Fear of hands and the solution

Calculations

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Aug 30, 2021
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I have a budgie I've considered a teil in the future but it won't be anytime soon I'd like to gain more experience before I get any more birds.
When fern was young I bought her and her friend blizzard from a pet store they were inside the same cage together at the pet store so I ignorantly assumed it was okay
I placed them into the same cage and everything seemed fine. So I decided to go shopping and when I got home I noticed fern was bleeding, Blizzard had attacked her.
With limited experience, I went off the knowledge I had combined with my instinks and made the tough decision to take her out of the cage (untamed) to stop the bleeding.
The bleeding stopped and after it stopped I placed fern into a temporary cage in front of my bedroom for monitoring. I took Blizard and placed him into a separate room and over the course of a couple of weeks, I slowly reintroduced them. Ever since that incident fern doesn't trust hands, I suspect the fact that the pet store had done the same thing to give her to me made her associate my hands with harm. (It's called operative conditioning) I spoke to a friend who I trust about this recently and it's finally of my shoulders.
Even though I still feel incredibly guilty for the incident I know that the bird doesn't hate me and she's just afraid. I also learned is what I need to do is associate new sounds with me coming into the room so I'm starting clicker training and have made my final decision. I didn't share this because anyone deserved the information i shared this because it's possible there is someone out there who's made the same mistakes and I want them to know the solution. Thank you for reading.

Note: I know I've shared dulled down versions of this in the past and i did so because there is so much judgment coming from most bird forums or subreddits that i didn't want it leading to accusations. It's hard to share things like this because the world is "Fairly" very protective over animals but "Unfairly" quick to judge. This isn't everyone but it is the internet.
 
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