400boss

His name is Apollo. As far as his background I know his previous owner worked/raised birds of prey and became more involved with that so that is why she gave him up. Great advice I will definitely give it a try. Also thank you for the warm welcome its good to connect with like minded people who care.

I adopted an 18yr old African Grey parrot 2 months ago. The first 2 weeks he had a very good attitude but was very hand shy. Over the last few weeks I've been working on trying to hand tame him with 2 or 3 sessions a day. about 5-10 minutes each. Eventually he allowed me to touch his beak, and would give me his left or right foot when asked and let me hold them in my fingers. I always made sure every interaction we've had was positive and not forced. For several days I noticed he began refusing to step up when asked, and would only do so to get out of his cage. I've never forced him to step up, or pushed my hand into him, I always let him decide to do it. One afternoon I told him step up and he did. As I removed him from the cage, he clamped down on my wrist and chewed me long enough to break skin and draw blood in several places. I got him off by taking him near his out of cage perch, but even then it was still a hassle to get him off. A few days after my roomate took him out of his cage (I don't know why). He did not clamp onto my roomate and was successfully put on a different perch. Later on he accepted treats from me, put his beak to my fingers without being asked, and willingly walked toward me. I then asked him to step up so I could put him in his cage for his dinner. Once again he willingly did so, and once again I got a good chewing resulting in skin/blood loss. I'm not sure what is causing this behavior. I have been doing target training with him for a few weeks and have noticed a significant reduction in his aggression, and he's not as weary of my hands nut still doesn't want to be touched. I'm still scared as crap to have him step up because I'm sure he'll munch on me again.