Macaws:
Red Shouldered (Hahn's) Macaw
Severe Macaw
Blue And Gold Macaw
Blue Throated Macaw
Military Macaw
Red Fronted Macaw
Scarlet Macaw
Green Winged Macaw
Hyacinth Macaw
After receiving much interest in the stands I use for all my parrot training, I have finally decided to release these on sale to the general public. Originally I designed a simple set of stands for the purpose of teaching Kili to target back and forth between them so that she could learn to fly as I would increase the distance. Since then I have made numerous improvements to the design and have found countless uses for these stands. Just to mention a few:
· Target training · Perch to perch flight training · Recall flight training to your hand · Training parrot tricks such as wave, shake, nod, turn around, wings · Advanced and variable height flight recall · Potty training parrot to poop from stand onto newspaper · Socializing parrots to each other · Place for parrot to hang out and play with toys
They are lightweight and portable so they can easily be moved from place to place. Yet they are heavy enough to be durable and support a small to medium parrot landing on them at speed. Some of mine I keep in a permanent location so the parrots know where they are and can fly there for safety (or toilet). The other stands I move around depending on what I am training. Typically I keep the height a bit below my head but sometimes I raise them for video or special training. If I'd like to sit in a chair, I can bring the training stands down to remain at a convenient height for training.
Parrot training perches eliminate the distraction that colorful play gyms and multi-branched climbing trees can create, keeping your parrot's attention on you for training. Since the two stands are independent, the ways you can line them up are numerous. Set them up parallel to each other to teach the parrot to fly between the two stands. Set the perches up perpendicular to each other to keep two parrots on them but not fight with each other. It is easy to add a newspaper at the base to collect any mess.
I bet a lot of people are wondering whether or not it is difficult to train a flighted parrot (particularly one that was never clipped). Well the good news is that for the most part is is barely even noticeable that a tame hand raised baby parrot isn't clipped at all. Truman will make several large flights per day where he goes back and forth down the room a few times and may fly off or to another place from time to time. For the vast majority of time he is out however, Truman is not flying around all over the place but rather on a perch playing with stuff. The few flights that he does make are pretty harmless and would certainly not be worth clipping him over.
Here is a video that presents some of the realities of trying to train a flight capable parrot. Sometimes things don't go the way you want to. I'd like to share some footage that was taken as part of the wave training but not included to avoid distracting from the wave technique. This is just to illustrate some of the other things that go on when training a not clipped bird.
Sometimes things are not so easy though. For instance in the middle of wave training Truman randomly decided to take a lap around the room and then eventually landed on his cage. He certainly wasn't planning on going there because he flew the other way first but it just happened to make a good landing site when it caught his eye. I try not to reward him for these fly offs by giving it unnecessary attention or treats. Sometimes I will walk over and get him after a brief wait. Other times I will recall him back to me.
Another time during wave training Kili just decided to fly straight at him. Truman took off and Kili followed him in close pursuit. As Truman rounded the far end of the room I called to him and he came back to land on me while Kili found an alternate landing spot. Eventually I called Kili back too but not right away in order to deny her attention for her little stunt.
All in all, keeping a parrot flighted presents many more training opportunities than hindrances. However, it does require extra patience to be able to work with the occasional fly off. You have to accept that you cannot control the parrot and it is free to fly away whenever it wants. Yet with good training and a positive attitude you can teach the parrot to want to be with you and want to train. Ultimately it is far more rewarding to work with a flight capable parrot that cooperates with you because it wants to and not because of a stroke of scissors across its wings.
Previously, I had shared a video of holding Kili outside of Truman's cage. I also began doing the reverse which is a bit more challenging because Kili is more likely to be aggressive in defense of her own territory rather than around Truman's cage. In the Truman Recall Training article I mentioned that I started rewarding Kili whenever Truman would come near her area. Now I had taken this a step further and would bring Truman right up next to Kili's cage. Usually this would result in her dashing across the cage, jumping onto the bars, getting really fluffy and big, showing her beak, eyes pinning, and making threatening poses and Truman. I had never seen Kili get this aggressive toward any human but clearly Truman was really really pissing her off
To diminish Kili's aggression toward Truman, I began rewarding her whenever Truman approaches her. I carry Truman up to her cage and before she gets a chance to start getting aggressive, I give her a treat through the bars. Truman just sits on my hand and watches; he doesn't need a reward. Also, I cue Kili to perform tricks which she does with zeal because she is such a show off. I hold Truman but I divert all my attention to her so that she doesn't feel jealous and thinks she is the center of all attention. I had been doing this process for the last few days and here is a video of how this looks:
Initially I planned to quarantine the two parrots for an entire month but I have long given this up as they had both landed on each other's cages when out. Kili has been healthy for two years straight and Truman had good results on all his blood work so I was not too worried about the parrots coming in contact already. At this point, I figured the gradual introduction and interaction would be more beneficial than harmful. There is much that Truman can learn from Kili.
