The Best Way to Tame Indian Ringnecks
Indian Ringnecks aren’t nearly as smart as most people think; they are more like 4-year old children. Some can talk, some can’t, but they can all be tricked. We found trickery to be the best training tool for scared ringnecks. None of our ringnecks were tamed or would interact with us so we separated out one of them and let it stay with us, outside of the cage.
We installed a towel rack about 3 feet from the ceiling for her to perch on and used an adjustment rod from a venetian blind as our tool. We learned from our lovebirds that birds will more readily perch on a rod than on your hand.
We replaced her food with everything except her favorite foods, and would “trick” her into taking food from us by only allowing her to have her favorite food by taking it from our hands. This worked very well. We also taught her to step up on the rod. First we would leave the rod near her so she wouldn’t be scared of it. Then we would rub her belly with the end. Eventually I would push up on her so she would lose balance from the towel rack and be forced to step up onto it. Eventually she would step up to the rod on demand.
The next step was a bit more complicated but it was to trick her to step up onto our hands. It was actually my wife who came up with this idea, but it worked very well. She noticed that if she held the rod on her shoulder at a slight angle the IRN would climb up towards the top. She repeated this situation but put her hand near the end of the rod. The IRN walked all the way to the end and she would put her hand on the end and start pulling the rod away, forcing the IRN to step on her hand without realizing what she had done. After doing this trick enough times she lost fear of our hands but still wouldn’t stand on them. I solved this one because I noticed she would still walk away from our hands. I started by putting one hand on the towl rack and then “chasing” her with the other hand. She would step right up onto my other hand without thought. Soon I was able to repeat the effect with one hand. I would bring my and right up to her with my thumb extended so to her left were my fingers, and to my right was my thumb, She had no choice but to step up onto my hand. Within a week there was no need for more tricks, we would simply ask her to step up on our hand and she would. All of this involved treats of course, every time she was tricked into doing what we wanted her to do we would give her her favorite treat. Between treats and a little bit of trickery you can literally trick your IRN into trusting you.
