Teddscau
Active member
- Sep 25, 2015
- 640
- Media
- 2
- 123
- Parrots
- Budgies: Sunshine, Blanco, Azure; Peach-faced lovebirds: Rosie and Jaybird; YSA: Jasper (♀)
Man, I hate it when animals improve right before dying. A few hours before dying, some animals become alert, active, and seem really happy, and you think they're going to pull through. But then they suddenly die.
Anyways, I'm really sorry. Both she and her mate had a hard life, but you've made the remainder of their lives great. You gave them dignity and control over their lives. She was no longer being forced to constantly pump out babies.
As for taming, I'd recommend clicker training, then target training. I also recommend crinkling plastic. Noah hadn't been handled in almost 2 years (he turned 2 around the time he came to live with me). He'd been fed nothing but seed, was kept in a sleeping cage for an amazon-sized bird, and his mate had just died.
When he arrived, I spent a lot of time sitting near his cage, showing him different foods, reading to him, talking to him, feeding him sunflower seeds through the bars, crinkling plastic, etc. Within two weeks, I clicker trained, target trained, and step up trained him (using a hand held perch, since parrotlets destroy your fingers for weeks until they finally lose interest in them). I taught him flight recall immediately after he was fully step up trained. This is unbelievably important with parrotlets, as most die in accidents (picking fights with predators, stepped on, sat on, have objects inadvertently tossed on them, escape outside).
As I'm always saying, parrotlets love the sound of crinkling plastic. If Noah's in a bad mood, or if he's trying to kill a human, I just crinkle a plastic bag and his mood completely changes. When my uncle and his girlfriend came to visit, Noah lost it. As soon as he saw the woman, he became furious and started biting me (redirected aggression). She started walking over to us, and I could tell he was about to throw a full-blown tantrum. So, I handed her a plastic bag to crinkle, and as soon as he heard the crinkling, he fluffed up, ran over to her, and started chirping happily and giving her playful pecks. Moments before, he wanted nothing more than for her to die, but as soon as she crinkled that bag, she was his best friend.
Anyways, I'm really sorry. Both she and her mate had a hard life, but you've made the remainder of their lives great. You gave them dignity and control over their lives. She was no longer being forced to constantly pump out babies.
As for taming, I'd recommend clicker training, then target training. I also recommend crinkling plastic. Noah hadn't been handled in almost 2 years (he turned 2 around the time he came to live with me). He'd been fed nothing but seed, was kept in a sleeping cage for an amazon-sized bird, and his mate had just died.
When he arrived, I spent a lot of time sitting near his cage, showing him different foods, reading to him, talking to him, feeding him sunflower seeds through the bars, crinkling plastic, etc. Within two weeks, I clicker trained, target trained, and step up trained him (using a hand held perch, since parrotlets destroy your fingers for weeks until they finally lose interest in them). I taught him flight recall immediately after he was fully step up trained. This is unbelievably important with parrotlets, as most die in accidents (picking fights with predators, stepped on, sat on, have objects inadvertently tossed on them, escape outside).
As I'm always saying, parrotlets love the sound of crinkling plastic. If Noah's in a bad mood, or if he's trying to kill a human, I just crinkle a plastic bag and his mood completely changes. When my uncle and his girlfriend came to visit, Noah lost it. As soon as he saw the woman, he became furious and started biting me (redirected aggression). She started walking over to us, and I could tell he was about to throw a full-blown tantrum. So, I handed her a plastic bag to crinkle, and as soon as he heard the crinkling, he fluffed up, ran over to her, and started chirping happily and giving her playful pecks. Moments before, he wanted nothing more than for her to die, but as soon as she crinkled that bag, she was his best friend.