I was trying to make the out of cage introduction to be very informal. I was going to put Truman on a stand at one end of the room and Kili on the other. Both parrots are flighted and I couldn't keep track of both so I quickly gave up on this idea as Kili was flying by and knocking Truman off his perch! I decided to try the time-tested method of training with positive reinforcement instead. I put Truman on his training perch and brought over Kili's training perch and put it a few feet away. I lined the perches in more of an L to make it more difficult for either parrot to fly at the other or land on the other's perch. I adjusted the height to make the perches approximately equal height but below my own eye level.
I had to immediately grab Kili's attention because she looked ready to pounce on Truman. I began cuing her tricks and providing hefty treats to keep her busy eating. After all, she can't bite if her beak is full. I figured I'd target Kili back and forth a bit to continue my behavior modeling attempt from the previous time. This was only the second or third session where I let Truman watch Kili perform the target touch behavior. This time it was up close and personal because both parrots were out of the cage and close together for the first time. Truman watched eagerly and I saw a certain anxiousness in his posture so I figured, heck why not let him try? I had never so much as shown him the target stick up close previously let alone train him the behavior. So I brought the target stick toward Truman for the first time ever and held it about 5 inches away. Knowingly, he made a few steps over to touch the stick like he'd seen Kili do just moments ago!
You may note that I had successfully target trained three parrots previously with relative ease, but never off the first try like this. Even Duke who picked up the target behavior after 5-10 times, wasn't walking over to touch the target stick until some more practice. Quite clearly Truman had learned the behavior to walk to touch the target stick simply by watching Kili. To test whether he understood the behavior by modeling rather than just touching the stick out of curiosity, I purposefully held it far enough that he'd have to walk over to it and surely enough he did. The three other parrots I target trained would only touch the stick if it was within immediate reach prior to learning to walk over to it.
To further test that Truman had actually learned the targeting trick rather than just one lucky shot, I had him do it many more times during this training session and he was consistently touching the stick. His attention varied but when I had his attention, he was very consistent about walking over and reaching to touch the target stick. I took this even a step further and had Kili target fly to my hand be showing her the stick over my hand. Then I had Truman do the same. It took a bit more encouragement but he caught onto this in this same first target training session. He picked up target training and target flying in approximately 20 minutes of training based on modeling when this same skill level would have normally taken several weeks to teach an unfamiliar parrot. Clearly this modeling method has much potential to offer and should make teaching tricks to Truman significantly easier than the first time around when I taught them to Kili with no model to show her what to do.
By keeping both parrots focused on training or eating their treats, I was able to prevent aggression almost completely. There were just two incidents in the half hour they were both out and neither bird came close to getting hurt. Once Kili flew at Truman and another time Truman tried to fly onto Kili's perch. On both occasions the parrots flew off their separate ways. I would fetch Truman but Kili would eventually come back on her own or I would recall her. Overall this was an extremely productive training session and the progress quite valuable. Truman learned a trick and Kili learned that she can earn treats by doing tricks around Truman but not attacking. Here is a video that shows all of this training progress as I videoed the entire training session and then picked out the good bits for you to enjoy.
I had previously written about teaching Truman how to make small flights by luring him from training stand to training stand. Since then, I had about three more days of training flight recall to Truman. He is catching on very quickly so I am not using a target stick or clicker to teach him recall. Why bother if he's learning what I want from him? I will of course apply the clicker for more advanced tricks but when it comes to recall I want to do it with him so much that it becomes automatic and he does it just because. I want flight recall to be the most practiced trick in his repertoire so that is why I am teaching it before anything else.
First I lured Truman from perch to perch. Then I began hiding the treat and just tapping on the perch I wanted him to fly to. I extended the cue to my arm instead of a perch by tapping on my arm. Then I stopped showing the tapping cue and made the cue just extending my arm and calling his name. Thus I developed the basis of a flight recall in less than a week. It certainly does help that Truman loves human attention and is practically begging to be on me, but even without it is still very manageable.
In the meantime, Truman is not very treats oriented so for some recalls I give him a toy rather than food. I almost have to force him to take the food sometimes because he seems to want to fly to me just for the hell of it rather than to get the treat. Of course his recall is nowhere near reliable and he won't come from a long distance, but this is certainly good progress considering how recently we began practicing this. I'm sure I could push him to learn quicker but I don't feel the need as we are bonding in the process and just having fun. Eventually I'll pick up the pace with training but right now he is learning much more about living and the environment than just the trick training.
