Separation anxiety??

[JimHcctx]

Hi all,

I am always interested in ways to improve parrot tameness. I raise a few IRNs and until now have always kept the babies together while hand feeding them. I have been considering separating each chick from its clutch mates during the hand feeding time so the only interaction is between human and bird removing the bird to bird contact from the picture completely.

My thought is, that in doing this, the bird would learn its social skills entirely from a human and not just have human exposure a few hours a day and bird to bird exposure the majority of the time.

If everyone believes that hand feeding makes for a gentler bird, doesn’t it make sense that voiding them of their clutch mates during this time would even further the process?

Thoughts?

Thanks
Jim

[ringneck]

Hey Jim,

Really good question—and I admire your investigative skills! From my perspective, I believe it’s very detrimental hand feeding a chick alone for a variety of reasons.

While the chick is young most mother ringnecks spend countless hours with their babies. During this time, the baby needs something to snuggle and interact with—it needs to be touched and nurtured. Most mothers will not leave the nest until the babies are old enough to produce their own heat and food demands increase. Though I am not a scientist, I strongly believe that this bonding time is crucial to the baby’s mental health.

During my clutches, I never keep the babies separate and they turn out perfect! In fact, I believe they have an edge to those who were kept separate. Keeping the chicks together allows them to understand that they are ringnecks, yet enjoy human interaction. The ringnecks that I have seen separated from clutch mates develop chronic social problems—such as plucking, nervousness, and anxiety. Why? I believe because the imprinting process went wrong.

Another reason I believe it’s important the parrot know it’s a bird is simply because most endure the same fate—being abandoned. Unfortunately, many people buy parrots because they are cute when they are babies, can talk, or just “neat” to have. The end result is an owner who becomes frustrated and eventually believes they are doing the parrot a service by giving him/her to a breeding program or another owner. Though in some cases this is the right thing to do, most parrots who have no social skills cannot tolerate their own kind, let alone another person—it’s just a destructive cycle that continues. Eventually the parrot will live a lonely life and resort to some problematic behavior.

Back to your question though, I believe that hand feeding your parrots together is the best thing to do. A tame parrot comes down to socialization, daily interaction, and the amount of effort placed into training the bird. Expert pet trainers can take wild parrots and tame them very well—this has nothing to do w/ hand feeding. I like to look at hand feeding as a head start at human interaction.

So I would say—keep the babies w/ their mothers until they are 10 days old then start the handfeeding process. While hand feeding, socialize and play with the babies and I promise—in fact, I swear, you’ll have the same result! Good question and I admire your need to explore this topic!

Wishing you the best my friend ,

IMRAN

[JimHcctx]

Inram

Thank you very much for your comments and I beleive you are correct in your thoughts. I will continue on feeding my babies as a group.

They get a lot of play time and my reputation is for extra friendly birds. Last year I brought 9 to the bird mart and all nine were sold inside of 2 hours and a fist full of phone numbers of people who wanted my birds in the future. Each perfectly tame, would lay on thier backs and get thier belly scratched and all cuddled. I even had 3 that got an extra 10 days of 5 feeding a day that were really spoiled rotten.

Seperation was just a thought, thanks for the detailed reply.

Jim

[*kimi*]

hi, i just read this post & have realised that i may have a problem with the bird i just handraised. she was given to me on her own & she was raised by myself & my partner. i have another moderately tame male who is 1 & he was being kept outsite until she was fully weaned,as i had in mind to pair them up for next season. now the baby girl is about 3 months old & is obsessed with me & when i let both birds out together the girl chases the male in flight & if he lands on me she flies at him to get him off me.

so at present i have them inside next to each other in separate cages, & the male is really interested but she only wants me.

i was considering clipping the hens wings (or both their wings) so she stops chasing him, & seeing if that calms her down through the bluffing stage. but was worried ive ruined her chance as a future breeder.

any tips would be great & i have now learnt a valuable lesson to always handraise babys with a clutch mate & if they don't have one get one for them.

[JimHcctx]

Kimi

She is still pretty young, but typically females do not particularly like males until breeding season has started and often it can be dangerous to place unfamiliar couples together if the cage is small as the females could injure or kill the male. So keeping them together but in separate cages is the right idea.

