Am I doing this all wrong?

[Termiraptor]

Hi y'all!

I think I need some serious advice, because I'm kinda lost over here 😓

Meet Maya:

(Don't mind the mess, cage cleaning day is coming 😁)

Maya was offered to me when I moved out, having never had a pet I was so happy and proud her owners deemed me responsible enough to take care of that colorful featherball! She wasn't handfed, I knew there would be a lot of work.
So I spent a lot of time doing my homework, how to deal with a bird, teaching it tricks, making it part of my own flock and so on. Of course I was delighted looking up vids of peeps interacting with their playful and loving lori's!

I've had her for almost half a year now and well, let's say reality is (painfully) different...

The more time goes by, and the more I start to think Maya just blankly hates me. I work 6 days on 7, so on those 6 days I try to interact with her as much as possible in the evening. But she just doesn't seem interested in interacting with me.
Of course it's not all bad, but I would say 90% of the time we spend together is negative (she'll squawk at me, arch her back, tremble, bite or nip when given the chance) or neutral (she'll just go to the other side of her cage of where I'm standing, or just stand perfectly still when I'm changing her food and water bowl.).

The 10% of positive interaction we have, I managed to get her on my finger (until the day she started reaaally hating my fingers), on my arm, shoulder, legs, and just the other day after a panic flight she landed on my head. She also seems to really enjoy the peek-a-boo game. Also, last week I was able to teach her to gently touch the tip of my finger before offering her food. This came after a few days of offering grape parts with the top of that finger (an attempt to make her trust my fingers again), and some comical demonstration of me doing a smooching sound while kissing my finger and then eating a grape, after what I presented her my finger probably a 100 times doing the smoochig sound, with her just cluelessly staring 😅.
There's also been a dozen times where she would comically bounce her head up and down before making a lightning-fast in and out motion with her tongue with which I can't compete, although I'd do my very best to imitate her.
Whenever there's food involved, there's no problem, I present her grapes (or something else, but I've noticed grapes are her favorite, so I use mostly these as treats) and she just starts eating out of my hand or when I let go of it she takes it with her.

Over to the negative 90% then...
I do my best to leave her cage open when I'm home, so she gets the chance to stretch her wings and explore the rest of the ground floor. The furthest she has gone on her own in this situation for the past 2 months was the roof of her cage. Of course I'm not in the same room all the time, but she could freely join me if she wanted to, as the doors are open and I remain in sight from where she is. Well that never happens. Most of the time, she even won't bother coming out and just remain in her cage. Sometimes I try to attract her on my arm (using treats) for a walk through the house. 2 times out of the 3, she will try grabbing the grape without stepping up, leaning her body with as less physical contact as possible, until she figures out there's no way she's grabbing it and calls it a day. The 1 time out of the 3 I will book success will be after careful consideration of my arm, trying to only step up with one leg, the other one holding for dear life to a cage bar, stretching as far as possible to be able to reach that grape, and finally giving up and reluctantly putting that second leg on my arm. Most of the times she will chicken out after one bite and return into her cage. Sometimes, I manage to take 2 to 3 steps away before she turns around and flies back. And on rare occasions, I manage to get her to my living room, before she flies off. She learned the concept of a window that way I'm sorry to say...
Apart from that, I noticed she doesn't bathe. Of course I tried to solve this in multiple ways, first with a simple water bowl at the floor of her cage (she blatantly ignored it for 2 days before I took it away), a soft water mist using a hose outside (where she would try her very best to get out of the way of said mist), countless trials to get her in the sink (she consistently flies off when my arm nears the sink, then proceeds to remain on my shower wall and mock me and poop on my bathroom's floor), same thing in bath (same result), the return of the bowl with a little food bowl in the center (by some dark magic she managed to get the food bowl to the side while I was away, so no bathing), until last week I used up my last resort solution and took her whole cage with me in the shower. While not panicking, she tried for the whole duration of it to find a dry spot where she could stay away from getting wet. Tried a few internet tricks to get her in the mood (putting on the vacuum cleaner or rainforest rain ambient), but none seemed to trigger any kind of response.
Petting isn't even a question as she will agressively attack my finger whenever it nears her, arched back and angry noises included for free.

