Teaching stepup

[daludlum]

I have only had my Grey a little over a month. He is 10 years old and has been abused. I am working with him to step up on a perch, he does good now, when he is out of his cage, like on top or on his play stand, but he freaks when I try to get him to step up from inside the cage. Any advice?

[Dave007]

A pre owned adult bird comes to a new house with habits and feelings concerning any cage and other things he's liveed with. All of these things happened and developed in the past. Most consider their cage as a safe house. A pre owned bird could have been caged for long periods of time in the past. Certain types of training was never pursued in the past allowing the bird to choose the way he feels about his safe house. When many greys and other parrots are out of the cage the situation is different. They'll respond to different types of training. Once they're back in the cage, that whole situation reverts back to the way it feels about that cage and the bird has no intentions of changing those intentions or habits. Many pre owned birds won't allow a person to put their hands in their cage to feed the bird. Some will scream. Some will fly frantically. Some will seriously bite that person. Others won't do any of those things when a hand or object such as a perch is put in the cage. In your situation, just stay with the outside training. He obviously doesn't want his space invaded with objects that he's not used to having in his cage. Your bird is 10 yrs old and has 10 yrs worth of habits that have been allowed to permanently develop. What's going on is just one of the situations that periodically go on when the bird is an adult and pre owned.

[Suzzique]

One of the best things I have heard is to add a half perch to the door of the cage. Then have the bird step up onto the half perch and then open the door. This brings the bird out of his cage without you invading his space. I have heard it works very well.

[daludlum]

Those are both good suggestions. I need to be able to get him out to take him to the play stand, but sure don't want to upset him, or do anything to break his little bit of trust he has.