# cant get cockatiels past step 3 of training



## mkultravultra (Apr 23, 2017)

Hi all, new here.
I am fostering a pair of male cockatiels. I've had them for about six months and have made some good progress, however they still aren't what you'd consider 'tame' 
ive read the step by step taming sticky here and i can pretty much only get them to step 3 
I've been able to get one of them to take food from my hand and step onto my hand for treats and even start moving towards my hand when i have a treat near him. However this is about as far as ive been able to get for a couple months now. Both of them are not interested in coming out of the cage and if i try to move my hands towards them without food theyll usually start backing away. I'm wondering if there is anything else i can do to get them more comfortable with hands? i spend about 10-30 minutes each day going through the hand = treat process but it seems like they are having to relearn the association each time. Any advice would help thanks!

one more note: i dont know the background of this pair but im pretty sure they were aviary birds. the younger one is a little tamer but he was picked on a lot so hes at the same time a little more skittish. the older one is a bit more wild and loves to sing but not imitate. he'll sing a lot of random tunes that sound like songs from wild birds but no whistling. so they probably arent very used to people.


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## Dragona (Apr 2, 2017)

> so they probably arent very used to people.


That could be the point exactly. If you only fostered them and not hand raised them (or they are not hand raised by humans) those cockatiels will never be as tame as the other you see in this forum. 

All (except I guess for some rare cases) are hand-raised and not just some birds bought from an aviary. 

You had them for 6 months, but how old are they?

I hate to say it, but aviary cockatiels will never be the same as hand raised ones.


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## mkultravultra (Apr 23, 2017)

im not so sure about that because there are quite a few birds from this foundation (known as mickaboo) who were not hand raised that became tame over time . As far as age goes I would say one is a young adult male and the other is a little older.


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## franzwah (Mar 14, 2012)

This also goes for my cockatiel. He's with us for almost 3 weeks now. He knows how to step up sometimes if he is in the mood and giving him treats. There are times he would still bit and backs away if we put our hands close to him. He just like to sit quietly on top of his cage. If we put our face close to him, he doesn't back of. It's just with our hands and fingers.


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## Nimra (Aug 4, 2014)

It took more than a year to tame my bird, as it also used to be an aviary cockatiel. Like Dragona said, aviary cockatiels are much different than hand raised ones, and it takes a lot of time and patience to train them.


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## mkultravultra (Apr 23, 2017)

well i decided to take a different approach and try target training them. im having moderate success so perhaps this is the way to go. its been about a week and ive been able to get one of them to walk down from a perch to the bottom of the cage to touch the target so it seems promising. the goal here is to get them to be comfortable to come out of the cage on their own rather than just occasionally flying out and freaking the funk out. hopefully if i can get these two to learn that out of cage time is ok and fun they'll be more at ease. 

So yeah that is the one weird thing, while it seems like they are aviary birds theyve pretty much never come out of their cage- for the times that they had it seemed more like they were trying to escape. I just leave the cage doors open every day during the day so they can come out on their own any time they want but they dont seem to understand that is a thing they can do


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## Nimra (Aug 4, 2014)

Maybe you could put their food and water outside the cage. At some point they will be hungry or thirsty, and they will eventually figure out a way to come out of the cage. This is how I used to make my birds leave their cage. Just don't starve them to death.


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## mkultravultra (Apr 23, 2017)

yeah i have tried that but with not much success. i came across this website/youtube channel from this guy called the 'parrot wizard' and his suggestions are actually pretty helpful. they seem to at least be starting to understand that if they let hands get close to them at all that nothing bad will happen. still the targeting stuff and getting comfortable with hands depends on their mood. i think one thing that has made it difficult for one of these cockatiels is his tail feathers are mostly gone (was beaten up by other birds in his previous home) so his balance is pretty bad. he tried to step up but lost his balance and freaked out, poor guy. just hoping that didnt totally turn him off.


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