Unresponsive Female.

[Preformer]

Hello guys, I'm new to the forum.
Not sure if I'm posting in the right section, but I need help in making my pet IRN more responsive.
We got her almost 2 years ago when she was around 3-4 months old. She eats from our hands, and
is not scared of us or anything. But she's still very much wild and won't talk at all. She's quiet most of the time except when making her wild calls in the evening.
I wish I had found the site earlier.

Thanks in advance.

[InTheAir]

Heyo,
What exactly do you mean by more 'responsive'?
I'd class eating from your hand pretty responsive..

How much time do you spend interacting her a day?

Claire

[Skyes_crew]

Some IRN's will never talk unfortunately. Do you speak to her a lot? Play music? Are you away from the home a lot? Do you have other birds? Also you say she's not scared of you, but still wild. What do you mean by that? We can all try to help

[Preformer]

By 'unresponsive' I mean she does not reply like making a sound n all..bt just pins her eyes..won't try to talk

@ Claire: we spend an hour with her on an average..but that is distributed all over the day..

@ Skyes_crew: we talk to her a lot, bt dun play music..we used to have a pair of budgies earlier along with her bt not anymore. We'd clipped her wings just when she came bt when they grew back we'd let her fly..so she got wild...

[Skyes_crew]

Ok...here are my suggestions.

Make sure her cage is either by or in front of a window. Not too much direct sunlight but a lot of natural light.
Try to spend more time with her throughout the day. Talking, hand feeding, and training.
Give her foraging toys to play with. Also try rotating her toys in her cage. She may be bored.
I'm not sure of her diet, but try increasing her dark green veggies orange veggies, and proteins and decreasing her fruits. Use fruit and nuts for training.
If you're away from the house, try music. I use a white noise machine that makes sounds of nature.
And if all else fails, she may be missing the companionship of the budgies. Is there a chance you could get another budgie? Ellie, on this forum, opened my eyes to the sometimes need for bird companionship outside of humans.

Those are my suggestions based on the information you provided. If I'm missing anything let me know. I'm sure others will chime in here and give some more good advice for you

[MissK]

Please explain "wild". I strongly doubt having the wings grow in and flying made her become more wild than she was before. If anything, I would expect that to make her feel more confident. Is that what you mean, that she is more independent and will fly away from you when she wants? Or is it something else?

-MissK

[Preformer]

@ Skyes_crew: - Her cage is by a window. What do you exactly mean by training? I highly doubt if she is missing the companionship of the budgies, as she always used to fight with them We were planning to get a male IRN from some time, would that help? Thanks for the suggestions.

@ MissK: - Thats exactly what I mean. She tries to resist us sometimes, and when she sees her usual spot (climbing on a window), she doesn't listen to us at all, and just flys/runs away to it.

[Skyes_crew]

Ringnecks are extremely smart and need to be challenged. Training your bird to listen to commands, training in flight recall, target training...these are all methods of basically giving your bird something to occupy her time and mind. As well as having a bird that responds to you. There are many threads on this forum that address training. If you do a search you will come up with a lot of different methods to train by. I don't think your bird has gone wild per se, I think your bird is like a spoiled child that doesn't want to listen. That is the importance of setting boundaries. You can never truly domesticate a bird, but you can earn her respect and love and in return she will want to please you. Most of the time do a google search for training methods also.

Use this website for many references of parrot enrichment, foraging, etc

Parrotenrichment.com

There are activity books in online format that are free and offer a wealth of information.

Good luck

[InTheAir]

It is also important to remember that a parrot is more like a cat then a dog. I would count our bird as very well trained, he knows heaps of tricks, comes when he is called, loves hanging out with people... When it suits him! Not necessarily when it suits us. He usually obliges us though.

I also think you get back what you put in.
We spend an absolute minimum of 4 hours a day where our bird has the option to interact with us. Alot of that time he will just his play next to us, or sleep on us. (he very seldom spends even an hour when he is awake where we are out of calling range, as he has a cage at my boyfriends work). He also gets 5 to 20 minutes a day trick training, 5 minutes minimum on flight recalls and atleast 10 minutes where one of us just races him around the house (he even let's us win sometimes). We feel that it was our choice to get a flock animal and keep it alone, so we are obliged to stand in as his flock until we get him a friend.

Not every bird will talk.
Parrots like to talk to their flock, if your bird thinks you are its flock it is more likely to imitate you. At this stage our bird mostly uses his human words as a contact call when we are out of sight. If we leave the room he will say 'peep peep peep peep peep', then he tries a ringneck dialect he learnt on a play date (very loud screech I can't describe), then he tries 'what doing' 'uh oh' 'good boy' I usually answer the peep one and the human words. He very seldom talks when we are right next to him,but he is only young, and learning about how humans work... He probably will learn that we like him to talk when we are close to him.

Ringnecks mostly won't interact well with smaller birds, but that doesn't mean they don't like having someone to watch or talk to when the rest of the flock is away.

