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
My parrots do what I want. This is contrary to most people's parrots that do what they don't want and don't do what they do want. My parrots step up for me whenever I ask them to. They come out of their cages and go back into their cages when expected. They fly to me when called and allow me to touch, hold, handle, and grab them. They never bite me and they don't bite other people either. They voluntarily put on their harnesses and travel with me. They even freefly outside without restraint and come back to me. My parrots do what I want them to do! But why do they do that? I will attempt to explain that in this article.
Note in this article I use examples of my freeflight experiences with Kili & Truman as the ultimate demonstration of my parrots doing what I want with full freedom. I am not recommending that anyone try this with their parrot. I am only hoping to convince you of the extent of the effectiveness of my approaches and to encourage you to use them with your parrot in your home. It is best that you do not attempt outdoor freeflight.
It comes down to training, motivation, challenging, patience, and realistic expectations. Without all of these components, it is unlikely that your parrot will do what you want. Let's start with realistic expectations. In part this means understanding and accepting the wild side of a parrot and that it may never change. On the other hand it's about having expectations that are achievable and relative to the parrot's current level of training. In other words when I work with a less trained parrot, I don't expect it to do what a more highly trained parrot can. If what I want the parrot to do is relative to what it can do, then I am more likely to be pleased that the parrot is doing what I want.
But wanting the parrot to do what I expect it to be capable of doing isn't enough. I also want the parrot to learn to do better and this is where challenging the parrot comes in. I challenge my parrots and other parrots that I train to do better. This is a perpetual process. Even when my parrots are good at what they do, I challenge them to do better still or to move onto tougher challenges that will continue to challenge them. By raising the bar of their capabilities - as well as my expectations - it assures that the easier things will remain while newer challenges will be achieved as well.
Patience is the bridge between expectations and achieving actual challenges. These things may take time. But what's the rush? The bird will live a very long time and it's a fun road for us to share together through the behavior improvement process. But expectations, challenges, and patience simply aren't enough. An infinite amount of these will still keep you exactly where you're at if you don't apply training. Training teaches the parrot how to do the things that we wish to challenge them with. I'm not going to get into how to train parrots because that is the subject of this blog and my book, but it is undeniable that training is a key component.
Yet, even people who apply the training approach end up failing to achieve desired behavior from their parrots. One more component is irreplaceable: motivation. The parrot has to want what you want or at least want what you can do for it in return for doing what you want. Parrots may be highly intelligent but they are also highly selfish. As are we. We want our parrots to do what we want; likewise our parrots want us to do what they want! Having an outstanding relationship and well-behaved parrot lies on the intersection of those two desires! There must be compromise on both sides in order for it to work.
The secret to getting your parrot to do what you want is to make it so that the parrot wants to do that. We can call this motivation. Forcing the parrot to do what you want may work at times. But the down side in most cases is that if the parrot doesn't genuinely want to do that, then at the first opportunity to bail it will. For example, I take my parrots to freefly at the park. On the way to and from the park I have them wear their aviator harnesses just to be safe. However, at the park they are given the freedom to fly. If the only reason they wore harnesses was because at home I forced them to wear the harness, then at the park they could easily fly away from me to avoid having it put on. You see, the difference now between a parrot that WANTS to put the harness on from the parrot that HAS to put the harness on?
Another element that I find to be crucial to success with parrots is not clipping their wings!. I think wing clipping is to a large extent responsible for parrot owners' failure to teach the parrot to do what they want. And it's not the other way around, either. I do believe that people think they are clipping a bird because it does not do what they want. But in reality, they never taught it in the first place. But by clipping the bird's wings, they are actually eliminating the possibility of teaching their parrot to behave the way that it should. The parrot does not stay on its tree because it should, it does it because it has to! The parrot doesn't avoid flying over to people because it doesn't want to bite, but because it can't. Wing clipping ends up forcing a parrot to appear to do what we want (like be with us) but in actuality there is a strong chance the parrot does not want to. In that case, it is a failed application of teaching the parrot to do what we want it to do. This ultimately leads to failure and a highly misbehaved parrot.
Parrots are born to fly. It's not just their feathered appearance that is evolved for flight. Their entire cardio-respiratory system is like a turbocharged engine that is dying for flight. Their brain is capable of processing its spatial surroundings, navigating, planning, and thinking at the speed of flight! Without flight, the muscles and the brain decay from disuse. We need that brain to stay sharp to learn to be the great pet that we desire. Eliminating flight eliminates the intelligence that we need to tap into to teach the parrot to cooperate.
