Rescued IRN

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Shambles
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2018 7:31 pm

Rescued IRN

Post by Shambles »

Hi there,

We bought a young Indian Ringneck a few days ago from a home where he/she was caged with 3 toys for the 5 months since they got him as a fledgling from a breeder at Christmas time. The owner had no time for him, as a busy house with lots of young children, he had a mainly seeds only diet, very dirty cage, etc, etc. Sky is about 6 months old apparently. He/she had entered a stage of running at the cage bars to bite if you put your hand up, or having a go when changing food/water. I am thinking he should be through the bluffing stage by now, but maybe this is a longer stage for this bird. I don't know if he has been teased. On day one, we coaxed him out with a shiny toy and we have set up a paradise style climbing frame and toys to play with and keep music on when were not home. After a few days he now exits his cage happily (when he's ready, which is usually a minute or two) and heads to his new happy place. We have been introducing him to new foods slowly, which he loves (peas are a huge favorite) and I gave him a large dish with water in it, which he jumped straight into to bath himself. His last owner had never offered him a bath, because they couldn't get anything big enough into the cage. My opinion is that he was going stir crazy in the cage, which is quite tall, but not wide. The old owner said the breeder thought the bird was a girl because she is still biting and girls bite more, but I think boredom is probably more likely the contributor. We don't mind what sex the bird is. A light moult seems to be in progress at the moment. Hopefully the severely clipped wings will grow back.
The issue I have is that he/she was hand raised, but has not been handled/trained since. Sky is very cautious of hands. He likes to bite. Most of his bites are just testing, but he puts a good effort at times. We just carry on doing what were doing and ignore him. He will come over and take food or a toy, but sometimes he will forego taking the object in favor of a bite. I assume he is scared or trying his luck. Is there anything we can do to help him to know we don't mean him harm and to show him hands mean good things, or is this something he will come to on his own? Ideally, we don't want a biting bird, as we really want to include him as a family member and we would like to eventually leave him free to interact with us at his will. We also have a large empty aviary we would like to put him in sometimes to stretch his wings and get some fresh air. We just want to address the biting issue and hopefully train him to leave it in the past and interact with us with nicer behaviour.
Do they generally come around, or is this going to be an ingrained behaviour now, given Sky is 6mo old? Is it possible to train him out of it?

Cheers
Pam
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2018-04-30 Sky 1.JPG
2018-04-30 Sky 1.JPG (35.03 KiB) Viewed 1338 times
2018-04-30 Sky 3.JPG
2018-04-30 Sky 3.JPG (92.09 KiB) Viewed 1338 times
BirbMom
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2022 6:41 am

Re: Rescued IRN

Post by BirbMom »

I know this is a late reply, I think I’m the only person commenting here on this forum in years, how is it going?
I would have said give it time and he will come around, how it it going now? God bless 💖
ringneck
Site Admin
Posts: 1392
Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:57 pm
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Re: Rescued IRN

Post by ringneck »

he most important thing to do is ignore all biting. Give it no attention whatsoever so the behavior can be extinguished. Once the ringneck knows biting is not an effective way to communicate, it will phase it out. Some ringnecks are more relentless than others. Be consistent, and the behavior will change.

Start with positive reinforcement. Have the bird start stepping up on a stick and reward him/her. Then move to hands. Go slow. The more you interact with the bird, the tamer it will become. Because the bird has had five months of not being handled, it regressed in the taming department. Thankfully the bird still seems to enjoy human company, so build upon that slowly.

As for biting, when a toy is offered, keep a log of the toys that seem to get the aggressive reaction. Then once the toy has been identified, remove it and find something else. The key is to always set the bird up for success in its environment.

Look into behavior shaping and taming. It will help a great deal!

Congratulations on your new bird! :D I look forward to hearing more about him/her.

Best wishes,

Imran
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