting a new toy on the outside of his cage just now. I do my best not to reaction at all, but ouch!

I can entice him to step up with a treat, and started on clicker training with him. What a smart bird! He pick up on new concepts very very quickly. But the moment training is over,he does not want to sit with me at all, buy makes a beeline for his cage. Won't let me pet him or scratch his head either.

I try not to force the issue with him, but was hoping I would see him warming up to me just a little by now. He is ten months old now.

Any advice would be welcome! What is your experience with rehomed birdies? Am i just too impatient or is this normal for rehomed birds to take a while to accept a new mommy?

 

[Birdman666]

He doesn't know you that well yet.

He knew his former owner very well. They had that bond. It comes with time.

CAGS go at their own pace, and get handled on their own terms. It sounds like he just hasn't settled in with you yet, and really loved his former owner.

 

[Amanda_Bennett]

Two weeks isn't very long for him to learn you aren't going to bite his head off and eat him for lunch!

How many homes has he had in his short 10 month life?

I would spend a lot of time just sitting near his cage talking/reading a good book to him, watching tv, knitting...anything just as long as you are near him and not concentrated only on him, but are giving him some attention every few minutes and handing him treats through the cage bars. If you are eating something he can safely have and make a big deal of how yummy it is that might entice him to want to come closer to you and interact more with you.

I'm sure there are more people on here with more experience that will chime in when they read your post, but that's my 2 cents, and what I would do.

 

[4dugnlee]

Just take it slow and be patient. Charlie is still getting used to his new home and his new mommy, and especially if he had a bond with his previous owner, will take a while. My BFA took 2 months to come to me and now I trust her completely! Although she wasn't handled at all at her previous home. Give him time and hopefully he will come around soon.

 

[Kiwibird]

My experience with MY rehome bird is it took at least 6 months to make any noticeable progress and several years before he really trusted us. I often wondered if Kiwi would hate me forever too, but he eventually grew to love and trust me because I refused to give up on him. Birds are sensitive animals and many rehomes have had traumatic pasts. Give him time, love and patience, he WILL come around eventually

 

[miloslave]

Thank you all for the advice!

I must admit to feeling a bit defeated before, but now hope has been restored. I will then just have to be patient, lol. Just hope I still have a couple of fingers left by the time he decides to trust me, hehe. At least now I know that it is possible.

I got my mustache parakeet as a baby 5 years ago, so I have no experience in rehoming. Charlie just came across my path unexpectedly, and I hope to give him the best possible home I can, so I have been doing lots and lots of research to try and do the right thing by him!

 

[Birdman666]

Thank you all for the advice!

I must admit to feeling a bit defeated before, but now hope has been restored. I will then just have to be patient, lol. Just hope I still have a couple of fingers left by the time he decides to trust me, hehe. At least now I know that it is possible.

First of all, I don't agree with ignoring the bites. Even my CAG is trained to control his bite pressure. (Though he was harder to bite pressure train than the macaws were. To this day, when he beats up his toys he says "Owww! That's too hard! Stop it! Knock it off! You stinker..." (The toys beg for mercy from the big bad bird!)

Second, think of it this way. In order to allow touching, a bird has to quite literally know it can trust you 100% with it's life. In the wild they would fly off long before you ever got close enough to interact with one, much less pick it up, much less TOUCHING... (Never in a million years!)

We are essentially overriding their basic survival instincts when we do this. So that is A LOT of trust. They are on the dinner menu for every predator species, and we are a predator species...

Put another way, when was the last time you entrusted your life to 100% to a person? And how quickly would you be willing to do that? Hours, days, weeks, months... maybe, I'd like to, but it just wouldn't be prudent?

Trust exercises are the key here. Food rewards help.

 

[miloslave]

Hi all!

Thought I would just give you a bit of an update from a sunny Cape Town...

The good news is that it has been 3 days since my last bloodletting, lol. Charlie still won't sit with me for very long, unless I sit and feed him some of the little white sunflowers, but at least he seems a bit less aggressive towards me.

Just taking it one day at a time, trying to win him over. He loves the clicker training, but I think I will rathere wait to start harnass training until he will let me pet him, Lil.

On another note, I was in my room just now when I heard the unmistakable sound of my Samsung phone's battery being flat. But it isn't! So by default, Charlie. Wow, he fooled me six love!

 

[jbirge]

Patience... Patience... Patience...

I've said this too many times.

As an example I inherited Pedro (My Amazon) from my daughter. When he and I first met he did a raptor attack on my face (Flying at my with claws out). I did a little reading and discovered that this was not unusual! I fed him regularly with no expectation and for months he wanted nothing to do with me. I kept the cage open, he slept in my bedroom. I set no expectation.

