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
What treats are you giving your parrot for tricks is the question I am asked time and time again. I'm not sure why people are so fascinated by this. Perhaps they think I have invented some special magic treat that has the power to make my parrots succumb to my commands. I am always a bit reluctant to answer this because the treats I use may not be successful or even healthy for other parrots. People assume that if they would use the same treat that I use, they might achieve better success training their parrot but this may not be the case. So really this question should be split into two distinct questions:
What treats do you use to train Kili & Truman?
What treats should I use to train my parrot or parakeet?
Before I answer the first one, I'm going to explain the answer to the second instead. I don't want people to fixate too much on what treats I use because they may not work for a different parrot. So instead I'm going to teach you how to choose treats for your parrot instead. I will start by categorizing parrots into two categories:
A) Small parrots and parakeets (Budgerigar, Cockatiel, Green Cheeked Conure, Parrotlet, Lovebird, etc). B) Most other parrots (Senegal Parrot, Sun Conure, African Grey, Cockatoo, Amazon, Macaw)
I'm leaving out parrots with specialty diets (Lorikeets, Eclectus, and others) because what they consume as a treat may be more species specific and really up to the research of the owner to understand their diets. So for most parakeets and small parrots selecting a treat is actually really easy: millet spray. Budgies, Cockatiels, and other tiny parrots just go bonkers for that stuff. The seeds are nice and small but so are their beaks so its a match made in heaven. These birds have rapid metabolisms so it's not much time until they are ready to have some more. Most of the time withholding their normal in the cage food for 3 hours should lead to sufficient motivation for training for millet spray.
Millet Spray is a very effective trick training treat for Cockatiels, Budgies, and other parakeets
Millet spray has its pros and cons as a treat. A really good aspect is that the individual seeds are very small and not that filling unless eaten in large number. You can vary the value of the reward by the amount of time you give the parrot the opportunity to nibble on the millet seeds. A very good job could be rewarded for 5 seconds of nibbling on millet while a normal reward may be just a bite of a seed or two to maintain hunger for more training. Another benefit that is great for beginner trainers or new birds is that you can vary the length of the stick of millet you use. Normally millet spray is sold in long strands. Use a scissor to cut off anywhere from 1-6 inches from the end. In the beginning a longer stick may give enough buffer between trainer and parakeet to give both the confidence they need to interact (parakeet that it won't get harmed and trainer that he won't get bit). When you are really proficient at training, breaking off a single ball of millet will work to your advantage because you can hide it from sight when the bird needs to focus on the task at hand rather than the lure.
You can hold a stick of Millet Spray to maintain adequate distance from your parakeet
The main downside of millet spray is that it is very messy. Little seeds and husks will shed like the falls of Niagra. This is bad twice over. Not only will it make a mess requiring cleanup but it will also distract the parrot while it tries to pickup seeds off the surface rather than train. Keeping a handheld battery powered vacuum and using it frequently is a must if your parrot is not sitting on a tall training perch away from the surface. Always make sure that the millet spray you are using is fresh because it does spoil if sitting too long. Lastly, if it isn't already obvious, don't put millet spray into the parrots cage so that you can maintain it as a trick training treat. If it eats it in abundance in the cage, it won't work as hard to earn it in training. Virtually all parakeets are introduced to millet spray from the store/breeder but if yours really has no clue what it is, then leave it in the cage initially until it is eating it with confidence. But once it is familiar, only use it as a treat. There may be some other treats you can use for small parrots and parakeets so consider some of the following advice for larger parrots as well.
Now onto treats for most other parrots. The thing is, parrots come in so many different species and are such complex creatures that no single treat is universal. This is why I suggest a method for establishing treats for each individual parrot rather than suggesting a specific food. First off, it is important to realize that many parrots have not tasted all possible foods that could be treats. So if the breeder, store, or past owner had never offered a certain food to a parrot, it won't know that it wants it. Don't be surprised that offering an almond or sunflower seed to a new parrot brings no response. People think that by giving their parrot the same things I give mine they will earn its trust but it is completely possible that the parrot doesn't even know what that food is!
