Lovebird Help!

Paradamae

New member
Jul 12, 2017
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Hello everyone! I've recently gotten a new lovebird which I've had for about 5 days. The bird is of course afraid and skittish and is scared of my hands. Although the bird is not afraid to take treats from my hand, they will reconsider if they have to step on my fingers to reach them first :eek: . This makes it incredibly hard to bring them out of the cage to get some exercise and interact.
I know the pet store I bought it from would often grab the bird with their bare hands whether the bird seemed to like it or not :(. I'm hoping someone can give me advice on how to gain my lovebirds trust from where I am now. Thank you! :rainbow1:
 
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Paradamae

New member
Jul 12, 2017
2
0
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Yeah.. It shocked me when the store owner just sorta grabbed him with no regard for how the bird could have felt of if he possibly injured it :( .
 

LordTriggs

New member
May 11, 2017
3,427
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Surrey, UK
Parrots
Rio (Yellow sided conure) sadly no longer with us
unfortunately store owners just don't care about the bird. They want your money in their store as fast as possible, every second risks you turning round and saying no. I learnt all of this when working in a store (not pet related) and it's a disgusting practice done by stores. It's why whenever you go into one it feels like you're getting rushed through everything.

I can offer what I did with my Conure after I got him with his only experience of hands being grabbing. In short replace the food bowl with your hand. If your cage has a door for the bowls then you just remove the food bowl, pour fresh food into your cupped hand and just hold your hand where the food bowl normally is and the of course look away, read a book, watch TV, whatever. Eventually the bird gets hungry/curious and will investigate and should hop on your hand to start munching away. Only remove your hand when they are off it and hopefully have lost interest, just make sure everything you do is slow otherwise it'll spook them. Hopefully after a few days of this they get the idea in their head that hands=food. hopefully it works out, just prepare for a sore arm! You don't realize how heavy your own hand is until you hold it outstretched for an hour
 

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