training birds

[Invigor]

I have a budgie (wanted a cockatiel but couldn't afford one at the time) and the first week or so it would sit on my finger, come out of the cage, no problem. Now about a month later it refuses to do anything.. If I go near the cage it freaks out and goes to the corner of the cage as far away from me as possible.

Any tips to try to tame this crazy bird? I haven't clipped the wings, she came unclipped. does that help? I have to trim her nails soon too, so she's going to need to be handled, but she freaks out and bites whenever I try to get her on my hand...

any ideas?

[Marcus K]

Are you cats stocking the bird? Hope you get it figured out, one of our dogs hates nail trimming.

[Cap'n]

My dog hates to have his nails trimmed as well, but we worked out a deal. Every evening I get to trim one nail and he gets to eat the good food for supper. Took a couple weeks for him to get used to it but now as soon as I bring his bowl over he lays down and holds up a paw.

[Jason McK]

Invigor, I have a Quaker Parrot, that has the opposite problem, it always wants to be on me. The first thing is give it time. Allow it to climb out of the cage on it's own by leaving the door open. If it bits the worst thing you can do is recoil and get mad, this will encourage that behavior. I've taken some nasty bits and it's really hard not to react but try. Do not clip it's wings and do it's nails yourself. Take it to a good bird store of Vet. You don't want the bird to associate you to the trauma of the nails and wing clipping. you can be the rescue er.

Good luck, and I though Aquariums were a lot of work :)

Jason

[Don E]

I agree the first thing to determine is whether or not somebody or something in the house is traumatizing the bird. Also, check into breeding cycles for the bird- hormones make birds do crazy things. They also go through phases as they grow up- the equivalent of the 'terrible twos'. Or, it may just have developed a territoriality around its cage since it settled in- many birds are nasty or antisocial until you get them out of the cage and then they're okay.

You might start a training/conditioning program to re-tame the bird. There are a number of good books out there- I'm currently working on clicker-training a couple of birds and it's pretty interesting. (Clicker-training is just reward-based training using the clicker to mark the exact desired behaviour- it's pretty powerful and is used in varous forms by dolphin, dog, elephant trainers etc.)

Anyway, training a bird just involves finding its absolute favorite treat, and using that treat exclusively to reward good behaviour; in your case, coming closer, stepping up without biting, etc. It takes patience and consistency but a lot of bad behaviour can be eliminated by just giving the bird time and attention and rewarding desirable behaviour.

Good luck!