Beginner tricks for Alex

[babyfae]

Hello!
New to the forums. My Alexandrine, Alex is 9 months old. He is starting to try to talk, making sounds and chattering away. I feel he will say a word or 2 soon. What I would like to know is what are a few simple tricks I could start him out with. Also, my 4 year old loves him, but gets scared he will bite her if she tries to pet him, which he has. I know he senses her fear... is there a way I can start to warm them up to eachother and build trust?

 

[ConureCrazy]

Hmmm... I say turning, or spinning is easiest. I'm also teaching head bobbing on cue, and wave.

 

[Ash]

My alexandrine learned wave and shake in 1 training session. I thought those were pretty easy tricks to teach. : )

 

[babyfae]

Thanks, I'm going to make him a little training perch.. I love the wave trick so I'm hoping he'll pick that up.... or actually that I'll be able to teach him the wave trick, lol.

 

[babyfae]

conurecrazy
are you doing the bobbing head trick by moving a treat up and down?

 

[BradGC]

Turn around is really easy and looks cool.

Our one stretches his wings out on cue. It looks really cool and the training is fairly easy, it just takes time. It started out that every time he got out of the cage he would stretch his wings out, so I'd put my arms up and say "wings" and praise him.
After a couple times of this he caught on and will do it every time.

 

[LoveMyParrots]

Well, if he bites and doesn't trust you, you can start target/touch training first. What you would need is a new chopstick, a clicker (as far as the clicker goes, you can use the word good. But I personally prefer a clicker) and some treats.

You gonna show the chopstick to your Alex, most parrot will bite the chopstick right away. And every time he bites or touch the end of the chopstick GENTLY with his beak, click the clicker and reward. Do not reward if he attack or bite the stick really hard, instead, you can mash some berries to put on the end of the chopstick, and every time your Alex touch the stick by trying to eat the berries, click and reward. Your Alex will soon find out that if he touch the stick GENTLY, he gets a treat. It helps build up trust with your Alex, and also stops biting.

Some easy tricks that include using a target stick (chopstick) are turn around, flight training, step up, etc.

But NEVER force your Alex to do ANYTHING he doesn't wants to, if he won't step up by telling you by he's body language, like walking away. Respect him and try it again later. If you keep on forcing him to step up, then you're very likely to be end up getting bitten.

Target/touch training worked really well on my 14 weeks old Alexandrine parakeet, Ozzie, he bites all the time before I start target training him, but after the training, he has never used he's beak in a aggressive way since then.

Happy new year