training for husbandry behaviors?

[rumorofrain]

Clickertraining.com just posted an article about training your dog for husbandry behaviors (e.g. nail clipping, vet exam, etc.

I am curious about how many of you have trained your parrots for husbandry/veterinary behaviors? If so, which behaviors? Which behaviors do you think are most important?

(x-posted to clickertraining)

Comments

[zandperl]

Kappa's really good about letting me handle her wings, without clicker training, just slowly getting her used to more and more handling. She has this interesting habit of stretching the other wing from the one that I'm spreading though, while I'm doing it. It doesn't interfere or anything, it's just interesting. If I wanted to clip her wings I'm sure she'd sit still for it, but mostly I just inspect how her flights are growing out. :)

She will target on a syringe now, but she doesn't seem to like nibbling what comes out of it. I'm working on clicker training to desensitize her to the Aviator harness. I don't think it'll happen this summer, but hopefully next. I'm also trying to desensitize her to having her feet handled. It's not like I can give her something to distract her while I'm doing this, as she then insists on holding the thing in one foot while playing with it or eating it! :-P

Kappa's reasonably well-behaved when it comes to putting her in her travel cage. She doesn't fight hard, but she doesn't like it either. I know that if I ever do need to get her somewhere fast in a hurry, I can always use her fear of the blue hand towels to motivate her. Of course, as her flight feathers come in that will be less of an incentive as she'll be able to fly away instead of being corralled where I'm trying to guide her.

[rumorofrain]

Re foot touching: Can you give her treats small enough that she doesn't need to use her feet to eat them? Just rapid-fire tiny treats into her beak while you touch her feet?

Re the carrier: To get my animals used to their travel carriers, I leave them out and open and drop treats into them intermittently. I sometimes let them see me put the treats in, sometimes I just chuck them in when they're not there so they get used to hopping in there and checking for them.

Barbara Heidenreich's DVD 'Training Your Bird for the Veterinary Exam' has a great section on training birds to go into and out of their carriers on cue.