Overall, Maya is a very 'chill' 4-year old rainbow lorikeet. Which, from what I've read, isn't a good thing for a lorikeet. Lorikeets are supposed to be adventurous, curious, sometimes a bit stupid, and social creatures. Maya is none of that. She reminds me of myself when I was depressed (lol), and I don't want her to live like that. She should be having fun, playing, be happy. Instead, she mostly remains still in her cage. Sometimes she has a screeching outbreak, where she'll just repeat the same damn high-pitched scream. I used to think it was a scream for attention, so I would always check if she had food and water, or if she just wanted to play. Almost always there's food and water, and I've already covered the interacting... Then my mind made the connection with the mirror.
She used to have a mirror (she already had it when I got her), and I (ab)used that thing to get her a bit out of her comfort zone, as that thing was holy to her and she would follow it wherever it went. It's only recently that I noticed that she was consistently always resting in the same place in her cage, where the mirror was. So after a bit of research, I found out that mirrors can lead to obsessive and unhealthy relationships for a bird. A led to B, I took it away, much to her displeasure.
It's only been a few days, but I noticed the screeching outbreaks are happenning lesser than usual, and she's starting to rest in other places in her cage. I'll keep an eye out to see how this evolves.

So that was a 'short' introduction to my relationship with my beautiful-but-oh-sometimes-such-a-pain-in-the-butt little devil.
Thanks for sticking around up to this point, I didn't plan to write a wall of text but God I think I just needed to share and write it all down😅
Of course I don't consider my bird a toy or something like that, she has the right to have feelings and bad days, but aren't these supposed to only happen once in a while? I feel I'm responsible for these, and I fear I'm missing out on something but I can't figure out what... I just want to have a healthy bond and some playful interaction with her. Right now I feel I have neither of these. Am I taking the wrong approach? Any tip, take or critics, anything is welcome! I just want to grow with her and provide her a good and fun life!

Thanks a lot!

PS: gonna book a visit to the avian vet soon, as I want her to be completely checked-up so I can rule out the physical health factor.

 

[Laurasea]

Hello! Beautiful birdie!

Looks like a real nice csge set up.

What i would do is also add a ton of perches on tge outside of the Cage both the sides and top. With toys as well as food and water dishes and one treat only dish. Also why stop there? There us all that wasted space above the cage and birds love climbing! So I use ceiling hooks and heavy weight fishing line to hang stuff down to just above their head hight when they stand on top of cage. Swings, spirals, cargo nets , stiff rope perches that have tge sure running through so you can be d and shape. You can stash treats for them to find when they explore. This all builds confidence, increases mental stimulation and interaction with environment. Gives them their own furniture.
Then set up one perch by tge door so they step out to thst before stepping to you. This helps a lot with cage protective birds. And gives the a routine that they know what to expect

Enrichment ideas, share yours

I'm often posting how I use ceiling hooks abd heavy weight fishing line to create what I call an aerial gym. I attach foraging stuff, stuff to chew, and treats to find to keep my flock busy. So now I will share examples to inspire you. Hopefully you all will share yours to inspire me too! this...

www.parrotforums.com

And check out this awesome setup for Cotton the rescued plucked who's not yet trusting hands. But man can explore and have fun now!
Post in thread 'The Continuing Capers of Companion-ing Cotton' https://www.parrotforums.com/thread...rs-of-companion-ing-cotton.93724/post-1005109

 

[Laurasea]

target training

 

[Laurasea]

I like a majority of bird tricks free stuff.

