Eclectus scared of my hands

[JoelV]

Evening everyone,

My 6 month old eclectus Loki seems to be extremely scared of my hands most of the time. He will step up without fail, and will take treats from my hand without hesitation, but any other movements of my hands near him causes him to freeze, or in many cases panic and fly across the room in terror.

When he was younger I could pat him on the back, open his wings, scratch him around the neck without any issue.

I'm trying to condition him by having him sit on my knee, and slowly raising my hand above him, handing him a treat with the other hand, and then withdrawing. Not much success after several weeks. He still freaks out when I get close.

If he's on my shoulder (his favourite place in the world, as shown by the number of t-shirts I go through every day) and I forget he's there and reach up to scratch my nose, he is terrified and I feel terrible for startling him.

Any suggestions from those wiser in the ways of the eckie?

Cheers,
Joel

 

[skylala]

You have the right idea with training, but I think you are going about it the wrong way. If he is fearful of your hands, you moving your hand toward him is making him uncomfortable.

I would place my hands far enough away from him so he isn't triggered, then using clicker training, click for ANY movement close to your hand. If he is very fearful, even just looking at your hand could give a click.
Then start slowly raising criteria, and get HIM to start moving to your hand without you moving it.

Once he is coming to your hand, you could add a command to it if you want, like 'touch' (I do this for my parrot).
Then once he is coming and is OK with your hand, then you need to start 'proofing' the behavior. So once he is comfortable, start moving your hand around and click for him being OK with it and not moving. Then start proofing for quick, sharp movements of your hand around him, and click for him being calm and not moving.

This way, it is working at his pace. He is the one coming to you, and that is important for a fear-type behavior. This will make a positive association with your hand. The 'touch' behavior I add into every training session to reinforce hand = good things.

 

[JoelV]

I've been trying a few different tactics to get Loki more comfortable around my hands.

Some clicker target training with a chopstick as a target, but gradually holding the chopstick closer to the tip so he associates both the hand and the target with rewards. Some progress there.

I've also begun placing my hand close to him, motionless, while he's half asleep on my shoulder of an evening. Occasionally he'll have a nibble at it, but not in an aggressive manner which is nice.

Then tonight we had a major breakthrough. I had my hand resting next to him for a while. He nudged it a few times, chewed a bit (not hard), then forced his beak under my fingers without biting, and stayed there for a good 5 minutes enjoying a neck scratch. Eyes closed and chirping the whole time

Of course after this he ran back to my shoulder and stole my glasses again