Training Treats

[CapriceAcres]

What treats do you use to train birds? Ideally, treats would be very desirable and small enough that they are eaten quickly so training can continue... while also being easy for the bird to handle.

I have a bronze winged pionus that we've had since January or so. Our first larger bird, she was given to us. We are enjoying Maya greatly, but she is territorial and aggressive, and I'm hoping to use some training books to help us have a more amenable companion. We don't mind if she does as she pleases most of the time, I don't appreciate that she is cage aggressive such that I can't clean her cage or change her food/water dishes without being chased by her. She also hates when I sweep around her cage and will try to sneak-bite me when I'm not paying attention and come within her range. She also goes from wanting attention to biting my boyfriend rapidly. He can pet her quite often, but I never can - but she has drawn blood on him when she suddenly decided she had enough. She regularly flies out to the living room while we're out there and hangs out with us, during which she interacts with us and allows both my boyfriend and I to pet her without issue. I'm hoping to retrain some of these bad behaviors as well as teach her that her new carrier is not scary/bad. She clearly has been toweled and forced into carriers in the past, and reacts badly to those. She also is terrified of sticks which I had hoped to use to stick train her to step up. She knows 'step up' but refuses and tries to bite anyways. But, she panics when presented with a stick perch so this is going to take some doing.

I have many treats on order that should be coming in soon to try, but am interested in what others use. She hates nutriberries and dried fruit that I've tried. She will take anything from your hands, but does so aggressively and only to drop it immediately. She acts like she does it simply to take it away from us, not because she actually wants it. All the while posturing aggressively.

We have given her unsalted pretzels, which is a treat she actually seems to 'like'. While 99% seems to just end up in smaller pretzel pieces on the floor, I'm not too keen on making these a regular treat.

 

[Jottlebot]

Is there something in her feed that is her favourite that you could remove and only give as a treat - as it's likely to be the least healthy there are other benefits to this too!? If she's on pellets brands sometimes do "treat" versions, I know Harrisons do so you could try these.

I've never had to get very creative with treats. I use nuts broken into very very small pieces, like 2mm or 3mm. An almond can be broken into about 12-14 pieces so one nut lasts a long time for training. I use almonds, cashews, pine nuts and pistachios in their shells. I keep the pistachios whole as the treat I give him to work on as I put him back into his cage. I don't feed nuts any other time.

 

[Violet_Diva]

I remove the banana-chips from my birds seed mix and break them into smaller bits to use. I also use almond slivers and Tidymix garlic sticks. Though I initially used pomegranate arils (messy)!

With regards to the taking and dropping the treat in an angry way, my Bella does this the most. It usually means she has simply lost interest in the interaction or wants to be somewhere else or doing something else.

But all my guys do the angry drop when they've been fed enough. I feed them fresh banana chunks and cooked butternut squash with my fingers, and when they are full they start the aggressive taking and dropping (sometimes accompanied by a growl).

 

[CapriceAcres]

She is on Harrison's, and I have the treats on order. I have a plethora of treats on order because I'm hoping one is tasty enough that I can use it for training consistently. Was interested in hearing what others do.

Maya will do the angry drop no matter what, with the first several I offer. Then she gets used to me not going away, and may eat what I offer. But if I offer more than one or two, she gets angry again. Doesn't make for a very productive training session.