Clipping her wings will not hurt and most likely keep her from catching the male during supervised playtime.

Out of the 75 or so that I have hand fed, I have only had 4 that came out to be the true 'cuddly pet quality' those are the ones I try to raise. Strangly enough, they have all been females. also, it seems like certain colors are more prone to better dispositions.

Let them see each other side-by-side and they may work it out by themselves. If the attacks continue, and you find you do have to house them together, introduce them slowly and clip her wings. Or, you can keep them in separate cages next to each other until she is begging to be bred next season and then place them together. If he is courting and she is begging HIM, she will receive him and hopefully they will breed almost immediately.

If during breeding season she is solisiting YOU and still attacking him, you most likely have a new life long partner that is imprinted on you.

If you truly beleive the bird is imprinted on you, you might consider limiting contact and avoiding nurturing activities. Let her spend the majority of time with your other ringneck.

[*kimi*]

ok, thankyou 4 the advice. i am extremely interested in what you said about the percentage of birds that make good pets. i have only just started with ringnecks, but i have always had the desire to breed them for tameness instead of colour alone, with the desire to keep back only the birds that show great pet qualities for future breeders, rather than just the best colours. but would have to keep up with current popular pet colours as well, as everyone over here in australia wants violets atm.

so being the forum owner do you believe all correctly handraised ringnecks have great pet potential?. or only the ratio you showed in your post? im almost about to give up on these birds because the one i just handraised has started lunging & biting my kids. i understand the bluffing stage, but only from what ive read on here & been told by others. but i really am not convinced that she will just instantly stop this behaviour, the last ringneck i was given as a present & he never stopped bluffing and he is over 1 now, great talker but just wont stop the biting. my first ringneck was a normal green age 1 from an aviary & although he was scared for a good year, when he came around he never bit anyone. he is the reason i wanted to breed these birds, but im not sure anymore.

[*kimi*]

oops just disregard the forum owner bit

[JimHcctx]

Kimi

Let me first say I am not an expert by any means. But I do have a few friends who are. A lot of what I come up with is my own observations and a lot of reading and applying observations of other species etc etc. So here are a few thoughts for what it's worth (sorry I am long winded).

Bluffing: In a lot of ways is like an upward slope with a hill in the middle. As you start the journey you are on low ground dealing with babies who are gentle, as the independence happens so does the hill as you finally climb down the back side of the hill (though the bluffing stage), on the other side of the mountain, you still end up on higher ground and a more independent bird. Independence is fine, but often it is combined with a more aggressive bird. If you look at the bluffing period as a whole, you have to wonder how much the birds aggressiveness was taught by you while dealing with you (or family) during that period. Bluffing is part of the birds learning stage. If a boxer goes into a ring with its sparring partner, it comes out more knowledgeable in how to deal with his adversary. This is a frustrating time and could be made worse by the attempts to force friendship on the bird. Using some thoughts from a "good bird" video, you have to make the bird want to come to you and show it you are a good thing. i.e. you are the only one with the sunflower seeds(?)

"Ringnecks are independent and will revert back quickly if not handled daily." This is a statement you will read often as you wade through all the writings about ringnecks. However, the few "Pet quality" ringnecks I was initially referring to are those that I can leave in a flight of wild ringnecks for months at a time, then pull them out, sit on the couch and have them nuzzled up under my neck cooing me for love and attention. These by far are the ones that don't bite and are just seeking love and human interaction.

I have a couple theories, but haven't tested them out. The 4 or so pet quality ringnecks I was referring to had some things that were in common about their history and other things that I suspect were in their history based on their breeders.

1. Skittish parents may have a higher probability of producing skittish children. I had a blue hen who was very skittish. I tracked back her parents and found mom was very skittish also as well as her other babies. The baby from her I hand raised and showed a lot of attention to was skittish too and I considered a failure. Color or Heritage I don't know. But I have seen this more in my blue birds.

2. A lutino pair I had was the exact opposite. They were calm, non aggressive and showed no fear. Even opening the nest box was an easy chore and simply asking her to basically leave which she did so with no speed or anxiety while I checked her eggs and babies. I have had the same such experiences with green lacewings, they seem more calm. I don't raise every color, so I can't really compare everything, but its a line of thought I tend to ask people about. Blues are recessive, lutinos are sex-linked.

