Training Pippin

[Pippin2009]

Hello I was just wondering if anyone can advise a way I can get my cockatiel Pippin to fly on me? She will take treats off of me and will step up onto your hand for a little while and then fly off. The other night she did stay on my arm for ages and felt like she was really relaxed with me. She also sings alot now and copies alot of whistle noises which is really good. I really would like to teach her to fly on me rather than me just getting her to come up on me I would like her to come to me if you can see my point? Pippin is about 7 months old now and she is really becoming a character so any tips would be great.

[birdlover912]

It sounds like Pippin might be a little afraid of you. How long have you had her? It can take up to a few weeks for a bird to fully settle into it's new home. If Pippin keeps flying off of you, you may want to consider having an avian professional trim her wings. This will make the bonding and taming period go a lot smoother--the feathers will grow back eventually.

Before training your parrot to fly to you, there needs to be some step up training. If your bird will step up for you almost every time you ask, then you can move onto the next step. If he/she hesitates consistently in stepping up, practice this more, giving a small treat (such as a safflower seed, small piece or carrot--whatever your bird likes). This teaches your bird that it is fun to be around you and that they get rewarded for coming onto you.

Next, ask you bird to step up onto your hand, but leave some space between the bird and you so that it has to walk a step or two in order to get to your hand. Praise and treat. Slowly, you can increase the distance between your hand and the distance your parrot has to walk to get there.

After your bird will do this, offer your hand in front of whatever the bird is perched on. Leave a small gap so that your parrot has to use it's beak to get on your hand. Don't make it a large distance; stay small for now. Using really good treats at this phase will encourage your parrot.

When that is going well, you can gradually increase the distance between your hand and where the bird is perched so that your parrot has to fly a few inches. Keep increasing the distance in small increments. If you work on this a few minutes every day, end on a good note, use treats your bird loves, and work at your bird's pace, your cockatiel will be flying to you in no time! :)

[Pippin2009]

Thanks for your advice there I will certainly try it. I have had Pippin for about 5 months now and the breeder we bought her from grabbed her alot so we started off doing this and I think it may have made her a bit nervous. I think I will try and do the step up routine using her fav food which is Banana chips to get her used to our hands.

[Pippin2009]

Pippin sat on my shoulder today for a little while which is good this about the 4th time she has done that and I am using her fav food as treats to help with training her

[Adinah]

Sounds like Pippin is warming up to you. Everything that Birdlover said covers everything I was thinking :)
Start with the step-up for a while. Then slightly increase the distance until he hops then flies to you. It took a few weeks and Kuja does it all the time now.

[Ashling]

Just wanted to say my first cockatiel was called Pippin :) Good luck training him.

[Pippin2009]

Pippin did something a little different tonight. I have one of those clicker training kits and I used the target stick pointing to her activity centre and she came out her cage! I did this a few times and she actually got brave enought to get really close to the stick and nibble it (she ran off after that but she touched it at least) I rewarded her with some Banana chips in her cage which she liked so tonight has definatly been good training her!

[Ashling]

Well done :)