Off Shoulder

Off Shoulder
How To Get My Parrot Off My Shoulder?

My rainbow lorikeet is a shoulder bird. If he starts crawling up my arm towards my shoulder and I don’t want him too, I block the way with my hand or arm and say, “No,” but that doesn’t work. He will start nipping me but I will try not to move, so he’ll be sneaky and run, jump, even push my hand with his head, anything he can.

I’ve tried making my hand and arm higher than my shoulder, but that doesn’t work either. He still prefers my shoulder.

And trying to get him off my shoulder is an absolute nightmare.

Besides this, he is a very friendly, sweet and tame 21 month old bird. How can I teach that he can only go onto my shoulder with permission?

The reason he wants to be on your shoulder so much is that birds tend to think of us as our head and our shoulders are the branch that we are sitting on. (I am not sure I have explained this right so I hope you understand what I mean) So he just wants to be closer to you.

I don't know how you would stop him from doing it, but getting him off you need to train him to go "up" when commanded. Everytime you pick him up from anywhere put your hand to his chest and say "UP" then praise him when he steps up to your hand. If you are consistant he will eventually know what up means and when he is on your shoulder and you put your hand there and say up he will step right onto your hand.

Good luck