The goal is to have a parrot that looks forward to seeing you and cooperating with you. If the parrot only does these things because it has to, then at the first opportunity to not have to do them, it won't. Yet if the parrot is put in the situation that it wants to do these things and chooses to, success is assured all around.
Here's a great test to figure out if the way you approach your parrot is improving or harming your relationship: if your parrot will fly away from you as a result, it is hurting. If your parrot will voluntarily fly to you to get to participate in your handling, then it is improving. The only way to find out is to have a flighted parrot. Simply guessing what your parrot would do is not enough because there is no concrete feedback. A clipped parrot that cannot fly may be stuck enduring much that it does not want. This will slowly add up and then at some point what seems like "biting for no reason" is actually quite justified because of all the things it had to do that it did not want to do. By allowing the bird to fly and using this as a gauge for what it wants/does not want to do, you can only use approaches that actually work. This reduces the fallout of doing things that the bird does not want and having revenge seemingly out of nowhere.
Most of you know that I use food management to train tricks/behavior to my parrots. It would seem that the parrot is "forced" to do what I want because otherwise it would not get to eat. But actually this isn't the case for several reasons.
First this has to do with a realization I've made some time ago. It's not my job to feed my parrots. It is their job to feed themselves. It is only my responsibility to make food available to them but it is up to them to make the feeding take place. Think about it. In the most basic case, the owner puts food in the bowl and the parrot climbs over to eat from it. The owner is making food available but the parrot is choosing to take the steps to eat the food. Likewise, in the wild, parrots fly distances from tree to tree to feed themselves. What I am doing is shifting the gap from eating from a bowl inches away to something closer to eating from a tree miles away. It is not only natural but also instinctual for parrots to search, forage, and behave in ways that get them food. Through training and soliciting good behavior ("good" is relative and in this case I mean "behavior that is desirable to me") I am directly appealing to a parrot's natural desire to do what it takes to feed itself.
Furthermore, if my parrots are failing the challenges I make for them to "feed themselves," I - in my sympathy - can reduce the challenges to something that they are known to be capable of to ensure they do manage to feed themselves. In other words, they'll still be fed. But it gets even better still. During this process we develop alternative forms of reinforcement that are not food. The birds develop habitual good behavior and maintain it even though they never receive food for it. Not biting, stepping up, coming out of the cage, touching, handling, grabbing, stepping up for other people, putting on harnesses, etc are so much practiced and habitual that my parrots continue to exhibit all these excellent behaviors without receiving any treats for them. So, yes, food was used to teach them these things initially, but as they have become habit, the parrots are no longer dependent on food to maintain these.
As I challenge my parrots to always do more behavior, better, for smaller treats, and for less frequent treats, they become adapted to just doing the behavior. They also become more in tune with very subtle conditioned reinforcers. Getting a click of the clicker or just a smile from my face can become much more effective when the parrot has been challenged to do a certain behavior for a treat once every 10 or better yet every 50 times. By employing variable ratio reinforcement schedules, I am able to make the behavior more reliable while also making the parrot less dependent on food as a reason for doing it. Also, as I challenge my parrots to do harder and harder things (such as extensive amounts of strenuous flying), it makes other things comparatively easier. My parrots perform tricks, step up, and behave well in other ways much more readily because those are far easier ways to earn attention, scratches, and other good subtle non-food things than flying. It's a piece of cake to step up for me for a head scratch rather than to fly to me for it. So step up is absolutely reliable and fool proof. Flying 50ft recalls at home is easier than flying 200ft recalls at the park, so after flying 200ft recalls at the park, the parrots are even more reliable at flying 50ft recalls at home. As I continue to challenge my parrots' ultimate behavior challenges, all easier behavior becomes near automatic.
If you challenge your parrot to go just a little further, do just a little more, with time the behavior will be better and better. First it may be a matter of walking a few inches to the food bowl to eat. Then the parrot can learn to target a greater distance to target and eat. Then you can take this even further and have the bird learn to fly some distances to you to get the same. The bird still gets to eat the full healthy portion that is suitable for it but it will just learn to do more and more for it and this will be normal. In the process the parrot will become more fit and your relationship will blossom. No matter how much we challenge our parrots, it still doesn't even come remotely close to the challenges of nature. But the more we train our parrots, the happier we will be with having a more suitable pet and the healthier the parrot will be as well.
