Socialization help

I have a new macaw baby that has been home for a little over a month and she is very bonded with me but she wants nothing to do with anyone else. She is about 6 months old and I would like to be able to get her to interact with other members of the family but she gets really weird about any other people getting near her. Since she has been home I have worked on getting her to step up on people she doesn't know, and if I lure her with a treat it's no problem. I have even taken her to work and gotten her to step up onto everyone there for a treat, but if anyone goes to touch her she gets very standoffish. Does anyone have any suggestions on things I can do to get her used to other people handling her and messing with her.

I'm also curious to learn about this. I'm assuming a lot of gentle exposure and rewards (treats and verbal praise etc.) are the way to go but if there are other ideas I'm all ears!

1. What kind of bird. (It makes a difference.) All macaws are not created equal.

2. Standoffish is somewhat normal for a macaw in the testing phase. "You're not my person." Unless they've been socialized from a young age by the breeder to go to anyone, they generally don't, until they are conditioned to accept it.

3. It also depends on how the person they are going to reacts to them. If a macaw senses that it can get the upper hand by bullying someone, they often (usually) will...

Birdman666 said:

1. What kind of bird. (It makes a difference.)

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Evenstar, you are now in the hands of THE expert!

kodimerlyn said:

i'm also curious to learn about this. I'm assuming a lot of gentle exposure and rewards (treats and verbal praise etc.) are the way to go but if there are other ideas i'm all ears!

Click to expand...

assumes your macaw is gonna be gentle, as well... Sometimes they're not.

Somewhere on this site I have a disfavored person training behavior mod. I can't seem to find it, but that is what you would usually do with something like this.

The favorite person takes the bird to a training room and puts him on the training stand. Then leaves the room.

The disfavored person (i.e. the one the bird avoids) comes in and does step up and touch training with the bird, and rewards the bird.

The favored person then comes in and praises and rewards the bird, and takes him back.

When everyone can step the bird up, you then play a game of pass the birdie, where you all sit around in a circle taking turns stepping the bird up, and loving on it...

Then, you can go a step further, by having each person call the bird over... and having the bird come in response to his/her name, to everyone in the household.

That's essentially the way I recommend doing it for adults and older teenagers in the house.

Younger kids, not so much.

Also how other people approach the bird, and whether or not the bird senses fear... makes a world of difference.