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
Kili and Truman are definitely getting along much better overall. However, it's at the park where they do great together. They can sit side by side with their wings rubbing against each other and not even fight. At home there can be a squabble here and there but nothing too bad.
Parrots playing together on Kili's cage top
Kili dreaming of stealing Truman's toy
Parrots get in fight when Kili tries to steal toy
Taking my parrots to the park
Senegal Parrot and Cape Parrot getting along sitting outside together
Huddled shoulder to shoulder drying from a shower
My parrots and I at the park
Here is a video of my parrots behaving at a family outing I took them to. They say together on the same chair back without the slightest trouble. This is why it's great to take your birds places. They are much less aggressive to each other and to other people and it's a great way to socialize them overall.
The winnings of the first day of simultaneous training were short lived and things turned ugly on the second day. As Kili gained more confidence in herself around Truman, she decided to plant some more attacks. It is partly my fault as I began closing in the distance between the two parrots out of the cage, but this was to have controlled interaction rather than when I cannot intervene.
Luckily there was no damage done to either bird so I did not feel the need to intervene. To a certain extent I can encourage alternative behavior but on the other other hand they must solve their differences themselves. No matter how much I keep Kili away from Truman, ultimately she is going to want to show him who's boss. So I figure it is better to give her a controlled opportunity to do so rather than elsewhere.
One problem is that when I have both parrots out of the cage, out of nowhere Kili will just fly at Truman and knock him off his perch. This will send both birds flying but really achieve nothing. Sometimes Kili or Truman will get too close to the other and that will set off a beak sparring battle. Mostly they just point their beaks at each other but don't actually touch. They really don't bite each other so I don't see much harm in this. These little fights usually end with someone flying away or I target Kili away from the fight. I don't think I've had to break up a single fight though and I much prefer to cue more acceptable behavior than force the fight to stop.
Although it may seem that the rivalry has increased, in reality this is not so. It is merely that I reduced the restraints that prevented it previously. Instead, I am working on creating peaceful interaction and alternatives to aggressive behavior. I want the parrots to choose not to fight or at least not hurt each other rather than to continuously monitor them or keep them physically separated. Ultimately I'd like to be able to just open both of their cages and go about my own business without the fear of them injuring each other.
Part of the reason that I chose a Cape Parrot was strategic in terms of flock dynamics. Although a small bird, Kili has a large personality so acquiring another parrot smaller in size would be dangerous. I already had problems with Kili trying to attack Duke when she had just began to fly. Kili would be older than the parrot I would acquire so I had to find a baby that would have some pre-existing advantage for self preservation from her. Thus a larger and better flighted baby was the answer. Although Kili is more aggressive and better at flight, Truman is larger and can stand his own ground. Furthermore he has a more complete set of flight feathers and can ultimately outfly her. By having these pre-existing advantages, I think Truman is a fair and equal rival for Kili and this will keep both parrots in place. In theory, as Truman matures he should be able to dominate over Kili, however, because of early establishment of flock dynamics and Cape Parrot temperament, I expect the parrots to remain evenly matched with neither one being superior or more dominant.
Today I put the aviator harness on Truman for the first time to take him outside. Supposedly the breeder had donned the harness on the Cape Parrot in her care but when I put it on him, he hardly seemed used to it. Luckily though he is very tame and didn't fight or bite me to put it on. It took a good 5-10 minutes to get it on him in full. He started trying to get the harness off so I took him outside to distract him from the harness.
I took Truman outside to the park for a little while. He was paying too much attention to his harness and it was hot outside so I put him under a sprinkler and wet him down. For the next 20 minutes he happily sat on my hand and dried in the diminishing evening sun. Truman let me pet him for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed as a ruffled the feathers on his neck and cheeks.
After coming home, I proceeded to take Truman's aviator harness off but he was fidgeting too much which made it much more difficult to get it off. It was getting tangled on him because he would flap as I tried to remove it. After a few minutes of working on it I managed to get it off. I scratched Truman's head some more and added that to the video. Here is a video of putting Truman's leash harness on and then some fluffy petting at the end.
