Hi Justin,
What Pippen is doing is very normal for a fully flighted bird. You would think he is tired of a cage since he used to not get out of it in his old home. But a cage is their home, and provides security. When a bird is fully flighted, he doesn’t have as much dependence on you as a bird with clipped wings does. And often the bird isn’t as tame. One solution is to have his wings clipped, but that’s normally something I suggest for a bird that still needs work with being handled. Pippen sounds like a very sweet bird, but he feels safe on his cage, and it allows him to be in charge of whether he is handled or not. Do you let him come and go as he pleases? If so, try setting a boundary where he comes out of the cage on your hand, and goes back inside the cage on your hand. When you take him out, close the cage door so he can see he doesn’t have access to it. Birds respond to positive reinforcement and don’t really understand being punished. So the goal is to reward him when you are handling him, and ignore him when he flies away. When I say ignore, I mean do not react. Just let him do it, and then walk over to him and pick him up again, giving him a treat or attention for stepping up. Find out what he is interested in – a special treat, a toy, or maybe head scratches. Give him some type of reward when you walk away from the cage. You might even try enticing him to fly to you, rather than away from you. If you can get him interested in a toy, offer the toy for him to play with when he is away from the cage. You might look into getting a small playstand or portable perch that you can have near you when you have him away from the cage. This gives him another home site. He might be more likely to stay on something like that, where he can have access to some treats and toys that he only gets when on that stand. He needs incentives – something that makes being away from the safety of his cage desirable for him. If he was in the wild, he would always be near his mate, but that doesn’t mean on the same branch all of the time. Dr. Lamb explained this in her webinar last week. He would stay within sight or earshot of his mate at all times, but not always in physical contact when it isn’t breeding season. Pippen can still see and hear you from his cage, so he isn’t flying from you, he is just choosing where he feels safe, or where he knows he has food available. So this is why having some treats that he only gets when he is away from the cage can be very helpful. Our Free Friday Webinar this week is a Q&A session on pet bird behavior. You might want to join in and ask this question. It’s good to get different opinions because each bird is different, and what works for one bird might not work for another. I’ll post the link for you.
Webinar: Heart to Heart: Pet Bird Behavior Q&A with Chris Davis
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