I treat training, and particularly flight recall training, like I am a tree. In the wild, parrots will fly from tree to tree to find the ones with ripe fruit, nuts, or seeds. Some trees may not have anything while others will be more rewarding. I tell my parrots to "forage me with their good behavior." In the wild, they will be challenged to find the food and then to extract it from its natural protections. In the home, they can experience the same mental challenge but in a way that benefits our relationship at the same time. They have to try to work out the puzzle of extracting their food from me by figuring out what I want them to do and doing it to the best of their ability! This is so natural to them. It feels like more of a crime to deny them the opportunities to express these natural tendencies. They love to be challenged.
While my parrots are practicing flight in home and outside, not only are they learning to fly better, they are also building stronger muscles. As long as I keep challenging them to fly a little more or a little further each time, they get stronger and have greater endurance. This also makes it easier for them to fly small distances and makes them more reliable when I really need them to fly. Flying a short distance is easy for a stronger bird so it takes less motivation to elicit it. At the absolute best, I was able to get Truman to fly a total distance of 1.5 miles and Kili to fly 2.6 miles in a single 1 hour long flight training session at home. Considering that Kili came to me clipped as a bird that had never fledged, this amount of flying strength that we have built is colossal! Better yet, watch her flying outside with skill and ease. She will now fly to me from any part of the park, even when she can't see me. She has learned to dodge obstacles, turn, and find me by the call of my voice.
By allowing parrots to fly, we have the glorious opportunity to be that parrot's wild foraging tree. We can tap into that natural instinct to fly across distances and feed not only to exercise the parrot but also to teach them how wonderful it is spending time with us. Through the flight recall training process, you can teach your parrot to think on the fly and to do what we want it to do. As we challenge our parrots with strenuous tasks such as flight (which are otherwise perfectly natural for them), we can develop high endurance levels of motivation. That motivation can be tapped to encompass all the other good behavior that we require of our parrots in order to be good pets.
I feel that the ultimate measure of success in regards to parrot ownership is the combination of the birds' health/well-being and being able to get my parrots be the kinds of pets I want them to be. Success is that bridge of the parrot doing what we want and allowing the parrot to get what it wants from us!
Please learn more about my complete approach to achieving a great companion parrot in my book, The Parrot Wizard's Guide to Well-Behaved Parrots. It is the first book of its kind to provide a complete approach to parrot keeping and also to presume parrots to be the flighted animals that they are. This approach does not come with a caveat that says it will only work if the parrot has its wings clipped because it is an approach to make the bird want/choose to cooperate rather than to artificially force it. It's an approach to teach the animal to want what you want and encourage it to be a willing participant in the pet lifestyle in which it lives. With this approach, everyone benefits both human and parrot alike. You will be happier to have the pet you want but the parrot will also be happier to have ways by which to fulfill it's natural instinct for survival. Ultimately it's a more natural, mutual, and caring approach.
I got this nice big juicy pumpkin the other day. I was thinking to myself how much my parrots will enjoy the stuff I could make them out of it. I open the pumpkin and look what I find inside!
Kili & Truman love Halloween. It's the time of year when food is bountiful and there's a lot going on. They like being involved in things so the holiday events keep them in the spotlight. And of course there's tasty pumpkin and pumkin seeds to be enjoyed. I'm sure they still remember the last time they had Pumpkin a few years ago when we were trying to carve it. Leave comments about what you do with your parrots on Halloween and if they like Pumpkin.
Come and see Kili & Truman live in Connecticut or North Carolina:
Hartford, CT - Saturday November 9, 10AM-4PM
The Parrot Club Veterans Memorial Clubhouse 100 Sunset Ridge Drive East Hartford, CT.
Durham, NC - Saturday November 16, 12PM-5PM
Avian Veterinary Services Clinic / The Birdie Boutique Hope Valley Elementary School Auditorium 3005 Dixon Rd Durham, NC 27707
Kili, Truman, and I had an awesome time traveling around Texas for our recent book signing tour. It all started with an 11 hour non-stop flight from Linden, NJ to San Marcos, TX. The flight was initially supposed to take 10 hours but due to headwinds and barely sufficient fuel, I had to slow down to stretch things a little. The reason for going to San Marcos was to take advantage of a special $1/gallon fuel promotion they were running that month.
While in San Marcos, the birds and I took advantage of the time and car rental to go see downtown San Antonio. The parrots remembered the Alamo and strolled down canal ways of San Antonio.
