Training with White Millet
White Millet can be used to train your
keets to come to you. Training should start right away. You can find white
millet at a feed store. Be sure you are buying pure white millet and not red,
yellow or mixed. Only use the millet as a treat, a reward for coming to you. Do
not feed it to them as a food or they will get use to it and it will be no big
deal. Choose a phase you wish to use when calling your keets. I chose "Here
Chick Chick Chick Chick!!"
1 Day old keets -
At one day old - the keets showed little interest in the millet. Partly because
they were still full from eating the yoke and partly because they were not tame
enough to come to me. The keets would not come to me on their own. I would hold
the keets in on hand and show them the millet, which was in the other palm. Some
would peck at it and some would try to get out of my hand. I continued to try to
show each keet the millet about three times that day.
2 Day old keets -
The keets showed a little more interests in the millet, but still were hesitant
to come when called. I continued to show them the millet in my hand by holding
them in one hand and the millet in the other. I did this about three times on
day 2. Each time I showed a keet the millet I said my phase "Here Chick
Chick Chick Chick"
3 Day old keets -
I put the millet in one palm and called "Here Chick Chick Chick Chick"
holding my palm at the bottom of their cage. 5 keets came RUNNING!! (There are
11 keets total) Now we are getting somewhere!!
| 4 Day old keets -
I put the millet in one palm and called "Here Chick Chick Chick Chick"
and 7 keets came running! Later that day I did the same and all of them came! I
had to put some millet in the other palm as well, so they would all fit! I
decided to do this only two times a day so they do not get use to the taste of
the millet so much that it is no longer at treat. |
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Hey you three in the back Wake Up, time for a treat!
Since I did not want to spoil them with
millet, but I was having so much fun with them all eating out of my palms, I
laid my whole arm across the bottom of their cage and put some of their normal
medicated turkey started feed in my palm. They went wild pecking at my arm and
crawling across it. I have a few freckles on my are and they were enjoying
trying to eat them. There was a self feeder only one foot away, but I kept
putting their normal feed in my palm and they all had a totally blast eating
from my hand and checking out my arm. I really feel the taming is starting to
work. I have a few I hold more often then the others, as it would be very hard
to really tame all 11, but my goal is to at least semi tame them all.
