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I have begun advanced flight training with my parrots Kili and Truman to prepare for some upcoming performances we are giving. They are generally good birds and I don't expect them to fly off their stands on stage, however, if something frightens them or they slip, they wouldn't know what to do. So the best way to make it safe to have them in a large open space is to flight train them in one so they would know what to do. In coming weeks I am going to share with you the details of our indoor flight training so that it may help you with your parrot whether you're flying it in a large building or at home.
I made an arrangement with the high school I used to go to - and which my brother currently attends - to come twice a week to fly the parrots after hours. In return I am going to give a performance in front of the students in March. Not only is this a good justification for all the training practice, but the performance itself will be a test of their capabilities in preparation for the big show coming up (can't tell you about it yet so don't even ask).
On the first day of training, my brother and I brought Kili and Truman to the school after it had already turned dark and the bustling classrooms and hallways had long been vacated. Though the night was cold, there was little more comfort from the cold that we could provide the parrots beyond a towel covering their carriers. We brought two carriers, two training perches, a box full of toys and treats, and a roll of paper towels. We set up in the wrestling room, essentially a small gym about 60ft x 30ft x 18ft. The space was not that much larger than my apartment which the parrots are accustomed to flying around at will. However, there were two notable differences aside from the novelty of the room. The ceiling was significantly higher and one wall was entirely lined with mirrors making the room appear twice as big.
I let the parrots sit on their Training Perches for a few minutes just to become accustomed to the new room but soon proceeded to cue tricks from Kili and Truman to get them focused on training. If they refuse to do tricks, then there is little hope for flight recall. However, Kili was performing tricks quite eagerly so flight recalls were in order. I started with shorter recalls and after just a few calls, she did fly to me willingly from her perch. Truman on the other hand did not want to budge and was pretty much stunned by the novelty of the room.
I continued expanding my recalls with Kili until I was able to recall her from the far end of the room. She adapted quickly to the mirrors and did not fly toward them. Truman on the other hand would refuse to do anything besides staying still and staring. In order to break the trend, I began doing forced return to perch flights with Truman. However, I gave him treats every time he went to the perch. This way he at least did some flapping in the room, learned that flying there is safe, and had a way to earn treats. Furthermore it was teaching him that if he needs a place to go, the Training Perch is the best place to return to.
However, things did not run so smoothly with Truman. On one slightly longer return flight to his perch, Truman took off. He flew laps around the room getting faster and higher. He was not showing any inclination of flying back down to me. After a few exhausting laps he landed on a high beam and stayed there for a while. There was no use calling him down because he just wouldn't do it. He did make a few attempts to fly but they would just result in doing a lap and coming back to where he started off. Although I knew he knew how to fly down, it appeared as though Truman did not know how to descend. At home, I've seen him fly down 10ft lots of times, but here the ceiling was higher and the angle required to descend was much steeper.
After a while of not being able to get him to fly back to me, I resorted to plan B. I held Truman's Training Perch as high as I could first trying to get him to fly to it but then just to step up. As I approached him with his Training Perch, he finally took a leap and flew a few feet to land on it. I slowly brought him down and rewarded him generously for allowing for his recovery. It wasn't because Truman did not want to be with me but because he was unaware of how to return.
It didn't seem that I could motivate Truman to fly to me for bits of food, so I broke out the toys and tried to get him to fly for those. It still was not working so I let Kili show him the way by flying to me for a chance to bite off a piece of wood. Finally Truman began doing recalls to me. He did several recalls of increasing length and although they weren't instantaneous, they were finally leading to him flying on his own.
Toward the end I got out almonds to give to the parrots for some good recalls. Kili was stuffed from all the nuts she earned before and did not recall for it. Truman on the other hand did - his longest recall for the day. However, instead of landing on his perch when I sent him back, he ended up flying onto the high beam again. Luckily he dropped his nut on the way up. Otherwise he would have sat up there enjoying his nut and feeling reinforced for going there. Then there wouldn't be any hope of him coming down. I picked up the nut he dropped and walked to the far end of the room with it. He had a keen eye on that nut and the moment I recalled him, he flew right down to me. This was a highly valuable lesson learned for Truman that day was that coming down to me is a very good thing. I let the parrots relax on their perches and play with toys for the remaining bit of time I had prior to packing up and taking them home. And so concluded my first advanced flight training session with Kili & Truman in an unfamiliar place.