This same process can be used to train any species of parrot to recall to you. This works especially well with baby parrots that were never clipped. However, it can be used to train a refledged parrot who's wing feathers grew back out. I am certain a Budgerigar, Cockatiel, Sun Conure, Ring Neck Parakeet, Amazon, Eclectus, African Grey, Cockatoo, or Macaw could learn flight recall based on the same techniques. I have experience recall training a Senegal Parrot, Cape Parrot, and Budgerigar and I can tell you that the process was essentially the same with all the parrots because it is based on operant conditioning which all parrots (and even other birds) are capable of. Here is a video from a few recent sessions of flight recall training Truman the Brown-Necked Cape Parrot:
At the end of the video you may have noticed that I gave a treat to both Truman and then Kili following the long recall. The reason is because I had Truman fly close into Kili's territory so I wanted to not only reward Truman for recalling to me, but also Kili for not getting aggressive in her cage. I have been making extensive efforts to maintain peace between the parrots and tomorrow I will post an update about how I am introducing them to each other.
A week since I got Truman, my new baby Cape Parrot, I have already had my first successful flight recall. Since he came to me not clipped - and never will be clipped - safely managing his flight is essential. He is not yet a good flier and does not know well how to get from point A to point B. I can use his ignorance to my advantage by catalyzing his learning of flight and shaping it in direction and purpose that suits me. The number one most important thing is that I want him to learn to fly to me. Then I'd like to teach him to fly to appropriate places in my apartment and not others.
I began the basis for Truman's recall training just a few days after he had arrived. I built a pair of training stands similar to the ones I used to teach Kili to fly. I immediately began familiarizing Truman with the stands by putting him on them frequently. I also got him used to eating food on those stands and did some clicker conditioning while I was at it.
I kept the two stands with the perches parallel to each other and within walking distance. I lured Truman to walk between the stands when offering treats. Originally I was putting food straight into his beak because he wasn't eating well on his own so I decided why not at least make him walk for it. As I spread the distance he would reach harder and harder to get across. But as soon as the gap got too large to step across, he would give up trying to cross. It amazed me because he could fly across the room but not across an 8" gap. I continued the walk across exercises with him.
On occasion he would slip as he crossed and reflexively would flap his wings to stabilize. This is the part of the exercise that actually teaches the parrot to use his wings to make it across the gap. I taught Kili to get across the gap in exactly the same way except that I targeted her across with a stick. Since Truman doesn't know the target behavior yet, I simply offered him goodies on the other end. I would rather teach him flight recall before target training (although target training is an excellent method for teaching recall) because I want him to have the longest practice of flight recall in his life. I want it to be his first and most practiced trick. If he forgets everything, I want flight recall to me to be the most remembered and reliable thing in his repertoire. This is why I'm skipping the other stuff for now and going straight to flight recall which is generally a more advanced behavior to teach. Also I want to use his quick baby age learning and willingness to make the most of teaching recall.
A cue is already starting to emerge although it is just temporary. I no longer have to show him the treat or toy that he will get for coming across. I can just tap and point to the perch I want him to go to and he flaps across to it. I am going to practice this just a little more but as soon as he is recalling to my hand I will only practice the recall cue specifically and stop all luring and temporary cues.
Managing Truman's motivation for this basic informal training was fairly simple. He is not on any sort of food or weight management. In fact, he seems to be more motivated by toys many times than food. He's a curious baby and likes to explore so anything that is of interest to him can be positively reinforcing for preempted behavior. However, since Truman has been eating rather poorly on his own in the cage (mostly from a fear of climbing down to where the bowls are), he's been pretty hungry and would gladly take pellets from my hand. I have not yet even developed any treats for him and just feed him any of bland or colored pellets and almonds.
Thus I put all of these skills together and produced the first preempted flight recall with Truman. It is true that he has flown to me prior, however, that was either because he himself wanted to or because I happened to be a convenient place to land. However, this time, by doing the pointing cue like I had used on the perch, I was able to call him to my hand specifically. I just turned the second training perch away and put my arm where it used to be and in the same manner as cuing him to the training perch, I cued him to my hand.
Now increasing distance is quite simple and merely a matter of practice. Now the important thing to work on is developing a solid recall cue and practicing to no ends.
I highly recommend these training stands to anyone that has a flighted parrot or wants to teach a fledgling (or if they let the feathers grow back) to fly and eventually flight recall. You can use the stands to build practice jumping across a gap and then eventually flying to your hand. The height is adjustable so that you can keep the parrot at a comfortable height for your training. Very soon I will be offering these stands at 2x for $99 + shipping so stay tuned.
Trained Parrot is a blog about how to train tricks to all parrots and parakeets. Read about how I teach tricks to Truman the Brown Necked Cape Parrot including flight recall, shake, wave, nod, turn around, fetch, wings, and play dead. Learn how you can train tricks to your Parrot, Parrotlet, Parakeet, Lovebird, Cockatiel, Conure, African Grey, Amazon, Cockatoo or Macaw. This blog is better than books or DVDs because the information is real, live, and completely free of charge. If you want to know how to teach your parrot tricks then you will enjoy this free parrot training tutorial.
Trained Parrot site content Copyright 2010-2020 Michael Sazhin. Reproduction of text, images, or videos without prior permission prohibited. All rights reserved.
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