can i get my ringneck tamed?

[aliyaamelia]

I got a wild indian ringneck two days ago. And of course i would like to try and tame him.
He lets me sit next to the cage, he takes treats from my hand through the cage bars. I have put my hand inside the cage and he dosent fly around but looks a bit suspiciously at me.

His wings are clipped.
so I'm woundering how to do this. Shall i let him out of the cage to try and tame him or is it still to early.
Shall i teach him to step up and get more comfortable with ny hands before i let him out. I dont want him to feel trapped in the cage as i heard it can make them aggressive??
And what is an easy way of training a bird to get comfortable to step up?
Im very thankful for any advice i can get

[Donovan]

being trapped in their cage doesn't make them aggressive...
what will make them aggressive would be if you were doing something it didn't like

let the bird out of the cage every day for a long time. Personally I would only put him back in the cage if there's real reason, otherwise give him his freedom and keep working with him.. doesn't sound so wild to me.

[MissK]

How big is the cage?

[aliyaamelia]

The cage is 50 cm wide 75 cm high and 40 cm deep. His tail was clipped of before i got him, i dont know why so hes quite small for now, moving around fine. But once the tail grows back i might need a bigger cage?
I have the cage door open all the time while im home and today he came out for the first time got him a playgym outside his cage aswell.

[MissK]

That's 19"x15" x 29"high, for those of us in the non-metric world.

This cage is OK for a sleeping cage, and I think you should use it as such. Bring the bird to a quiet room, hopefully your bedroom, for sleeping in this cage, but let him be in a larger cage for days. It can happen that a bird who is trapped in a small place and knows it will stay still and hope you go away. I would quit making him uncomfortable and instead try luring him to approach you with your hand held treat. Feed him through the bars a few times and then offer one through the doorway, but keeping your hand on the outside. Once he will approach then you can experiment putting the hand inside a little bit.

Your bird is wild. Is that wild as in parent raised and not used to people, or is that wild as in taken from the wild?
How old is your bird?
Are the tail feathers short, cut, or just missing?

Please start shopping for a much bigger cage.

[aliyaamelia]

He is not wild as in taken from the wild he is wild as in never been handled, parent raised as you said.
i was told hes under six months so i don't know excactly.
I got him becouse he wasnt taken care of properly were he was. I can see his wings have been badly cut and i asked specificly about the tail and why he didnt have one and they said that its been cut so he cant fly. Wierd to me but i just wanted to take the bird away from there.
to be honest the tail looks bad and quite rough its very short so im worried it might not come back but. Only time will tell.
i will follow your advice and get a bigger cage. And i do give him treats and he likes it even outside the cage he takes the treats.
one more question. Yesterday he came out from his cage. Walked around a bit went back in for a rest and then came back out and was out for a long time, hours.
is it ok to have them out that much if its on their own wiches. Or is it to much for a little birdie. He seemt to be enjoying himself.

[MissK]

As long as he is returning to the cage I think he's probably OK. The problem comes in when they have too much freedom and they cannot handle it, get scared, and their behaviour may fall apart. Another concern, over time, is that the bird must retain the skill of living in a cage. Sometimes people want the bird to be free all the time, and that's very kind hearted, but when something in life comes up and the bird then must be caged (maybe for the petsitter or even for a new home) then the bird who never uses a cage has a handicap because of being scared and unhappy in the cage.

I expect that if the feather damage is honestly due to clipping by humans then the feathers will all come in normal at the next molt. I hesitate to say it is just like a haircut, because it's more than that. The best analogy I can give to humans is that the feathers are somewhat like baby teeth, in that they should fall out and be replaced by new ones. The difference is that they do this every year. A baby does it more than once in a year.

When the feathers come in you may have to help the bird learn to fly. If that happens you will want to encourage him (by placing yourself and some treats out of reach) to fly. He might not be able to control steering and landing, so you may have to pad the room and certainly cover anything hard. When little birds are clipped before they fly it can cause a problem with their flying in the future, some say for life. If your bird already learned to fly before the clip then he may be OK, though still will need to practice.

[aliyaamelia]

Thank you for your reply. Very helpful. I will start of with a few hours a day outside the cage. So that maybe we can find some kind of rutine with time. Will keep interacting with him daily and hopefully have a tame flying bird in the future.

[InTheAir]

I have a young aviary raised irn, I got her at 3 months old.
I found making friends with her fairly easy, BUT I spent almost a year in preparation reading up and learning about positive reinforcement, parrot behaviour, animal training, irns on google.scholar and working with our handraised irn, trying to become sensitive to his subtle body language.
I really recommend to anyone with a parrot to go research every aspect of parrot care and behaviour. Top websites are: http://www.behaviorworks.org http://www.goodbirdinc.com http://www.naturalencounters.com http://www.learningparrots.com http://www.iaate.org also karen pryors website is really good. If you like reading check out The Manual of Parrot Behaviour. There are heaps more, but that's all I can think of right now.

I wrote this rant on training techniques a little while ago http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... =2&t=18946 it might be interesting to you.

Regards,
Claire

[aliyaamelia]

Thank you so much. Will definitely look in to this. Very helpful