Training Treats for Lorikeets and Other Difficult to Reward Birds

Rainbow Lorikeets enjoying some flowering gum. It can be extraordinarily frustrating watching others successfully train their birds while you can’t even get your bird to look at the obvious types of treats available. Not all of us have a bird that is happy to take a sunflower seed or something...

birdtricksstore.com

They mentioned really like shiny metal noise making toys. So maybe stainless steel measuring spoons and other parrot stainless steel toys

CAITEC Featherland Paradise Stainless Steel Bell Bird Toy, Large - Chewy.com

Buy Caitec Featherland Paradise Stainless Steel Bell Bird Toy, Large at Chewy.com. FREE shipping and the BEST customer service!

www.chewy.com

 

[Cottonoid]

Oh gosh, she's gorgeous!

It sounds like you're both a little lost with each other. I think it's great you're trying new things and asking questions - there is always something else to try! I actually think your comparison to how you feel with depression makes sense - Maya hasn't quite discovered what she enjoys in life yet.

Do you think it would help you to think of her as having just come home, kind of a clean slate mentally for you? And start over with building a trust relationship. I'm definitely not an expert on that bit - it's been a slow process with my parrot who does NOT like people and is very scared of being touched. When he first was at the rescue, he didn't really play with any toys, but chewed a little on strips of balsa wood. He tried not to eat anything in front of people, either. I figured out he liked walnuts but those two things were the only "likes" I knew. It's taken some time and offering different types of toys in different spaces, and sometimes putting walnuts on or in the new toys, to get him to try things out, but he's gone from a frozen parrot sculpture to a very chatty playful little man.

The advice I try to follow the most is to keep in mind he still sees me as a predator - I move carefully (no sudden or fast movements) and talk in a normal tone of voice the whole time I'm around him - telling him every single thing I'm doing or about my day. A quiet predator is a deadly predator; a predator making noise isn't about to attack.

If you reset and start over with Maya, maybe try going a lot slower. Several of our members here always remind me to go at my bird's pace, not at the pace I want him to go or at the pace he went yesterday. It's fantastic Maya will take food from you - I think starting to target train her inside her cage (without you reaching in) would be a good place to start. The link Laurasea posted is good; I refer back to it quite a bit.

This is a reddit link that helped me break it down into smaller steps:
Target Training Fearful Bird

I started keeping notes for myself to remind me not to push too hard, and so I know how things went the day before so that I'm not accidentally doing something that scared my bird yesterday.

I agree with Laurasea too, that the more you can entice her to interact with toys and other enrichment, the happier she'll be even if she isn't 100% bonded to you yet.

 

[Termiraptor]

Thanks a lot for your replies!

I take from your feedbacks that I'm not doing so bad... which definitely reassures me.
I guess Maya is not the only one who needs to build confidence in this ^^

As of today, I can safely say that removing the mirror was a good thing. The screeching outbreaks have drastically reduced, although they haven't disappeared. Seems like she has carried her attention to her new toy, a string of empty balls with a little bell in each one. She doesn't like me playing with it, so she IS possessive over her things (which I can understand).

I'll definitely try and set up some external furnitures, it actually sounds like an excellent idea! Will focus on that when I'm done with the works in my garden.
Furthermore, we're experiencing a heat wave in Belgium these days so I put her cage outside in the morning (in a shadowy place all day) and she seems to enjoy that. She'll see me work outside in the evening and seems to call for me sometimes. Also she's interacting with passing wild birds.

Haven't tried any bathing/showering lately though. I actually thought of putting up a little bird bath in my garden (we've been advised to do so because of the heat wave, wild birds need a safe spot with a little bit of water so they can bathe as every usual water spot is drying up). It's a shot in the dark, but hey she might find some inspiration

I did start the basic form of target training a while back, haven't done it in a while though. We've been busy with other activities you could say. Gonna have to pick up where we left.

 

[wrench13]

Just a quick word on training. Does not have to be a long session. 15 minutes tops. Try to do it at a set time every day. Be immediate with a treat when there is any progress, even a tiny bit of progress. Have that treat in hand, and reward immediately, so she can associate the 2 things. Be consistent in how you ask for a given action, verbal or hand signals ( I use both), so she doesn't get confused. Be patient - look for tiny improvements and don't expect massive change all at once. It can happen, but typically it takes awhile for the penny to drop.