Get conure to stay perched on hand.

[Danielle26688]

Hello All.
I bought my Malibu, the pinapple conure 8 weeks ago.
I was told he was 12 weeks old, male and part tame. The bird I received was definitely not the bird I agreed to buy. He is most definitely not tame and very fearful of hands and people. So his age and gender are also debatable.
He's very clearly been man handled and grabbed, wings are clipped but he can most definitely fly. I don't want to clip him again and feel this would be a major step back into teaching him hands won't grab.
None the less I'm completely besotted with him and wouldn't change him.
We are now clicker trained, taking treats from my hands and target stick trained. He has now been stepping up for two weeks. He comes out of the cage every day and we have daily training sessions and he knows our routine. He usually sits on top of the cage and isn't brave enough to explore further.
We have a perch outside the front door of the cage where we train. Though I'm going to get a training stand.
He's done incredibly well with training up to now but we seem to be stuck with the step up. He will only step up if I do have a treat in the other hand. The problem I'm having is he won't stay on my hand. He steps up gets the treat and then steps straight backwards onto the perch. He won't stay if I try to move my hand away a bit with him on it. He's not looking what he's doing and steps backwards so of I move away he ends up in a flutter. Then he's hesitant to step up again.
I've tried the quick feeding of treats or large pieces of fruit so he stays on my hand to eat but he's not doing that. I've tried extending the time in which I give the treat after the click.
Has anyone had the same perching issue and managed to get round it.
He won't sit on shoulders, head, arms and won't let my hand close enough to attempt to pet him. He's on a pellet and fresh veg diet with some fruits. Seeds are kept for training. Sunflower seed addict.
Thanks
Danielle

 

[Tman]

It sounds like he's afraid of the room or something in the room. Look around the room, what kind of pictures do you have hanging on the walls?
Do you have other pets in the room?
I know it may sound funny but a picture of an animal my scare him. You need to work on getting him use to the. Take a millet spray and work on just getting him to come off the cage. Make sure the room is some what quite.
Instead of your finger just have him follow the spray millet on to a table a chair this way it will make him feel like he has control of the situation.

 

[Danielle26688]

It sounds like he's afraid of the room or something in the room. Look around the room, what kind of pictures do you have hanging on the walls?
Do you have other pets in the room?
I know it may sound funny but a picture of an animal my scare him. You need to work on getting him use to the. Take a millet spray and work on just getting him to come off the cage. Make sure the room is some what quite.
Instead of your finger just have him follow the spray millet on to a table a chair this way it will make him feel like he has control of the situation.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to respond.
No pictures or art work really. I have two plane A4 framed palm leaf artwork. That's it. Those are right behind his cage and he sits right next to them ontop of his cage. I have a large mirror and he will fly to that to have a chat with his reflection. Which I have started to cover when he comes out for hormone reasons. My room is pretty uncluttered really.
No pets in the room, I have a very old blind and deaf dog but he's 90% time in the kitchen and not in the room when Malibu comes out. He doesn't seem phased by the dog.
He's in a large cage, lots of toys etc. I'm thinking maybe the rest of the room is just not appealing, maybe a training, play stand will give him somewhere else he wants to be.
He's not interested in millet. Sunflower seeds are the only thing he's interested in that works as bribery.
Really what I'm after is a way to get him to stay on my hand though. I've followed all the typical advice I can find.
I sit by him on evenings with the cage open next to me, he comes to me no problem to his training perch outside the cage door. In fact if I'm late at night he will have a full on tantrum. Steps up no problems, just refuses to stay on my hand for any time.
Maybe I'm just being naïve in thinking once we got to step up we would start bonding as apposed to this new problem *

 

[Skarila]

Bump!!! I am having the same problem!