I totally think that flock animals like ringnecks do need more company than we can provide. When you have a female it is more difficult as she won't want a same sex companion, and it can take a lot of effort to stop them breeding successfully.
It is best to talk to your avian vet about this in detail before getting a another bird. They would be the best person to advise you on this. Ellie-electrons on this forum has kept a pair as pets for several years and managed to prevent them breeding successfully so it is worth asking her for tips if you get a mate for your bird.

I think we can accurately say that a ringneck is as intelligent as a toddler, and out requires a similar level of understanding from its people to fulfil its needs... If you do you have find a whole lot of uncapped potential!

I hope that helps.
Claire

Ps foraging rules!

[MissK]

While I agree with everything Skye and Claire have said, with one possible exception, my take on this is a bit more simple. I think your bird may be not so much spoiled and independent as naive, a bit wary of you, and unmotivated to change.

I don't know what kind of interactions you currently have. I suspect you visit the bird to manage the food and clean the cage, say a few words, and move along with your day. You probably stop by from time to time to say hi and let the bird out. I bet the bird won't step up or follow a food lure, and would rather go to a favourite spot (probably out of your reach) than to stay near you for any amount of time. I imagine you would like the bird to step up, speak, and accept handling. The bird probably wants you to provide food and leave her alone. You two are not friends.

To be brutally honest, I think the best thing you could do is simply "start over", as if you had just brought this bird home. To shift your own perspective to a fresh place, try to look at her as a second-hand or "rescue" bird that you just met. Abandon the habits and habitual thoughts you have with her. See her with new eyes. Start with a clean slate.

Can you do that?

Now have a look at your new, second-hand bird. You're in luck! She already knows how to take food from humans. That is most of what you need to start being friends. It should take a week OR LESS. Don't drag this project out. Work on it every day, like a paying job. Call to her in a cheery voice before you enter the room - "Birdie! Here I come!" or whatever works for you. Go gently to the cage and offer her some very good treats, just little pieces, through the bars. Speak softly to her, telling her how good she is, how beautiful, how smart, and mean what you say. Take some time to really look at her, speaking to her and giving her tiny treats all the while. Do this for ten whole minutes, and set a timer so you don't have to worry about keeping track. Then gently put something wonderful, like a slice of apple, in her cage and leave her alone to think about it.

Do that twice, if not three times, per day, morning, early evening, and possibly midday. At the same time, do not let her out of the cage and do not try to handle her. You can be in the room, even you *should* be in the room, but take care to be gentle and quiet, soothing, not upsetting. Basically, you want to give her some personal space in a controlled environment to rethink her ideas about you and decide you are a nice person who brings her treats and doesn't push her beyond her comfort level.

After a few days of this, you should be able to lure her inside the cage with the treats. To do that, give her some treats as usual, and then offer one treat far enough away that she must move her body an inch or two to reach it by stretching. Continue that, giving treats, and making her reach or move for some of them. You will know when she is ready to follow the lure by her eager willingness to go to a treat that is a little out of reach. Add this "trick" to your habits and when she is confident reaching a little for the treat, start giving a couple farther away so she has to take a step or two to get them. Still give her treats directly - she doesn't have to work for all of them, just some of them. In this way, literally "step by step" your bird will learn to follow the treat, and she will learn that you are going to ask her to do something and make it worth her time. She will want to do it. Now we have "motivation". We also have "training" - you have trained your bird to follow a food lure. It was an easy and natural trick, but still pat yourself on the back.

Once the bird will follow the food lure readily, which is to say, she sees the lure and quickly, confidently, and eagerly moves toward it, she is ready to leave the cage. Why? You now have a way to get her back into the cage more or less on demand, using a gentle and non threatening method. To remove the bird from the cage, use your new food lure trick to lead her out the door and onto the side or top of the cage. Now, the hard part: Re-train the food lure on the outside of the cage.  It's only hard because you will be thinking "Hey, we did this already." Do it anyway. It may not take as long but it is important.

Do not leave the bird out of the cage for hours on end. To do so will allow her to forget she lives in the cage and goes in and out when you ask her to. Think about how much you want to go back to work after the day off. Think how much worse it is if you take a week off. It is better to put the bird back in the cage and out again every 20 minutes three times than it is to leave her out for an hour straight. Later on, when her training is better, she can stay out a long time, but not yet.

This should give you a good bit to work on for a while. Do not ever stop spending ten minutes talking to your bird and giving treats every day, as you did in the beginning. You should find that as time goes on, you can speak more loudly and directly, with feeling, to the bird without scaring her. It is this "conversation" that will help towards speech. The bird won't say what you say until it is paying attention, and this activity promotes that. Special hint - the bird is more likely to repeat something that is said directly, with enthusiasm. That's why so many birds cuss and say their own name.

Please do follow what the others have said - all those things are good for the bird. I believe what I have outlined for you here will also be good for the bird, and for your relationship.

I wish you the best.
-MissK

[Skyes_crew]

Brilliant advice MissK!!! That should give a great starting point to build a lasting foundation and friendship

[Preformer]

Thank you very much guys! I'll definitely make the suggested changes