A common question I am asked by parrot owners is how I get my parrots to eat new foods. I'm not going to lie, my parrots don't have the best diet out there, but they do get a fair mix of pellets and fresh foods. It used to be much harder to get them to try new foods so I can understand the frustration parrot owners feel when their parrot refuses to try anything.
There are three main factors affecting if the parrot will eat a new food:
1) Hunger 2) Taste of the food 3) Motivation/interest
We can control all three of these variables and the likelihood of success is best when all are managed. While it is true that if you starve the parrot long enough, it will eat practically anything, there are many reasons we do not want to do this. Instead, we just want to focus on offering new foods when the parrot is hungriest. This generally tends to be in the morning and evening prior to meals. Similar to the food management practices I recommend for training, withholding food for a few hours prior to offering new foods increases the chances of the parrot eating them. As they say, everything tastes better when you are hungry. Which brings us to taste.
There will be foods that the parrot will not eat no matter what. It just doesn't like them and you have to accept that. However, there are other foods that it may desire a preference for that it is just being too stubborn to try. These are the foods we can try to get them to eat through hunger and motivation. If you know that there is a particular food that your parrot never likes, your chances of getting it to eat something similar are slim. For example, Kili doesn't like mushy foods no matter how sweet they are. She hates blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, etc. You would think most parrots should like these but she just doesn't. For this reason when I want her to try a new food I try to make sure its more similar to other foods she likes. She likes hard/crunchy foods so I knew that I had a better chance of getting her to eat pineapple on camera than some new kind of berry.
This brings us to motivation. This is where most people go wrong when introducing foods and then are disappointed the parrot won't eat them. Think about children refusing to eat what their parents try to force them to eat and then being insatiable when it is something their friends are consuming. Whenever I am eating something, the parrots are always flying over to check it out and watch anxiously. On the other hand if I just slop something in their cage bowls, they couldn't care less. In fact, if I put an unfamiliar food in their food bowls, the most likely thing is that they chuck it out piece by piece. Forcing the parrot by stuffing the food in its beak is pretty much the worst thing you can do because then it will not trust that foods you offer are enjoyable. No. The way to motivate parrots to eat new foods is to make as much excitement and anticipation about the new food as possible.
A very easy way to make a parrot want to try a new food is to let its "friends" try it too, meaning if you have other parrots that will eat the food, the new parrot will want to try it too. I wrote previously about how Truman refused to eat veggies until I had him watch Kili eat them. Of course that article didn't help if you only have one parrot or a new food that none of your parrots has yet tried. This is why I am writing this article to get you started.
I truly appreciate the power of modeling new foods when I got Kili and Truman to try Mango for the first time. The two parrots were spending outdoor time in the aviary when I had some mango slices to offer them. They were becoming accustomed to a midday fruit snack time so they waited eagerly to get their day's share. I had a lot of Mango so I wanted to eat off some of the pieces before giving the birds some. The two parrots watched eagerly as I ate it. Truman was just boiling with jealousy that he wasn't getting any. In fact he flew over to me in hopes of getting some. I stood there relishing the mango until it was nearly finished. I broke the remaining pieces into smaller bits and offered them to the parrots one at a time. However, I did not just give them mango outright but made them do tricks for it. This wasn't just an ordinary "here you go" kind of food, this was a super treat that they had to earn. They didn't know what it was but if they had to go through so much to get it, they knew it must be good. They eagerly performed their tricks and loved the mango off the first taste. During previous occasions when I offered equally tasty food to them in their cages, it would get tossed out uneaten. This is why turning the new food into a treat rather than a chore is so important.
This is just another reason why trick training is so important to parrot ownership. The parrot learns that the food it receives for performing a trick is always a good thing so when you offer the new food in reward for a trick, the parrot is more likely to try it. However, this only gets the parrot to put the food in its beak. How much it enjoys the food and is likely to eat it again depends on the taste and how excited it is about the food. Even if the taste isn't the best, if the entire experience is highly pleasant, a positive association will still be established. It can develop an acquired taste for the food in response to the positive stimuli coexistent with the food. This is why those first experiences are so critical.