This went on for months and suddenly we became flock mates! I will never supplant my daughter or my ex-wife but today we are best friends. He hears my car pull in to the driveway he starts calling out (singing and dancing). I open the door and the first thing I do is greet him open his cage and (depending on his mood) within minutes he's on my shoulder! Glad I'm home followed by any number of demands (Sing to me, give me a treat, a little scratch under the beak...).

Time and patience!!

 

[strudel]

Time and patience!!

Yes. I just decided to let my galah "be". She does all sorts of things that she never used to, she's just decided to do them by herself, in her own good time. She used to come in the shower and stand up the end, the other day she stood right under the water. She never used to step on the swing in her cage, she'd go around it. She now stands on it and hauls herself over by "beaking" the bars.

Leave them to decide what they'll do and they may do it if you make it available to them. And if they don't, that's ok, too, they're happy, and you aren't frustrated because you don't expect anything.

"Que sera sera" is my motto.

EDIT: this is for stuff outside "basic training", obviously.

 

[Hawk]

Miloslave,

First of all, I should point out that birds are very protective of their cage, what's inside and their food dish. Enter that boundary ( which is their safe zone and considered theirs) and no matter how well you bond, you will get bitten now and then. Second birds never like being snuck up on, it's a natural instinct with parrots, to strike if you come up from behind. Respect them and ask if you can enter the cage, pet them, and so forth. I do a soft clicking sound, followed by kisses and they acknowledge that communication and allow me in their cage and to pet them.

 

[miloslave]

Though I would share this.... So we have been going through our ups and downs, but I think things are slowly but surely improving. Charlie now loudly complains when I leave for work, and contact calls when he can not see me.

Besides a new home and a new mommy, Charlie also now has to deal with a new language, his previous home being English and me being Afrikaans (South Africa).

Now, I have started clicker training with him, and I am constantly amazed at how quickly he grasps a concept. He has within two weeks learned to touch, turn, shake his head no, and with harness training, which I am bringing in slowly, which hole he must put his head through to get his treat.

In the process of training, I have been using the Afrikaans word "mooi " (good), to let him know that I am pleased.

So...yesterday I go to pick him up from his cage, but this was obviously not part of his plan, and I got to bleed a bit again. But as he let go, he very proudly praised himself ..."mooi "

I just had to laugh. What a character!

 

[Dopey]

I'm sorry you got bit but that was funny.
Smart bird!!

 

[Lusks87]

It took my grey 3 weeks to get used to me. He was very nippy at first but that has dramatically tapered off and now he is very lovey. Read about my latest bite from him on my blog Obsess & Confess | "Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together." -Liz Taylor. It's an interesting one!!

 

[miloslave]

Wow that must have hurt like hell!

I am nowhere near letting Charlie near my face, Lol, although I do trust Milo, my mustache parakeet, to sit on my shoulder and give kisses. He is the sweetest, most laid back little thing ever.

Although it must be said that way back, I did once or twice get a bite from him for some or other transgression, which he followed up once by saying "you see?"

One day I had him play in "the park" (a tree, lol) when a passenger airliner passed overhead. Milo turned his little head to look at this and promptly asked me "What is that?"

 

[Hawk]

Try getting bit by a red-tailed Hawk, you'll know what a serious bite is all about. Yes raised a Red-tailed, a vulture, a barn owl, a few others when they were injured and all have bonded quite well and of course re-released them to the wild once they healed.
Have several parrots, the one that bites the hardest occasionally is my Senegal, they pack a punch when they bite. My Grey and Blue fronted Amazon have never come close to a hard bite. They give me a warning nip, and respect their wishes and let them be. When they want to be held and cuddled they call me. Works out great with hardly ever being bitten. I handle and break in all parrots as a volunteer for an exotic bird store. Their staff and owned by a veterinarian do not always have time everyday. The Umbrella cockatoo's pack a punch when they bite.

 

[miloslave]

I have the best news ever! After a month at his new home, Charlie finally today allowed me to give him my first headscritch! I can not tell you what an awesome feeling it is. It truly felt like such a victory!

Lol, I am so stoked right now!

 

[Birdman666]

See?!

Told you so?

 

[miloslave]

Lol, you did! Thanks for all the advice when I was going though my "what was I thinking" period.

 

[Birdman666]

CAGS have to get to know you, and have to study you first. They are the smartest and most cautious of the bunch...

And especially when the bird already had a bond, it doesn't necessarily transfer to the next man up...

Now that you've moved past that, he'll begin to open up to you more and more.