Taming 1 Year Old IRN

[LivCamille]

Hi all,

I'm having trouble taming my IRN. Butters is a creamino, about 14 months old. He's afraid of hands and I'm having a lot of trouble helping him get over it. He'll take food from my hands and I can get him to step up onto a coffee mug, but he nips at my hands and bites hard enough to break the skin. I can't get him to step up onto my fingers without getting bitten. I also can't move him to another cage without traumatizing him with a towel (or clip nails or wings). This makes cleaning his cage difficult because he screams the whole time. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[SilverSage]

IRNs are particularly hard to tame and it really frustrates me that people sell them wild to pet homes.

Why move him during cage cleaning? Just do a quick one and leave the deep scrubbing until he can be moved without undoing all your hard work.

Here’s my article on taming IRNs

http://www.silversageaviaries.com/tamingyourringneck-1


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[EllenD]

I'm sorry you ended-up with yet another non-tame IRN, it does seem to be becoming a very common problem, or already is one...

SilverSage is the resident IRN-expert, and she knows her stuff, so I would absolutely read the article she wrote regarding hand-taming IRN's, because it's no-doubt the most efficient and successful advice you're going to find. Period.

***I also immediately wondered why you are trying to move him from one cage to another, whether for cleaning or anything else...All you need to do (at least until you make some progress and he's stepping-up for you so you can remove him from his cage) is to keep sheets of newspaper or Butcher's-paper in the bottom of his cage, underneath the grate (always underneath the grate, never on top where he has access to it, as this can encourage his hormones as he shreds it and creates nesting-material, or gets underneath it), and just change that once daily to stay on top of it, and if it's possible without upsetting him, you can use a perch-scrubber or a small wire brush to quickly scrape any dry droppings from the bottom grate into the newspaper underneath before changing it...That's all I would be doing, along with obviously washing his food/water dishes daily, until you make some hand-taming progress, because you don't want to do anything that is going to set you back in the taming/bonding/trust-earning process...

Don't ever attempt to force him to do anything he doesn't want to do, as that will also set you back in your progress...Also, I don't know where you have his cage located in your home, but it's very important that you have it in the "main-room" of your home, meaning the room of your home where you and the others who live in your home (his "flock") spend most of your time when you're at home. There is a large element of "Passive-Interaction" or "Socialization with people through Constant-Exposure", and when you're trying to hand-tame a bird that is not tame at all and who is still scared of hands and direct-contact with people in-general, it's very important that they are around you and among you as much as possible...So when you're at home and you're watching TV, Reading, on the computer, Gaming, talking, eating a meal, etc., whatever room you usually do that in most of the time is where his cage needs to be (usually this is the living room, family room, TV room/Den, etc.)...Just having him be able to see you and hear you as often as possible, have you often sitting near him and walking past him, and having you try to verbally communicate with him and make eye-contact with him while doing so as much as possible is going to help him feel more and more comfortable with you, and feeling safer and more secure with you. A lot of people put their bird's in a spare-bedroom or some other "back-room" that they call 'the bird room", and they think that the bird is going to love having a nice big room all to themselves, with a view out the window and toys/stands/perches set-up all around the room, etc. And they think they've created a "Parrot Paradise", and then their bird does nothing but scream whenever they're at home and they keep him in "his room", and they don't even touch any of the toys or stands at all, and the owners can't figure out why...And it's simply because all Parrots/Birds are "Flock-Animals", and as-such they want and need to be among their Flock whenever they are at home, and they can sense and hear them whenever they're home, and it's very frustrating to them when they know they are home but they aren't with them...