Taco is making progress

[Maxwells]

It's been close to 5 months since we adapted Taco (rescue from bad home), he loves to talk and sing with wife at times. I believe hes bonding with her well she can now pet his feet and beak but he only allows this when he's in his cage through the bars. Most recently she can also kiss his beak. Our big hurdle is he refuses to step up, he attacked the perch and basically goes crazy attacking it. We are going to try clicker training to see if that might help but I think it could just take more time for his trust to come around more.

Any suggestions.

 

[weco]

Sounds like you're doing the right things already.....just keep doing them & continue your patience.....as long as you understand that everything needs to be on his time schedule.....especially with abused or wild birds.....

A number of years ago I rehomed 4 sun conures, siblings from two succeeding clutches, that were 18 & 24 months old.....they took over a year to get hand tamed, so just be patient, the corn will keep growing.....

Good luck.....

 

[Kiwibird]

Patience is a virtue with rescues. It took Kiwi a LONG time before he stepped up (especially to me, as the less preferred human). It took several years before he truly trusted us and began opening up.

We used the old "lure" technique to get Kiwi to step up (holding a treat just outside his reach, making him have to step on the hand or stick to get it). We also wore thick leather gloves at first because he was very quick to inflict nasty bites. It did work, and he is very good at stepping up to just about anything (you could offer him a broom handle and he'd step on it). However, I think target training is a much much better concept. We didn't know about it when we adopted Kiwi. If we ever got another bird, we'd try target training as a first method. I think it's a better way of opening a means of communication. Taco probably very much feels he is being attacked with the stick and is furiously defending himself, and the cue "step up" means nothing to a parrot unless they can associate it with the action of stepping up.