3. Babies raised in a clutch and hand fed and returned to the container are bonding with like babies they are nestling with instead of humans. One thought I have had and have not tested was to spit a couple clutches of four babies where two of the four were housed together and two were separated into their own individual containers for hand rearing. All would need to be pulled at 4-5 days old. I suspect you would produce a better pet by removing the birds from their clutch mates immediately and entirely. However to get the full benefit of doing this, I suspect you would need to fawn all over each of the individual kept birds several times a day building up that motherly bond.

4. Not one of the pet quality birds I referred to would mate with another bird. I have posted such questions in here to the larger breeders and they assured me, those birds who were incubated will still breed without problems. When you break down that process though, you have to wonder; is it because despite the incubation, they are still kept with other babies and are still receiving their imprinting of these other baby birds. Does this change completely if you took a egg, incubated it, fed it and kept the bird void of hearing, seeing, or interacting with another bird for the first two years of its life and then introduced it for the first time during breeding season to a mate?? I think this has to do with human imprinting. At least two of the four were either pulled at a couple days or incubated the other two were purchased as small babies and sent to homes that were void of other bird.

5. Pursuing such hand rearing practices might produce a better pet-quality bird, it's hard to say. One interesting study I read was a survey analysis from African Grey Owners. Incubated birds appeared to be less likely to breed as an adult and showed more aggression towards their owners later in life. The survey however only covered about 130 households but mathematically provided a little support of other peoples comments etc. My thought on the latten aggression could be confusion over the natural desire to breed. One hen I have has a bald head. She was incubated, he was not. He wants to breed, she has no idea what he is asking for and out of frustration he keeps pulling the feathers out of her head. I finally got her going into the nest box by putting my arm up through the bottom and out the entrance. She wants to get petted and follows my hand down to the bottom where I have a cuttle bone or toy for her to chew on. So in effect, I am trying to help her learn what she missed out on. A friend has a pair of ciaques he has taken and entered into a breeding program from anotehr friend who could not get them to breed for 4 years despite them coming to age. They won't go into the nest box. Research with other ciaque breeders indicated an incubated ciaque is less likely (will not) to breed. In several years they never went into the nest box one single time. So now custom cages and custom nest boxes are forcing them to explore the confines of the "learning Box." Its a creative battle that a very knowleage friend has taken as a challenge.

With ringnecks, all these babies come in one short season, so individual attention is more difficult if not impossible. Last year I expected 50 babies, got four and was so discussed by breeding season I let the parents raise them. I now have them in a flight with three other hand raised birds a friend gave me. It is interesting to see the dramatic difference between the two clutches. The parent-raised birds ignore me or fly to the opposite end of the cage. The hand fed birds run right up to the food door showing little fear, but some aggression or willingness to bite a little.

If you want to try my theories then:
Pull a baby really, really young.
Keep the bird separate from all the other babies.
Show the bird lots of cuddle time very early on, like a mom cuddling her own baby.
Keep the bird void of other bird contact all the way though the weaning period.
Limit/introduce the birds involvement with other birds during the bluffing period to no more than supervised 20-30 minutes a day. (clutch fed babies are not going to necessarily hurt it, but the test bird might become fearful or hurt the other birds).
After the bird has started eating on its own, remove the favored foods and keep those on hand by all members of the house every time the bird lands on one of you, give it a treat.
Lots of fun time.
Any aggressive behavior must be met with a 5-10 minute time-out in the cage. The only problem with this is that you don't want your bird to become aggressive in order to get back to the cage to eat, drink, or poop.

Until now I have never mentioned clipping a birds wings. I hate doing it, because I have come to love my birds ability to fly, however for a one time initial training and bonding, if it's not going my way without them clipped, I will clip just so I don't have to chase them all over the house. You would think that the land-treat training would work, but without the basics taught of stepping up and staying with you, you could end up with a bird who flies continually from person to person just to eat.

I cant tell you if any of this will work to raise your production of true quality pet birds. I suspect it will, but until you refine the process a 100 times, no telling. I will caution you though that in dening your bird the natural rearing process you risk havint a mean bird that will not breed and could bounce around from home to home to home or be killed in an aviary.

Good Luck!

Jim