Teach to preen?

[Horada]

Is there anyway I can teach my 2 hand raised male tiels to preen each other? They can preen themselves but I tend to preen their heads - But they don't always want to sit still for it haha.

They've made vauge attempts but don't seem to know what they're doing / queue to preen the other.

Sunny will bow his head to get Sky to preen him, but Sky is clueless on the queue and just ends up as the annoying older brother chatting in his ear haha.

Sky has never tried to show that behavior, at best he might grab onto a wing/tail feather but it doesn't end up as preening.

 

[SailBoat]

Is there anyway I can teach my 2 hand raised male tiels to preen each other? They can preen themselves but I tend to preen their heads - But they don't always want to sit still for it haha.

They've made vauge attempts but don't seem to know what they're doing / queue to preen the other.

Sunny will bow his head to get Sky to preen him, but Sky is clueless on the queue and just ends up as the annoying older brother chatting in his ear haha.

Sky has never tried to show that behavior, at best he might grab onto a wing/tail feather but it doesn't end up as preening.

There likely is a way to teach it. But the want to and request for are not teachable. Commonly, with a few more years, they may! And, that's is about as close as it gets.

 

[Horada]

There likely is a way to teach it. But the want to and request for are not teachable. Commonly, with a few more years, they may! And, that's is about as close as it gets.

I've wondered if youtube videos might help? I hoped they might be able to learn still since they're not even a year old yet?

I got Sky at about 8 weeks and Sunny at about 10 weeks old. The breeder grouped each group by age & DNA tested or not in the cages but were able to mix with the other tiels. However I'm not sure what age they are when they were taken out of the "hand raised room" to the room with her adults.

They get so jealous of each other, but Sky is worse. But they have the "annoy the other sibling" relationship.

 

[SailBoat]

At their age, they would still be getting preened by their parents. So, too young!

Very few kids get along at this age!

 

[EllenD]

This is a very strange question, lol. I've never heard anyone ask this before, and honestly I've never thought about it before.

I agree with Sailboat though, in my experience birds will preen each other, it's just a natural behavior to them, but only if they like each other! It's very much like trying to put a pair together so that they'll breed, they might hate each other and fight , they may just tolerate each other, they may like each other as "friends" but not enough to mate, and then they might love each other and want to mate. So even if it was possible to train two birds to preen each other, which I imagine it is and probably wouldn't be hard to teach them, they have to like each other and want to do it first. And that cannot be trained or taught.

Preening other birds is an inherent behavior that birds are born with and retain when in captivity. That being said, the best answer to your question is that you don't have to train birds to preen each other, because if two birds want to preen each other they just will, without being told to or shown how.

"Dance like nobody's watching..."