The first piece offered should be quite small. A large piece is more likely to be dropped and less likely to be tasted and swallowed. Start with very small pieces so that the parrot has a better chance of feeling the taste. Then if you see it eating the small pieces can you go onto bigger ones. You see the parrot isn't likely to hold the food with its foot unless it likes it. And it doesn't know that it likes it until it has tried a few pieces. Once you see the parrot use its foot to hold or at least support the food, you will know that it approves of it. If you see eyes pinning or other signs of excitement, then you'll know the parrot absolutely loves the food.
Once you have developed this first level of food acceptance, it is your choice whether to continue offering it only as treats or as cage food. If the food is healthy in large quantities, then it is alright to offer it in the cage. However, if the food can be considered empty calories or junk food, then save it strictly as a treat.
Just remember that even though a food might seem really tasty to you (and even other people's parrots), it doesn't mean that your parrot will eat it. Most of the time the experience around eating the food plays a large role in it but sometimes your parrot will not eat it no matter what. Do your best to get your parrot to try stuff but if it just isn't working you have to accept that. Just because a parrot won't try something this time or even a bunch more times doesn't mean that it will never eat that food. I had tried to feed banana and grapes to Kili many many times and she always refused. Then I skipped offering it to her to avoid wasting time. Then at some point I tried again and they became some of her favorite fruits. So even though you may fail with a particular food in the short term, it still pays to try every once in a while in case your parrot changes its mind.
In the video, you will see me offering pineapple to Kili and Truman for the first time. They had never seen or eaten it before. I picked pineapple because it is less mushy than other things I could think of that they hadn't tried. At first I just ate the pineapple in front of them to build up the anticipation. I peaked their interest by not giving it to them even when they made it clear that they wanted it. Finally I gave in but only gave it to them in response to tricks. Truman liked it off the bat but Kili was being picky. She was dropping the pieces at first. But after watching Truman enjoy it a lot, she began to chew/swallow as well. I did this new food introduction during training time but just before starting any training so the birds were at their hungriest. So without further ado, here are Kili & Truman eating pineapple for the first time.
On a recent visit to the bird store I came across a Jardine's Parrot I recognized from last time. It has remained unsold for a while and is around 6 months old already. Besides the fact that parrot sales are down during this terrible economy, you could say that Jardine's Parrots look rather dull in front of all the Sun Parakeets, Cockatoos, and Macaws. To make matters worse, this little Jardine's Parrot didn't even know how to step up.
When I reached my hand into the tank housing the two available Jardine's Parrots, all havoc broke loose. The two terrified parrots fled my approaching hands. I was unable to get one out without a bite. However, once I got a hold of its neck all matters were settled. With the restraint of my parrot hold, the Jardine's struggle was over while I protected myself from additional bites.
Within minutes the parrot calmed down and sweetly cuddled as I held it against my chest. As time progressed I was able to hold a looser grip on the bird with less fear of biting or fleeing. I was able to pet it on the head and neck and hold it any which way.
I was surprised to find out that the bird did not know how to perch or step up. Well it was obvious in the tank that it didn't want to step up, however, it wouldn't step up outside of the tank either. While I held the bird in my hands it stayed calm but would get very uneasy when I tried to let it perch on my finger. The Jardine's Parrot became scared when I approached with a finger to ask it to step up. Worse yet, if I pressed my finger toward its belly to edge it to step up, it simply knew not what to do.
The Jardine's Parrot simply did not know how to lift its legs to step up to perch. Having gone unsold for so long, the poor little bird never learned to perch while living in a flat bottom tank. This is good for the younger birds but they are not expected to go unsold for this long. It had trouble perching on my finger because it curled its toes instead of wrapping them around my finger. I had to straighten the toes out to show it that it can grip my finger better that way.
Although scared at first and unable to step up, this Jardine's Parrot turned out to be really sweet. As long as I held it close, it did not try to bite and let me pet it all I wanted. I carried the parrot around the store with me for nearly an hour. The bird was starting to get the hang of perching. However, when I put it down on a perch to poop, it would not step up when I tried to take it back. Yet when I grabbed it with my hands to pick it up, it did not protest one bit. I was amazed that here was a bird that preferred to be forcefully grabbed to being in control and stepping up. This is quite the opposite of most parrots around though this is not the first Jardine's Parrot I have made this observation with.