Pascal (9month old Emma's conure, have him for bit over 4 weeks), he is also clicker/target trained, and will *sometimes* step up, problem is he will not do so unless i have a treat. I did find out he will step up on the tiny T perch far more readily, so I guess he doesn't trust me enough yet.
He will fly to my hand or step up only when he wants treats, often even bribing won't even work. He isn't afraid of my hands that much, but is obviously not yet so comfortable with them. I am also training him the beak "boop" so he doesn't freak out if I touch him.

During out training session of step ups, he will do exactly as your pinapple GCC, step up, get the treat, and hop right back or fly to the top of his cage. Interestingly he rarely steps down - he litteraly flutters back to the safety as if he is in fear. His reactions are pretty fast, I don't even have the time to put him back where he wants to go. He also doesn't want to go to my arm nor shoulder, he knows that stepping on my fingers is safe.

He is fully flighted and I will keep it that way. I am highly against clipping. I love to see him zoom around the room when he is in mood.

Hopefully after a time my birds will get more comfortable with us!

 

[wrench13]

Hi guys. Time is your friend. When training for any trick or action, sometimes the parrot is very quick to understand what is being asked for and sometimes it take weeks or months for the message to sink in. In example, my little Amazon Salty has in the past learned a trick in as little as 2 training sessions or even in 1 (playing darts with a desktop magnetic dart board) and months of every night training sessions (riding a parrot tricycle).
Some things to keep in mind when training:

1) be consistent when asking for a given trick or action. I use both verbal and hand signals for each action, and I always use the same one for the specific trick so he doesn't get confused.

2) be immediate - click (if your using a clicker) or verbal praise and treat should be given immediately when there is any progress towards the goal, even just a little bit of progress. Doing these immediately makes sure the parrot associates the confirmation (the click or praise) and the treat with what he just did. Have the treat ready in your hand of fingers.

3) be patient - parrots rate of acceptance can be GLACIAL sometimes, especially when compared to our quick monkey brains.

 

[Skarila]

Hi guys. Time is your friend. When training for any trick or action, sometimes the parrot is very quick to understand what is being asked for and sometimes it take weeks or months for the message to sink in. In example, my little Amazon Salty has in the past learned a trick in as little as 2 training sessions or even in 1 (playing darts with a desktop magnetic dart board) and months of every night training sessions (riding a parrot tricycle).
Some things to keep in mind when training:

1) be consistent when asking for a given trick or action. I use both verbal and hand signals for each action, and I always use the same one for the specific trick so he doesn't get confused.

2) be immediate - click (if your using a clicker) or verbal praise and treat should be given immediately when there is any progress towards the goal, even just a little bit of progress. Doing these immediately makes sure the parrot associates the confirmation (the click or praise) and the treat with what he just did. Have the treat ready in your hand of fingers.

3) be patient - parrots rate of acceptance can be GLACIAL sometimes, especially when compared to our quick monkey brains.

Thank you very much for the tips! I try my best to be consistent with the verbal and non verbal signs for a trick (currently it is only step up and beak boop). However I am curious how can I teach him not to immediately fly away after receiving a treat once he steps up? I would like to teach him step up - treat, and then calm step down which would also result into a treat, but he just flutters off right after the step up and treat that i don't even get a chance to introduce him to letting him step down!

I even tried to let him step up and then wait a bit and then let him step down, and only then give him a treat, but he becomes very impatient and flutters off, and later on he doesn't want to step up which is normal, he stepped up and didn't get his treat, and he has no idea what he did wrong. it is a bit tricky thing to do. Do you think I shouldn't force the step down yet and just give him lots of time to get more comfortable? I will keep training him steps up, perhaps i introduce him with other tricks like turn around or such, something i can introduce with the target stick...

Do you think that I should introduce to non hand tricks first? Wouldn't that teach him that he can still get treats even without hands involved? He seems to really be reluctant with hands, sometimes he even just puts one foot on the hand and is like "nope, I am not stepping up.", even though i keep the hand quite steady, often leaning against something to keep the hand as stable as possible for him.