We met the Vintage Mooney Pilots group at San Marcos airport for lunch. The birds showed off some tricks and flying. The more fascinating aspect of this encounter was that I had the birds flying around a conference room enclosed by glass windows on all sides. Despite the amount of potentially crashable surfaces, the birds never hit anything and new exactly what they were doing. I wish I had a picture to share because for a bird that does not grasp the concept of glass, this room could have been a death trap. Kili & Truman understand perfectly.
After gassing up for $88 in San Marcos, we flew onward to Phoenix. We went on a Sunday morning group parrot outing at Joe's and then visited the Arizona Exotic Bird Rescue for a book signing event. I stayed the week with Ginger and worked on a secret project (that you'll have to wait a bit to find out about) and helped out at the rescue. I took care of the morning routine with the parrots by changing food, water, and papers. It's not hard but when there are that many birds, it can take quite a while. Luckily, there's always a bird around who's willing to come along and help out.
Learning that Ginger never gets out for a vacation, I dragged her out and made her forget about the birds for a day. I took her up to Las Vegas which was just a two hour flight in my plane. We walked around the strip and joked about how many parrot themed things we could spot. After gambling away the rescue's veterinary fund (just kidding), we flew back to Phoenix.
As close as Ginger has ever been to New York, New York. But in Las Vegas.
When the week ended I bid Ginger goodbye and returned to Texas with the trained parrot duo for some more weekend book signings. We did a performance for the Tree Top Bird Center in Dallas and then another event for the Fort Worth Bird Club the following day. The birds performed very well and in fact I had to fly them for more treats after each to satisfy their desire to show off, exercise, and get treats. Many books were sold and signed and the events were not only a success but a pleasure as well. Kili & Truman are big showoffs and love a crowd.
Between events, the birds went all over Dallas and Fort Worth with me. They visited Downtown Dallas and paid homage to JFK (this is the place where Kennedy was assassinated), they paid a lot of attention to frequently passing trains, they saw fish at an aquarium, and they showed off to restaurant patrons at the west end. In Fort Worth, they visited the downtown area and the Stock Yards. The birds had lunch with me outside and watched the famous cow drive. Truman was really intrigued and said he wanted to be a cowbird or at least a cowparrot.
Truman playing dead by the book repository building
Here's the trip summary video with Kili & Truman touring San Antonio, Dallas, and Fort Worth:
It can be misleading from my videos and blog that owning parrots is a cake walk. It certainly can be a pleasure but it is even more so a challenge. Most of my articles and videos either focus on the good things or help to prevent/resolve the bad ones. But much of the undesirable stuff still goes unnoticed.
My passion for parrots may seem to trump the struggle, but I wanted to write this time about that struggle. It's not easy and sometimes downright aggravating to have birds. The trouble is, that all the problematic things are erratic and hard to demonstrate. If I want to show a cute trick my parrot picked up, I can cue it and show it in person or on video. Other cute behaviors I can usually stage or elicit in some way. The bad stuff, even though frequent enough isn't predictable and cannot be demonstrated on demand. This is why you have to take my written word that it exists nonetheless.
I understand the problems that regular parrot owners encounter because I have to deal with them too. Luckily I have most of it under control but parrots are still wild animals so even with the most trained of parrots these issues can rear their ugly head. I hope to convince you that parrots are difficult creatures but also that issues can be greatly reduced with training. Still, there will always be the fact that you are dealing with a wild, selfish, difficult animal and it is imperative to accept this from the start.
Biting, jealousy, screaming, destroying things, flying away, moodiness, fighting, making a huge mess, and costing a fortune are just some of the difficulties I have to deal with like any other parrot owner. I do everything I can to minimize these issues and make the most of them. Much of my training and efforts with the birds help a lot. I don't even want to begin to imagine what my parrots could have turned out like without the training.
Luckily biting is infrequent with the trained parrots. However, it is not absolutely eliminated. They are still wild animals and some unexpected thing can potentially set them off. Whether it's grabbing on too hard to hang on, an act of jealousy, or just plain startled, these can result in bleeding. One time, Kili was sitting tucked under my chin when Truman decided to fly over and land exactly where she was nestled. She began to throw her beak around in defense but since my face was the closest thing she got me rather than the perpetrator. Another time I got nailed was reaching into Kili's cage to take her out in the morning. Apparently she had just woken up and hadn't had her coffee yet (just kidding) and my hand was unexpected to her when I reached in. Like a pitbull she grabbed on and wouldn't let go. If she were more awake and seen my face, she would have known it was me and would never have done it.
