Griffin

[RavensGryf]

My cute lil weirdo . Hard to believe he’s already 9.5 years old. Despite being handfed/hand raised, he’s always had a real obvious wild streak about him. Much different than I’ve ever seen in a tame bird hand raised from a baby. He’s had periods during his life where he’d have a fright and then go wild for a period after, not seeming to recognize me. Never seen anything like it before. I’m not sure if that’s just him as an individual, or is more common in Ruppell’s than the other Poicephauls.
I had him trained pretty well at one point with hand signals, but he’s lost it. I got busy for a lot of years (some have noticed my absence maybe?? Lol) I need to get back to it again to help him remember. He is finally, however, making very small strides with me touching him slightly longer, and in some new areas without fear! I approach him by imitating a few of his noises that I know are his friendly or lovey noises, and that really helps. I‘m not setting expectations of him, just going at it a day at a time. We‘ll start working on more and more and see where it takes us. I didn’t need to use a clicker or target before, and he still learned just fine, but if I need to incorporate tools to get us to another level I’m not opposed. 9 is still young, and he’s so cute, he needs to learn some stuff!

 

[J.J.]

Rilke here says "hi!" to Griffin (She's about 4 months old with loads to learn, but sweet as pie.)

 

[DonnaBudgie]

My cute lil weirdo . Hard to believe he’s already 9.5 years old. Despite being handfed/hand raised, he’s always had a real obvious wild streak about him. Much different than I’ve ever seen in a tame bird hand raised from a baby. He’s had periods during his life where he’d have a fright and then go wild for a period after, not seeming to recognize me. Never seen anything like it before. I’m not sure if that’s just him as an individual, or is more common in Ruppell’s than the other Poicephauls.
I had him trained pretty well at one point with hand signals, but he’s lost it. I got busy for a lot of years (some have noticed my absence maybe?? Lol) I need to get back to it again to help him remember. He is finally, however, making very small strides with me touching him slightly longer, and in some new areas without fear! I approach him by imitating a few of his noises that I know are his friendly or lovey noises, and that really helps. I‘m not setting expectations of him, just going at it a day at a time. We‘ll start working on more and more and see where it takes us. I didn’t need to use a clicker or target before, and he still learned just fine, but if I need to incorporate tools to get us to another level I’m not opposed. 9 is still young, and he’s so cute, he needs to learn some stuff!

Cute birdie! Your little fella probably just has an independent personality- it's a total myth that all or most hand few birds are cooperative cuddle buddies for life. I hand raised my budgie Rocky from hatching and we are very close, but ultimately Rocky only does what Rocky wants to do. I always wonder what people really mean when they say their bird will or won't tolerate being "touched" or "held". Many tame human friendly birds