New IRN - Inexperience

[gschuetz]

Hey everybody!

I must admit that I am new to IRNs. My wife and I have a little pineapple GCC and that little dude is a little light in my life!

This last weekend we picked up our first IRN from a breeder who claims that she is 3 months old. I don't know if that is true, though, in recognizing my own ignorance.

I'll attach some pictures of her below. Any help with aging her would be greatly appreciated. We will love her anyway, no matter how old she is, but I'd like to at least know.

What has me concerned is that she is missing the point on her beak. He had her taken to the vet recently and had a trimming and wings clipped (we want them to grow out in the future, though). She is sweet, but very bitey when we go to get her to step up. She isn't biting to hurt, I think, but to balance. She was raised in a flat bottom container.

Also, is there anything we should do to get the GCC and her to get along. Mango (our GCC) will attack her if he has the opportunity, so we keep them separate.

Any additional advice for a newbie would be appreciated!

 

[LaManuka]

Welcome gschuetz to you and your feather babies! Unfortunately i don't have any particular advice for you but we do have a number of IRN aficionados who will! Just wanted to say "hi" and thank you for the lovely pics - your new baby is gorgeous!

 

[gschuetz]

Welcome gschuetz to you and your feather babies! Unfortunately i don't have any particular advice for you but we do have a number of IRN aficionados who will! Just wanted to say "hi" and thank you for the lovely pics - your new baby is gorgeous!

Thank you for the warm welcome! The past few days have been pretty amazing. Mango still wants to attack her, but he's not as aggressive about it. I'm wondering what we can do to help them tolerate each other. I'd like to be able to get them side-by-side at some point.

Elsia (the IRN) is settling in a bit. She is taking treats from the hand and stepping up peacefully onto our arms. Still biting when presented with hand and fingers, but lightly biting. She willingly will come out of her cage and likes to be around us, just not held yet. She LOVES to be on shoulders.

Not much sign of talking or making noises at all. I wonder if that is normal? She chirped at me VERY lightly this morning. I take that as a good sign.

We are impressed and happy with her and are excited for the journey.

 

[Laurasea]

Welcome!! Absolutely stunning color!! Looks like a young bird to me!!

IRN are very prone to fear of hands. Try folding fingers back it might help your hand seem less scary. Spend lots of time with her, as they can loose their tamness when not worked snd interaction with enough.

SilverSage first love is Indian Ringnecks , abd she us also a breeder of beautiful colors and happy birds. Im going to link her website as she has articles and helpful stuff. When next she visits the forum I'm sure she will write in your thread.
http://silversageaviaries.com/

 

[MrParakeet]

That is an absolutely stunning ringneck you got there!
I have a 10-month-old ringneck which I have succesfully trained to step up and do recall, so I hope I can provide some useful information.
This phrase helped me a lot when taming and training my ringneck, and that phrase is "Your ringneck touches you, not the other way around". As mentioned by Laurasea in a previous comment, ringnecks are not fond of hands, and it took 8 months to adjust mine to hands. My ringneck is a rescue from an abusive home so he was absolutely terrified of me for a long time.

You mentioned that she can already take treats from your hand which is a great start! Try to offer her treats with different hand motions like, holding the treats between different fingers, or with the palm of your hand and then switch up how closed your hand is with the treat from time to time, that way you will adjust her to different hand motions.

When she is comfortable with that you can offer the treat out of reach and offer your other hand as a bridge. But be very precise with which hand motion you use as step-up a.k.a the "bridge". Ringnecks are extremely intelligent and creatures of habits, so they have a tendency to over analyze situations. Just as an example, my ringneck knows when to step up based on the step-up hand motion I trained him for, if I tried to get him to step up with another hand motion he would get confused and a little unsettled, so consistency is key. After some time doing that she will know that step up equals good things.
And oh yeah I have to mention bluffing. If you don't already know what that is, it is when your ringneck hits puberty, and they will become very territorial, and protective of themselves, which means a lot of biting. But don't take it personally, and don't react to the biting, and she will turn back to her cute old self after a couple of weeks.
I unfortunately don't know much about GCCs, but I do know how ringnecks responds to other birds (I have both a budgie and a cockatiel). And from my experience in neutral places (and by that I mean a room that none of the birds inhabit) they become very curious and want to make friends, but as soon as another bird gets near their cage or food they become extremely territorial, so I would not recommend placing a ringneck's cage in a room with another bird, I have had some bad experiences with that, and my ringneck now inhabits his own room. Of course every bird is different so it is hard to make any promises on how one bird will react.
I hope you will find this useful, good luck with your little gal!

 

[noodles123]

Very cute-- you really should quarantine any new bird for 45days to 3 months (ideally) in a totally separate room though. Please see my responses to the OP in the following thread about quarantine and introductions: http://www.parrotforums.com/general-parrot-information/89677-introducing-my-new-gcc-my-ringneck.html

 

[gschuetz]

Thank you for the responses! It really helps. She's been adjusting pretty well, but I realize now that we need to move her cage. We were told 1-2 weeks for quarantine. It's helpful to know that we need to back off with the touching so she can grow accustomed to us.

She has been letting me pick her up, but I have to initiate it a lot of time. I've also noticed that she gets stuck on perches. Meaning, she just wants to stay on perches a lot of the time. She also was letting me pet the back of her head a little bit. She truly is a sweet girl.

Thanks again!