Naturally I did not want to leave Truman by himself so soon after his arrival but I didn't have a choice. I had this trip planned months before I even got him and I was really counting on the breeder shipping him to me by the start of June which would have left enough time for him to adjust. However, due to delays from the breeder, I got him with just over a week before I would have to leave.
I was quite worried because he was barely eating on his own while I was still home. He would eagerly climb to the top of his cage but then not know how to get back down in order to eat. He would just sit in a high perch and scream his lungs off to be fed. Eventually I would take him out and when I put him back in on the food perch, then he would eat. I had arranged for someone to come over while I go on my trip but this person would only change the food/water and would not be reaching inside the cage at any time. Bringing Truman along for the trip was definitely possible but I feared that the stress and neglect of travel would have been more stressful on him than my absence. I could have brought Kili along or left her home just the same, she is well adjusted to both situations. Since I was leaving Truman, Kili may as well have stayed as well.
For the July 4th three day weekend, I flew out to Dayton, Ohio. Dayton is the birthplace of manned flight because the Wright Brothers built and flew their first planes from there. The flight was just over 3 hours non-stop to Dayton and the same back. As a pilot this has been my furthest cross country flight to date.
The evening of my arrival in Dayton, I was quite worried about Truman. I had called the parrots' caretaker and he reported that Truman had not eaten any of the food I had left out for him in the morning. Furthermore he was screaming and begging for food the entire time. The next day (July 4th), I received much better news. Truman had been eating well on his own. I guess getting hungry enough and realizing that no one was going to feed him the pellets made him figure out his way down to eat. I returned late the following evening. I weighed Truman when I got home and was relieved that his weight was the same as when I had left which meant that he was eating well for 3 days. Today Truman has been eating on his own again and his weight has actually reached a record high of 319g which is higher than what the breeder reported his weight to be when he was shipped out to me. So overall everything worked out fine and in fact my absence forced Truman to stop begging for food and just eat on his own.
Several outbursts of territorial aggression have already been broke out from Kili against Truman. So I know that this problem exists and will need to be dealt with. Until Truman arrived, I had Kili trained pretty well not to ever land on that cage but since his arrival she has landed on there at least several times and tried to attack through the bars. Whenever I walk by Kili's cage with Truman on my arm, she jumps onto the cage bars and gets really big. She fluffs up her feathers and starts showing her beak, eyes pinning. I have never seen such demonstrations of aggression against any other person from her before but the new bird seems to provoke her more than anything. Finally, there was one instant where I had both birds out at once. It was Kili's time to be out but I just wanted to gauge Truman's weight. Kili was at the far end of the room minding her own business but as soon as I got Truman out of the cage she flew over. She then flew at Truman and I had to deflect her attack by putting my arm in the way and knocking her off her flight path.
Needless to say, quarantine has been violated multiple times already. Truman has landed on Kili's stuff and Kili has landed on Truman's stuff. Living in a single room with flighted parrots makes a successful quarantine nearly impossible. I have been weighing the birds regularly and both seem to be doing just fine. Kili has been healthy for two years and Truman got a full array of blood tests by the breeder's vet. I am not having a strict quarantine anymore but I am keeping the cages apart and only taking one parrot out at a time until this aggression issue is dealt with better.
Luckily Kili really likes training and food. These two things can keep her focused enough often times to ignore other things that are distracting her. So by having her do tricks near Truman's cage and eating treats, it teaches her to "look but don't touch." She is thus developing a habit of not landing on Truman's cage and not attacking Truman. This in effect is an application of differential reinforcement and teaches her what not to do by making an alternative even more rewarding.
I brought over one of Kili's training stands and put up high (about 5ft) to put her at the same height as Truman and just one foot away from him outside his cage. I had her do some tricks and then munch away at her carrot dinner while looking at him. This should also serve as a learning experience for Truman because he refuses to eat carrots. Hopefully watching Kili eat them will make him more likely to eat carrots now as well.
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.
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