Blanch doesn't want out

[RSRosey]

I don't know what to do, now that she has a nice big new cage Blanch doesn't want to come out. SHe bites when we try to get her to step up. She growls if we get our hands near her. Do you force her out by catching her? Keep asking her to step up for hours on end? Let her decide when she is ready to spend time out of the cage? I just don't know what to try. I tried bribing her with nuts and seeds. She bites us and acts like we should just give her the seed/nut after she bites. She came out yesterday morning but only for a little bit and hasn't wanted out since...We normally do some step up practice in the evening and didn't get to yesterday.
RHonda

 

[zarafia]

Sounds like its time for you to work on stick training. If you have to, use a towel to get her out of the cage and away from her cage. Then start training her to step up onto a stick instead of your hand. She can bite that stick all she wants and it will get her nowhere.
Just don't let yourself become intimidated by her. Think of her as a bratty child who has started throwing temper tantrums. You have to be the adult.

 

[RSRosey]

Thanks for the response. I had been searching online reading everything I could find. After reading several articles and rereading some from before I decided I needed to just get her out...so that is what I did. With her old cage I didn't have this problem...she wanted out. This one...she seems to really like. So we worked on stepping up in the kitchen (AWAY FROM THE CAGE) she did a good job...then when I felt like she was tiring of that I took her into the bathroom for a shower and some more step ups there. She loved the shower, she even let me hold her close and rub her belly and try to help with a few pin feathers and touch her back and her feet. NO BITING AT ALL. Its just that cage issue. Hopefully when we get the tree stand built and her cage moved upstairs she will be more willing to come out to go to the living room to have playtime.

Thanks again for the response. That was the ticket. I didn't have to towel her, just have to get her in a position where I can avoid the beak and get her with both hands...she doesn't usually bite after I have her...just while I am trying to get her.
Rhonda

 

[Auggie's Dad]

After lots of practice with stick training in other areas when you work on it by/in the cage be sure to let her go back in. ie: Have her step up to the stick from the cage, praise and/or reward her, then let her go back in the cage right away. You can do that over and over.

People often feel they are rewarding their pets when they are not. If she likes the cage and you hand her a treat as you take her away from the cage its hardly a reward. Of course you should be able to take her away from the cage, but you don't want her to assume that stepping up means getting taken away from her cool new cage.

 

[RSRosey]

Update.

My DH got the playstand put together for me. She likes it but she is trying to defend it as HERS. She growls at me when I come over to her. But I have started letting her see that I am still going to touch her, gently right after I tell her "touch" and then let her still be on the stand. I do the same with her feet and tell her touch. Then I will ask her to step up and when she does I put her back on the tree stand and give her a treat and tell her what a good girl she is. Seems to be working, she only growls or bites at me sometimes now.

I makes sense that she wouldn't want to come to me for a treat when the trade off is her leaving her cage. She is starting to come out now more willingly on the stick. I take her to her new playstand for a few hours of playtime there and she does quite well. When she starts eyeing the cage and bobbing up and down like she is looking for a way there..and thinking about trying to fly (she is clipped badly and can't even glide down very well) I will offer her my hand and tell her I can take her to her cage...I ask, do you want to go back? and offer my hand and say "Up" and she will generally go.
Rhonda