So, due to an unfortunate tragedy a friend of mine is no longer able to care for her animals. I offered to take the birds and today, five new birds were delivered to my house. I had not met her birds before, so I just knew the little bits and pieces that I had heard about them and seen pictures of them. Most of them are rehomes, with the exception of the two budgies that she got as babies.
Two of the birds Thistle, a Green Cheek Conure and Bamboo, a Canary Winged Parakeet are very handleable, but I wasn't sure about Joey, her White Capped Pionus. Joey seems very excited and interested when I talk to him and when I am by the cage and some of the time he looked pretty defensive and upset. When I changed his water I saw that my perception was correct, he is not okay with me messing with his cage. He came over and became really agitated and aggressive. But, I needed to change his water and I needed to take out his fresh food bowl. However, there was no way I could just stick my hand in there as every time I reached he rushed over aggressively.
I was already planning to work with him, but was going to give him a little time to settle in, but obviously something needs to be done so that I can change his food and water. When I fed him earlier, I noticed he liked grapes which I had offered in his veggie and fruit mix earlier. He has taken food from me, but I can tell when he is agitated he just grabs it and drops it. When I offered him millet, he didn't want it. When I gave him a piece of popcorn, he threw it down.
I cut the grapes up into spears, with each grape become four spears of grape. I offered him one and he took it and loved it. I asked him to come to the other side of the cage onto another perch and he did, so I marked it with "good!" and then gave him another grape slice. While he was eating it, I replaced the water bowl. After he was done, I asked him to move to another perch, when he did, I marked it, "Good!" and gave him another grape spear and was able to easily remove his food dish.
Thistle and Bamboo also took a grape slice from me which is great as they had not wanted to take any food from me prior to that.
I will not longer be offering grapes in their food bowls, all grapes will come from me, from my hand and used for training.
I have been through this before with birds that are aggressive around their cages. I simply have to teach them that I mean good things happen and that if they move where I ask them, I will reward them with something I like.
Welcome home little birds.
