taming a pineapple

meezomeezy

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Dec 2, 2019
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south west england
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a female pineapple conure named Billie!
I'm here on these forums to ask for some advice around hand taming our pineapple conure, named Billie.

We adopted her in May of this year, and she has the most wonderful little personality! :yellow1: We have been trying, very slowly, to hand tame her by offering food (from her mixed food) by hand. Currently, she only takes food from my dad through the bars of the cage, but now she jumps less - she's always been quite skittish but she has definitely improved, especially from flapping and clinging to the bars whenever someone walks past. She takes food from my hand if I open the cage door and pass it to her, usually without moving away and if I move my hand closer to show her what I have is for her, she doesn't move either.

When I clean the tray at the bottom of her cage, she comes down to say hello, and is always very curious.

She's also learned to do a few tricks, in return for her absolute favourite snack, banana chips. Billie will roll over when she sees a treat, and also if you gesture for her to do so with your hand. She'll also dance along with your hand if you bob it up and down, which I discovered accidentally haha :rolleyes:

I'm really really proud of how much more comfortable she seems now with us, but I really would like her to be comfortable with perching on my hand and, eventually, my shoulder. I really enjoy spending time with her and I spend every hour I'm not at college in her company, and I feel like we've bonded quite well already. I love her to pieces and I want to make her comfortable enough for play outside of the cage. Of course, though, this begins with hand taming.

I suppose the general questions I have now after explaining some things about her would be any advice you'd be able to offer about hand taming Billie? :)

(Oh, and thank you for reading!)
 

wrench13

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Some parrots act differently when they are in or on thier cages,so you might try to do taming training away from her cage,maybe in another room. Another tip is to be 100% consistent in the way you request a given action, when you reward the action and what you reward her with. Banana chips are fine ( if there is no added sugar or vitamins or grease) but use small slivers of them which she eats quickly.
Make sure the rest of the family adopts your new training techniques, so you dont confuse the poor thing.
 

SassiBird

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May 10, 2016
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I watched a lot of videos from the YouTube channel Manda and Rio when I got my first bird. They might be helpful for you.
 

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