I began working on the basics of step up by using a finger to pry its toes off the finger it was perched on. I slowly lifted that foot until it would have to pick the other foot up to follow. I also used a slight disbalance in the hand it was originally perched on by tipping it downward while offering the rock solid finger to step onto. I began adding a reward to the process as well. What reward could I possibly use on a bird I do not own, that isn't hungry, and no training supplies to use? I used stability, attention, vocalization, and height to reward the Jardine's Parrot for stepping up. First I lowered the hand it was perched on to the height of my stomach. Then I offered my other hand slightly higher. The early step ups were forced to demonstrate to it what to do but soon enough it was picking its foot up on its own to step up. Then as soon as it stepped up, I lifted it up to eye level and made excited sounds. This was positive reinforcement based training at work here and it shows that not all positive reinforcement needs to be food. This method proved to be positively reinforcing because the Jardine's Parrot was more readily stepping up with each trial. Positive reinforcement is measured by its affect on behavior and the behavior was increasing. Success.
For a parrot unaccustomed to perching or much exercise, I'm sure this was challenging. I gave it breaks longer than the actual training session bits for scratches and cuddling. Then I would ask for a step up again and it would do it. Before the end of our short interaction the Jardine's Parrot would simply pick up its foot on the sight of my approaching finger (almost like wave) in anticipation of stepping up. The bird even stepped up for other people and let others pet it as well.
Besides stepping up, I also managed to teach it petting etiquette in the time I held it. I only pet its head if it would let me hold its beak (like I do with Truman). It enjoyed the petting so it did not mind being held in this way. There were children attending the store who were disappointed they couldn't pet the other birds so I carried the Jardine's around and let them interact with it. One lady commented that it's a great idea to hold the bird's beak during petting that way as I let her daughter pet the Jardine's. You don't want the children to get scared of parrots from getting bit and you don't want the parrots to learn to bite. So prevention is key.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to convince anyone to buy the bird and I surely couldn't buy it either. However, now that the bird is a bit more used to hands and knows how to step up, it will have a better chance of finding a good home. Someone will become entranced by this parrots sweetness and will have a cuddlebug on their hands. The store owner was impressed and grateful that I tamed the bird a bit for her. She told me to leave the bird out front to showcase it for buyers.
Even if you don't intend to buy another parrot ever again, it's still a great experience builder to go to a store, rescue, and breeder to handle some parrots. It's win/win for everyone. Most stores/rescues are too busy to give all their birds sufficient handling time and will appreciate an experienced/caring parrot owner to spend time with their birds even if they aren't buying. By handling other birds (possibly bigger or more aggressive) it will give you greater confidence in handling your own. The eventual buyer of the bird wins too because they will acquire a more socialized bird that is accustomed to handling. The biggest winners of all though are the birds themselves. They can really use some love and attention. Here's a brief clip at the bird store and how I was working with the Jardine's Parrot.
Kili and Truman were thrilled to find their stockings filled with goodies on Christmas morning. After coming out of their cages, they checked out all the wonderful things Santa Claus left for them on their climbing tree. Truman was as (if not more) impressed with the stocking itself as he was with the contents of it. Kili, having had a similar Christmas surprise last year, was less shocked.
While Truman focused on toys, Kili munched away at the almond she got. Truman loved the foot toys he was pulling out of his stocking and almost missed the Brazilian Nut waiting inside for him. He worked at it and finally cracked it open. Kili jumped down to the table and approached stealthily. She snuck up and cautiously grabbed small leftovers of Truman's nut from the table below. Truman didn't mind sharing the little bits with Kili and she benefited from mutual cooperation. In the spirit of Christmas, the two birds did not fight at all and played nice.
Kili and Truman are eagerly awaiting Christmas. They already helped put up the Christmas tree and are now putting up their stockings. While Kili looks forward to tasty treats, Truman generally prefers to get chewy toys.
What about your parrots? Have they been naughty or nice this year? What do you think they'd want Santa to bring them? Please leave a comment below.
Feel free to share this picture with all of your parrot loving friends and people you want to wish a Merry Christmas. You can simply post this URL:
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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