8 Months old Indian Ringneck Parrots

[kshivu83]

Hi everyone,
I have got a pair of Indian Ringneck Parrots which I bought 3 days back. I was told that they are 6 months (male) and 8 months (female) old and it is not tamed. I bought it from a pet shop and not a bird owner. I am not sure whether it is a wild caught or a hand bred one. The issue is, both of them are very afraid and they are moving around inside the cage when I go near by. I read a few blogs about taming and I think it should work fine. My question is, is it better to have both the parrots in the same cage while taming or should I keep it separately? Which one will yield a good result. Is it possible to tame both the parrots at the same time or should I do one by one?

[kshivu83]

I've never been in the situation you are in so I don't have any first hand experience, but everything I have read indicates it is best to cage the birds and work on taming them separately. You will probably notice once they are separated that one is less afraid than the other. Work with that one first, offering it food through the cage bars. Let the other one see the calmer bird getting food. Sounds like you will need to spend a great deal of time sitting near them and talking softly to them. If I were you, try to do that as many times a day as you can each time offering something you think they would like- fresh red, or orange peppers are hard for them to resist. Good luck, and hopefully you get more responses.

Dear Ariahna, Thanks for your immediate response. Both the parrots are new to my home and they are not tamed. Both are afraid and as you said I could see that the female one is a bit ok compared to the male one. I shall start working out with her and see how it works. I think it will take a long time to get them close to our family and I believe I can be patient enough to do wait and get them with us.
Would you mind help me in understanding IRN's breeding nature. After how many months they will be ready for mating? Will it lay eggs in home environment? What are the things we should have the in cage for successful mating?

[Lauren]

I would separate them and work with them one on one. While you may never get them as tame as a hand raised. I had a female parent raised who I managed to get semi tame, she would shower with me, step up.. but never let me pet her or kiss her. Breeding: They will be ready for breeding at around 3 years.. please know that once they are paired and breeding they loose their tameness. All you work taming may be lost once the start breeding. When they are ready, in breeding season you will need to get a big enough nest box with some untreated pine wood shavings for her to lay her eggs in. I had a female (semi tame aviary bird) and my male (tame hand raised) always kept them indoors, they successfully bred twice. But I must say, you have to be prepared for them to loose their tameness when breeding! Goodluck!

[kshivu83]

I would separate them and work with them one on one. While you may never get them as tame as a hand raised. I had a female parent raised who I managed to get semi tame, she would shower with me, step up.. but never let me pet her or kiss her. Breeding: They will be ready for breeding at around 3 years.. please know that once they are paired and breeding they loose their tameness. All you work taming may be lost once the start breeding. When they are ready, in breeding season you will need to get a big enough nest box with some untreated pine wood shavings for her to lay her eggs in. I had a female (semi tame aviary bird) and my male (tame hand raised) always kept them indoors, they successfully bred twice. But I must say, you have to be prepared for them to loose their tameness when breeding! Goodluck!

Lauren, thanks for the info and suggestions. Jessie is not biting that much as she was before a week but John is still more afraid. He tries to bite all the time I try to keep him in my hands (not painful though). I am planning to have the taming session for another month and if I am not getting any improvements, I think I may have to take the bird to a professional trainer.

[ellieelectrons]

Regarding separating them for training: it would definitely be easier to separate them to train them however if you find that one frets when the other one isn't around then it may not be worth the hassle.

Training is about little steps... it takes lots of patience and lots of time. Make sure you know your bird's favourite foods. You can discover that by putting a lot of things in its normal cage food container and seeing which ones they eat first and remove these foods from their regular diet and just let them get them from you.

If you're looking for good training DVDs to purchase, I can personally recommend anything by Barbara Heidenreich (see http://www.goodbirdinc.com/). She also runs workshops and seminars so if you have the opportunity to get along to one of those it would be worth it.

Best wishes and good luck!

Ellie.