Taming Bobwhites

[bietsch624]

Is it possible to get your Bobwhites to be tamer and become more use to you if you handle them more when they are chicks?

 

[BobwhiteQuailLover]

Quote:
It may work. I would give it a try.

 

[kahlertm]

I am certified in animal behavior and training. Often you must set up "training" an animal with small, very calm, sessions where you pair an action with some sort of reward.

Reward for these birds is often "getting away from you" unfortunately. However, if you go slow, make your movements very slow and always treat them in the same manner, they become habituated to your movements. Sometimes just wearing a different color or style of clothing can "make you different...scary".

So if the chicks are still too little to receive meal worms, the best thing you can do is to be near or close to them for lengthy, quiet periods, paired with short, calm handling.

Make mental notes about what scares them and when they are most calm. Strive to do those things that make them appear to be calm.

Sometimes I just sit with my quail (coturnix) and say nothing, look away if they seem nervous. If some come up to look at me (as adults) they are offered a treat in a meal worm.

I am not sure about bobwhites, but this is what I do with coturnix. The buttons I would be still around and not stare at. They eventually settle, but can be "set off" by nearly any change.

I hope I did not confuse you too much.

Remember this too....I always tell my clients with animal training issues...."perfect practice makes perfect"....

NOT just practice. Most people go blowing in to the animal, or repeat a command or set the animal up for failure by not setting up a PERFECT PRACTICE session. Think about what you want to do with the animal. In this case it is be calm, in order to receive calm. Start small and add on minutes each time. After you have seen the quail be calm in exchange for your calm, you can move on to putting your hand on the cage door. Leave it there untill no quail is freaking out still. When they settle, you bring your hand away (the reward). Next time add on minutes that your hand is that near. Next time add your hand safely into the cage...agian don't remove it if they are freaking out. Wait for them to settle, wait a bit more...then slowly remove hand.

Keep adding on calm slow gestures. Never reinforce the quail by "leaving because they are freaking out" . Remain, be calm, be slow. Then when they are older/adults, the treats can accompany this "companionship" exercise.
Removing your self when the quail are freaking out, will teach them that they possibly should continue this behavior...it works. Let them learn to trust.

I love it when they start just walking right over my hand like I am part of the cage. That is when I know I am being accepted as part of the normal cage environment.

Tonya

 

[Fat Daddy]

Good post Tonya! I have been brooding alot of bobs of late. I thought If I brooded them where they could see everyday life, it would make them less freaked by the simplest thing. I moved the last batch in to my living room for there first 2 weeks. Right by my lazy boy, much to my bride's dismay... It seemed to help with just walking by or getting close. But if they think you might touch the brooder, all bets are off and we're bouce'in off the top... I have not went to JJ's "George" treatment either. Think I can just let Bobs be the little spaz's thats there nature and be OK with it.... Bill

 

[Robo]

I have yet to do it, so good luck.

 

[Riffecreek]

I have Bobs that meet me at the door for their treats.. but you touch one of them and it's like the roof is playing whack-a-mole with them

. They will eat out of my hands though. they love clover or other tender green grasses out of the yard

 

[kahlertm]

Quote:
I did that with the first three batches of Coturnix and this last bigger batch I did not have time to (and my hubby was starting to make allergic "noises")....so the bigger batch had no sessions in the "rec room".

I simply put the clear plastic tub with food and water and the whole gig, on a desk in our family room. They are REMARKABLY different than those who were left in the basement to brood and grow. I am now trying to make up for it by sitting, putting hand in cage, holding spinach rather than pinning it up and walking away. It is slower, the quail show less "personality" than those batches that were in the family room for two weeks, or brought up for evenings.
One of my first little layers always did so in the eve while TV was on. She is on strike now what with new roo, being moved to garage....I almost want to set her up back in the rec room to see if I get an egg out of her!

Like I said though. I just don't know bobwhites. Their fear threshold sounds pretty low, like a hair trigger...bam! Having acknowledged that.... These things can be done. They do it in Zoos all the time with different creatures of all temperments. The key is finding what works to calm the animal. Animals in distress do not learn, can not learn. Adrynaline is powerfull stuff (like learning algebra while cars are whizzing past you just missing you). The earlier you introduce what would normally be a stressor, and let it end in "no harm..only calm" you will proceed and learning can continue on those terms. ( you would first have to learn the cars won't hit you, and get good and used to it...then start learning the math!) The animal sets the pace, not the human. So while you imagine your goal and set up perfect practice, you have to observe the animal, see it's point of "going overthreshold" and still yourself. Particularly with an animal of prey.

Thanks Bill. I am glad to hear of your experiment in behavior. I live for that stuff. Want to hear more about bobwhite reactions to humans. Do they bite/peck? I imagine the
George treatment is in order there. Kill em with kindness....really a form of rapid habituation (what we behavior folk call "flooding"). The reason flooding would work in the George scenario is because JJ caries the bird around and it never gets "hurt"...rather, it receives warmth in the carrying, no harm comes to it, so it learns JJ is not a predator and it does not need to attack or what ever it was doing. Flooding would not work with a dog who hates skateboarders...Taking him to the skatepark to flood him would just confirm that it is all a scary mess. You would want to go slow with that kind of fear, like I mentioned prior, seeking calm in small doses.

Most of us just don't have the time needed to go at the animal's pace. We rush it, or have to go eat dinner with the fam. Starting young is the OP's key to success.
Tonya

 

[_Randall_]

For some reason, it's hard to associate "tame" with "Bobwhites".

 

[pheasant24]

I can sit in my aviary and they climb up on me! I just once and a while give them bird seed! they love it!
they eat out of my hands too!

 

[Fat Daddy]

Quote:
Wow, How old are your birds that will do that?