These are rare problems but even with the most trained of parrots possible. This is why a parrot can never be an easy pet. If you don't work with them, they are just wild and horrible. If you work with them extensively, you can only hope to achieve 99%.
Truman on the other hand still gets moody fits once every few months. He'll suddenly be scared of things he has no reason to be and becomes very difficult to manage. Sometimes he throws screaming fits and screams his butt off all day long. Other times he is quiet and sweet. His adolescent age may play a role but it makes it no easier to deal with. The two birds may go months without fighting and then suddenly something sets them off and it is hard to trust them around each other again.
Making things good takes a lot of time and effort. Letting things get bad can happen instantly. You can spend a year taming a parrot with success and then one incident and the bird goes back to distrusting you. This is very difficult to accept. This is why it's important to go into parrot ownership without expecting anything good in return. You must love your parrot and take care of it without any expectation of anything in return. Otherwise you will be led to disappointment. Parrots have no obligation to reciprocate.
The mess is endless. You can clean all you want but there will still be feathers, food bits, toy parts all over the place. Luckily parrot poop is easy to clean and not bothersome. However, there's plenty where it comes from. Be ready for endless cleaning and no cleanliness in sight. Vet bills can get very expensive and the care isn't always effective. The toys and perches are expensive and get depleted in no time (and if they don't then a bored bird can turn to plucking or screaming). These are all troubles that cannot be videoed but are probably familiar to most parrot owners.
Parrots are also extremely time consuming. Not only do you have to cook, clean, and shop for them but you also have to make time to take them out, train them, get them outdoor time, and exercise them. To do this right takes a lot of time on a consistent basis. Then this must be continued for life.
When I do run into problems, I never just accept them. I may accept that an immediate solution is impossible. However, I always apply myself toward a long term solution. Even if it takes years, if I keep working toward it, I can ensure things don't get worse and eventually get solved. Flight, taming, training, socialization, exercise, outdoor time, food management, sleep, etc are all a part of the solution toward most problems. But these come at a cost. The cost of knowledge is the cheapest by far. The more costly is the time and patience that you will have to dedicate with little/nothing in return to improve your parrot's behavior. But ultimately it will be a far more desirable pet than if left to its own wild ways.
So in summary, it may seem from my articles/videos that parrot ownership is easy or nothing but delight. However, even I have to deal with tough birds and understand that it is even harder for others. Owning a pet parrot is a tough job and not one to be taken lightly. It can only suit people seeking a real challenge. Parrots definitely aren't suitable for someone who wants an out of the box pet that will behave as they wish/expect. If you're having a hard time with your bird, realize that you're not alone. But also realize that there is much work to be done to improve behavior.
Check out my book, The Parrot Wizard's Guide to Well-Behaved Parrots for my complete approach to parrot keeping. It discusses everything from choosing a bird to solving behavior problems. I won't say it's easy but I will say that it works for all sorts of parrots. Have some patience, keep informed, and try your best always and you will see your parrot transform into a more desirable companion.
Until recently, Truman didn't know how to eat soft fruits on his own! Whether it was corn on the cob, pomegranate, or grapes, Truman would only eat them if I peeled them a bit and stuck them in his beak. Imagine that! I giant beak like that which could crack an almond in half in a second, couldn't eat a grape!
If I stuck a grape in Truman's beak and didn't at least peal the skin a little, he'd drop it. In other words if I didn't get it started for him, he couldn't figure out how to get the fruit going. But a few weeks ago, I grew tired of all this and decided to teach him a lesson in figuring it out on his own! So instead of giving him something tasty like this at the end of a meal as a treat, I gave him a corn on the cob as his meal. The only catch is he'd have to figure it out on his own!
I put a piece of corn in Truman's bowl and left him at it. At first he was pissed that he couldn't get at the tasty kernels but since he was hungry he kept at it and figured out. Since then I've been able to get him to work grapes and other fruit without having to help him. What a big baby!
Now this time I took the birds in the yard where the fig tree is blossoming. Kili had never had a fig before and Truman only had one once in the aviary. Since the figs look like a giant grape, I think they both figured it out pretty quickly and began munching away. I think for a parrot this must be one of the most enjoyable experiences: peeling off mother nature's own right off the branch and making a big big mess!
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.
From the Parrot Wizard's Guide to Well-Behaved Parrots
Truman playing dead by the book repository building
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