Kiwi's Training

[zebrah]

Back a couple years ago I bought a bird named Kiwi. I was training him and things were going well until one day. I wasn't going to be around and I asked my sister to feed him. I thought this wouldn't be a big deal since she has a cockatiel. Well she left the door open while she went to get him water. He hopped out of his cage and my sister proceed to do the worst thing possible. Instead of being patient and trying to get him to step up which he did she grabbed a net and chased him. I came home in the middle of this and proceed to start screaming at her :( I went up to him and was able to get him back into the cage. Since then he was very skittish and I never seemed to be able to get him used to me.

A few months later I decided to try training him again. I bought a clicker and things were going well. Buy now he had moved in with a cockatiel named Falco. Things were once again going well when somehow he two of them teamed up to escape their cage. Falco would lift up the door which is quite heavy and Kiwi would jump out. And again one of my family members was home and cased him. I got home and realized something was wrong with Kiwi. No one would tell me anything at first and then I figured out what happened. This was a very sad day for me and I gave up on training Kiwi. At least he has had a friend to keep him company.

I have tried to train him again but have not been consistent enough. Today I am going to start training him and make sure everyone understands what to do with him if he gets out (which I thought they already knew) I am a college student and the semester is almost over so I will be able to be consistent in my training.

Day one is today I will post how things go later. I plan on just trying to get him conditioned to the clicker today and working on target training tomorrow. If the conditioning goes well.

[zebrah]

[DAY:1] - cleaning/fear reduction

Things went well today. I might as well mention a few things. I live at home and my famiy has four birds. One budgie, and three cockatiels. Two of the cockatiel bred so we have them separeted. cage one has kiwi and falco, cage two has mohawk and pearl. Today I went to both cages and cleaned out their floors took out all their toys and cleaned everything. I switched up what was in each cage and gave them some veggies.

In the begining kiwi was very scared and flew around a lot. By the end he was being more adventurous and wasn't running away as much. He was comming over to me and chirping a bit. I tried to get him to eat some millet from my hand. He thought about it but didn't. I'm going to get him more used to my hand before I start conditioning.

[zebrah]

[DAY:2] - bonding/out of the cage!

Well things went well today. Kiwi is getting more friendly and almost eats from my hand. He doesn't get very nervous when I come near his cage and comes to the middle/front of the cage instead of the back. I was hanging out with them earlier which everyone in my family knew, but my little brother came over and scared all the birds. Falco flew out and so did Kiwi :( I got Falco back in easily because he loves me. But then I had to worry about Kiwi. I thought that he was going to hate me and that we would be back to the start. After a little flying around he landed on the top of his cage. He let me pet him a little but wouldn't step up. I finally got him to hop onto a swing that he likes and I lowered him into the cage. Now he trusts me more and lets me get closer to him. Imagine that.

[zebrah]

[DAY:3] - eating out of ny hand...almost

I was quite busy today but I still made sure to get time in with the birds. Kiwi doesn't seem to be paniced at all. He will eat millit if I hold it in my finger tips close to my hands. Before he would only eat off the end of a long spay I would hold. He is still not 100% friendly with my hand but he has touched my finger intentionaly. I think that I want to get him to step up on my finger before I start clicker training. I think that what I will do is curl all my fingers but my index and put the millit in my hand that he will step up on my finger to get the treat.

If anyone thinks that I should go about getting him to step up please PM or post. I know that I could target train him and get him to step up that way. Or I can put my finger under his belly and knock him of balance a little bit so he steps up for balance. Any tips would be good thanks :)

[Budgerigarluv]

Congrtulations on the taming! Sounds like your going well. :thumbsup:

[zebrah]

Thanks Amber. Glad to see that I'm doing things right. Once I'm able to post pics and stuff I through some up on here.

[zebrah]

[DAY:4] - more bonding

Things went well again today. Kiwi is much more friendly now he climbs over to the front of the cage when I say hi. He and Falco both run over to get food from me and he is more eager to get food. He now feels more comfortable around me so he sleeps/preens himself.

[zebrah]

[DAY:5/6] - clicker training

Day 5 was a good day and Kiwi was hanging out with me a lot and was just chillin listening to tool (band) So I decided why not start clicker training. I thought I should renforce the conditioning of the clicker. So I just did click<food<repeat :)

Day 6 showed a major breakthrough. Kiwi bit the target stick. All other attempts to train him peak here as far as targeting goes. For anyone who doesn't know what clicker training exactly is I will explain a little. You purchase a small device called a clicker that when pressed makes a distinct click. First you condition the click by clicking then offering your bird food. Do the about 10 time per session for as long as you need. Then what you need to do is have your bird proform an action. Such as biting the end of a stick or targeting. As soon as your bird bites the stick you click and then present food. All of this should ony take 2-3 seconds

Well kiwi targeted well and on the 5th time I made sure to praise him a lot and give him lots of millet. I'm so happy right now that we are becoming better friends.

[anjupradp]

Hey congrats, your bird seems in a good relation with you now. You made a good progress! All the best for your future training!

[zebrah]

Thank you for your kind words pradeep:D

[bjohn]

Well done your patience is paying off

[zebrah]

Thanks Brendan :)

[DAY:7] - One Week Down

Well it's been a very good week so far. Today Kiwi went up onto a new perch I was holding several times. He will go up there and hangout. At first when stepped on he immediatly hopped off but now he realises it's safe. The only thing that bugs me is that Falco seems to be getting mad at me for paying attention to Kiwi. What i'm thinking is I just need to get Kiwi to spend more time on the perch.

[zebrah]

[WEEK:1][SUMMARY]

A lot of stuff happened in the first week so here is a quick summary.
*Kiwi Doesn't fly away when I come near his cage
*He doesn't panic when I go near him
*he eats millet from my fingers
*He got started on clicker training
*He escaped but I got him back in and he didn't hate me
*He steps up onto a perch that I hold

[zebrah]

[DAY:8] - major breakthrough

Today Kiwi started to understand more about clicker training. He now gets on the perch quite quickly. He has put one foot on my finger but it sort of bothers him. It's awesome though.

[zebrah]

[DAY:9] - lots of chill time

Since I'm of school I spent about 2-3 hours with Kiwi. He licked my finger a lot and put one foot on it for a while. He let me pet him a little also. He also used to freak out a lot because pearl in the cage next door is very skittish. And she flaps her wings a lot. This would normaly scare the @&$" out of Kiwi but it doesn't bother him anymore. I'm so happy that things are going so well.