HOW TO HELP YOUR BIRD CONQUER ITS FEAR OF NEW OBJECTS
There’s nothing worse than spending hundreds of dollars on new bird toys only to discover your bird is terrified of them! But there is an easy fix and I’m here to teach you the slow way and the fast way to train your bird to be less scared of new objects.
But before we begin, it’s important to understand one thing: birds are neophobic (they’re naturally scared/unsure of new things). And that’s okay because being cautious is what helps birds stay alive in the wild! So we don’t actually want to train away their caution. Rather, we want to take away the “newness” of the seemingly scary object and help them to see that the object is safe.
To do that, we need to work out your bird’s flight distance or as I call it, their “safe zone” (how far away the object needs to be for your bird to feel safe) so let’s do that first:
WORKING OUT YOUR BIRD’S SAFE ZONE:
Place your bird on a stand/in its cage. Starting from about 7m away, slowly bring the “scary” object towards your bird. Watch carefully for your bird’s body language to change. It may be sitting contently to start off with but once the scary object gets closer, your bird may start to look around for somewhere to fly, lean away, suck its feathers in close to its body and eventually fly away. These are signs that your bird is not comfortable with the object being that close. Note how far away the object is from your bird when the signs of discomfort first appear (not just when your bird flies away, but the subtle signs before that). That distance is the edge of your bird’s “safe zone” or the minimum distance the object needs to be from your bird for it to feel comfortable and safe. (if that’s to understand, you can watch me demonstrate it in video here)
Now that you know your birds safe zone, we can start to slowly make that safe zone smaller, so that your bird becomes comfortable with the object being closer and closer.
THE SLOW WAY:
The slow way to do this is by leaving the object near your bird’s cage, play-stand or aviary over the course of a few weeks. Always make sure you start off by placing the object outside of your birds safe zone. Then after your bird show’s signs that it’s more comfortable with the object around, you can slowly bring the object closer inside the safe zone each day. This may take days or weeks. Whichever the case, go at your birds pace and not yours.
You can also place the object near you while you work or move around the house. When I first introduced a bird-harness to Vonnegut I used to wear it around my neck. Why? Well, birds learn through observation. So if they see you interacting with the object they are more likely to feel safe and interact with it themselves. I even play with scary objects myself, using my excited voice to show Vonnegut and Schiele how much fun I am having with the scary object. 9 times out of 10 they will come flying over to see what it is I am having so much fun with!
Sometimes that may be all you need to do to help them overcome a scary object. But sometimes your bird may need a little extra encouragement for a extra scary object. In that case, I would follow the slow method with the fast method:
THE FAST WAY:
The fast way involves positively reinforcing your bird to overcome its fears. To do that, we reward the bird for being courageous and approaching the object. Rather than forcing the bird to desensitise it to the scary object, we tap into the bird’s natural curiosity and playfulness and reward the bird for choosing to go towards the object all by itself.
Start by placing the scary object on a table or on the floor. Place a treat just outsize of your birds safe zone and make sure your bird can see it (I use sunflower seeds chopped into thirds). Give your bird time, it may take small steps forward and even step backwards a few times but be patient. Eventually your bird will muster up the courage to grab the treat. It might then quickly run/fly away again and that is absolutely fine. Repeat this step a few times then once your bird grows in confidence, place a treat just inside of your birds safe zone. Again, be patient, allow your bird time to go up and grab the treat itself. Repeat. Your aim is to gradually place the treat closer to the object each time until eventually it has to lean over the object or stand on the object to get the treat.
If at any point the treat is just too close to the object for your bird and he just can’t quite muster up the courage to risk getting close to the object for the treat, it is absolutely okay to bring the treat closer to him. But never lure him closer to the object with the treat. When we do that we aren’t rewarding our bird for coming closer, we’re actually punishing them by making them work harder!
If at any point your bird stands on the object or touches the object, rapid treat (quickly give lots of treats in a row)! It’s like a jackpot for your bird. Also, if your bird grabs the treat and stays there to eat it (rather than running away again) I’d rapid treat as well. And if that’s all a bit confusing to understand in text, I’ve created a video tutorial so you can watch me train Vonnegut to get used to a scary new toy:
WATCH VONNEGUT'S "SCARY TOY" TRAINING SESSION
You can also watch the bloopers from the training session (yep, it took me 2 goes to film this just because Vonnegut and Schiele are such trouble makers!) BLOOPERS 1 and BLOOPERS 2
I hope that helps and please do let me know how you go with this technique in the comments below (or if you need any help with it too).
Anne xo
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