My bird is a quaker, but she is very picky. I tried lot of stuff for training treats until I discovered that she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES roast chicken. It must be the kind from the grocery store--home roasted won't do. I buy a whole chicken for her and take it apart and put it in little bits in the freezer for training and treats. I couldn't really motivate her until I found what was a good incentive. Now it is pretty easy to get her to learn new tricks and she is a quick learner. I would keep trying other stuff and see what tickles her fancy. Good luck!
With Casper its a case of guess what I want this week. Last week it was a pea pod. this week it was an almond, before that it was a slice of banana.
Life is never dull with a parrot.
Millet comes in two sizes. You may want to try the bigger (jumbo) sized millet.
In regards to treats, you want the reward to be *tiny*... such as a sunflower seed cut in half, or even quarters - if you can't make it into six pieces... so the idea of giving her an entire nut to crack open is rather too much!
You might want to consider buying a healthy nut mix that's already in slivers or crushed, and you can then make the pieces even tinier. The pasta may also work as well.
The reward doesn't have to be food related. It can also be praise, scritches, an item or even going somewhere! In fact, the higher the amount of reward items you have, the more it'll keep her interested in what she might get next!
What about nutriberries? I give them to my budgies as rewards and they go CRAZY for it. It's also healthy for them, it has some pellets crushed into them too. Thier also have a little bit of honey . They have different sizes for different types of birds. They also have different flavors or you can use avi cakes. It's pretty much the same thing
Casper hasn't discovered the joy of Nutriberries yet. He just lobs them out of the bowl to get at the rest of his food or eats around them. I expect he will love them eventually.
Its the same with ball shaped bundles of raffia or whatever they are made of, he had a big one hanging in his cage which was ignored and he doesn't play with the foot toy size either, he prefers the coloured plastic ones. Not a true green parrot then?
Anyway, back on topic, the big tub of Nutriberries that we bought hoping they would be useful in coaxing him into his Aviator have been no help whatsoever.
What I have found that works for Jassper are pine nuts. He absolutely *loves* them and goes nuts for them. They are also soft enough to break into smaller pieces. Good luck!
Fruit was actually a magic word for Georgie. If i said "mommy will give you fruit" she would want to do almost anything to earn some. Gilbert seems to be following in her footsteps.............that is of very high value to him too.