Rewarding skittish birds

[Deleted]

I made my taming and training job difficult for myself when I bought 3 six-week-old chicks at once 6 weeks ago.   Now, since all 3 have different "freaking out thresholds", I have to work with them one-on-one every day, proceeding only as much as that individual bird is comfortable.  For example, with Kiki, this means I can get him to step up onto my finger and then draw him out of the cage and put him on my shoulder, but for Gatsby, this means I can only put my hand closed around the branch that he is sitting on and slowly inch it towards him without opening my hands.  Progress is slow.  

What I am confused about is how to reward them for good behavior such as stepping up, etc., when they are still skittish about hands or fingers approaching their face.

None of them - not even Kiki - are comfortable with my open hands approaching their face, whether there is millet in it or not.  They are still making progress even without rewards (they will all 3 step onto a dowel rod, and 2 of them will step onto my finger), but I feel sure if I tried to reward them with a treat for this, they'd fly away quickly.   

Add to this problem is the fact that for some reason, my birds are scared of anything new.  I've tried putting celery greens, apple slices, carrot chunks, and other goodies in their cage, and they avoid it like the plague.  In fact, they were scared of millet sprays for quite a while (they love it now).  So not only would my hands scare them, the treat would probably scare them too.

I'll persevere, but if anyone has any ideas for how to offer a treat for good behavior without triggering them into flying away, I'd love to hear them.

[hward5]

This is the current issue im having after 5 days of trying I have only now managed to get Tuppence to even try spray millet, taking it away and replacing it to try and give her interest and only today she has shown interest. Now same as you scared of hands, I have had her standing on my hand twice for a few seconds. And earlier 1 foot on 1 foot off for a good ten mins whilst I talked to her... She then tried 2 feet, slipped and scared herself so now ive put her to bed to rest as I have a full day with her tomoz. I hope someone answers the praising question as she is the same. No fruit or veg and no millet from my hand

[suesbird]

I got Jo eating fruit and veg by putting a mirror on a flat surface and putting the food on it to make her think she was eating with another bird and it worked. Try pretend eating her treat yourself by making nice mmmmmmmm noises, I usually go num num num and curiiosity gets the better. Problem is now she wants everything! Little steps, patience and lots of time and hopefully you will get there. All the more knowledgable people will be about later from Aus or in the morning.

[Deleted]

I think maybe I shouldn't let them have millet except during training now that they have developed a taste for it. I will definitely try the mirror trick!

[Hezz]

Now that they know millet is food, keep the sprays for training. They really shouldn't be getting sprays all the time anyway, as they will fill up on millet and not eat anything else. With a spray as a reward you are able to shorten the length of the spray as the birds become more used to the idea of hands.

[Deleted]

Thank you Hezz for that advice. I went by Petco and bought the longest millet sprays they had. If I hold a long spray in Kady's face (she's less tame than Kiki, but more receptive than Gatsby), she will eat it, but she still wants to stop and hop away if I get too close, reward in hand or not. I'll just keep trying!

One thing they do seem to be picking up is "go home". I have always taken them into my bedroom a few times a day to work with them (either sitting beside them on a towel sprinkled with a parakeet food that isn't their normal food while pestering them to step onto my finger or onto a long ladder I have or teaching them to step onto a dowel rod after flying around my room). Then, when I'm done, I say "Go home"" in a sing-song voice over and over (I posted back when they first started getting onto the rod to be "hovercrafted" to their cage). Well, now Kady flies directly o the top of the cage right away when I start cleaning up and say "go home", and Kiki flies off the dowel rod before I get him to the cage and flies to the cage as well. They can't go in the cage, but they land on top of it. I guess even without being receptive to being rewarded, they will do that because they like being returned to their cage. I'm sure I drive them nuts during those training sessions, and they're happy to be done with them!

Maybe I can think of other activities that are "self-rewarding" like going home so they can continue learning even while they are intolerant of my hands.