Before you can even discover what treats will be effective for your parrot, you have to begin by giving it a chance to taste each one and evaluate what it likes. The easiest way of doing this is to offer lots of different foods in the parrots cage for a few days/weeks. You don't want to overload it with treats to sample or it won't eat anything healthy so a good way of doing this is to feed it a normal healthy diet and only when it finished eating to put in a few treats to try (and offer different ones each day). At the end of this article I will mention what treats I use for my parrots so you can use those as a starting point of things to try. But short of chocolate (including chocolate chip cookies and anything containing it), avocado, coffee, alcohol, and anything toxic to humans, most foods can be tested as treats. You may be surprised at what they like. Just bare in mind that the unhealthier the food, the less often you should offer it as a treat no matter how much the parrot likes it. If you're looking for advice on getting an already tame parrot to taste new foods that it may not want to try (but you think it would like), take a look at how I taught my parrots to eat pineapple.
Nuts and Seeds are a good starting point as treats for training parrots
In the beginning a parrot may not eaten certain foods but don't automatically assume it doesn't like them. It may just be scared of them. Only if it rejects them consistently while favoring other foods is it a good indicator that this is not a suitable treat. Don't rule out trying these foods again some time down the line if you think they are good treats because sometimes a parrot will start to like something it didn't before. Once the introduction of various foods is complete (or at least under way), you can begin to observe which foods are the favorite when offered together with others. Let's say you want to see whether your parrot likes banana, sunflower seeds, or almonds the best. Put a few little pieces of banana, couple sunflower seeds, and couple pieces of almond in the same bowl. Put this in the parrots cage (or offer from your hand if it is already tame) to see which ones it eats first. If there is an evident pattern (for example eats all banana pieces first, then sunflower seeds, and leaves all almonds), then it is likely that is the order of preference the parrot likes those treats. If it eats them randomly, then either it likes them all about evenly or hasn't developed stronger preferences yet. If there is a pecking order of preference for treats, keep it in mind and use the most favorite treats more sparingly as a super reward for break throughs in training.
There are two ways to use variety of treats to your advantage. Either use a complete variety in each training session starting from the least preferred treats in the beginning to the most preferred treats at the end or use the same treat the entire training session but change treats between training sessions. There is an advantage to each of these methods. By using a variety of treats in a single training session, you can maintain motivation longer by improving treats as the parrot becomes less hungry, more tired, and hopefully improving behavior. On the other hand by using a different treat each day you can save on effort/waste (cutting up 10 different fruits could be costly and ineffective for every training session). Since it may be a week or more since the parrot got to have that kind of treat, it will be motivated to train for that taste/nutrient even if it isn't as hungry or the best treat. I have definitely noticed with my parrots that by bringing out a treat that hasn't been used in a long time, that they will work harder for it even if they weren't made as hungry by food management.
Establishing treats for parrots depends as much on what you don't give as what you do as part of the normal diet. By not serving things perceived as treats in the cage as part of meals, you improve the desirability of treats for training sessions. However, since treats only account for 5-20% of the parrot's daily meals, the blander cage food should still remain desirable. Besides the health benefits of getting a parrot off of a seed and onto a pellet diet, training is another great reason to do this. If a parrot is eating seeds in the cage all day, good luck trying to get it motivated to train for seeds. If there is no way you can get that parrot onto a pellet diet, the least you can do is to go through its daily rations and pick out every single favorite seed and put them aside for training and only feed secondary seeds in the cage. Ideally though, a healthy pellet diet will both balance the less healthy treats you give and make them that much more desirable. I limit cage food to pellets and vegetables only. Everything else I use as treats both for nutritional balance and training reinforcement. This works very well because it ensures the parrots don't get too much of what they don't need and I get all the credit for the pleasure of those foods.
Foods you eat yourself can often be as motivating as treats specifically for parrots
Without getting too much into food management, I want to point out that if a parrot is hungry, even ordinary cage food can be rewarding for training. How hungry the bird is will play a large part in how hard it will work for certain foods. It is requisite that the parrot at least be slightly hungry to work for any kind of treats. Imagine having such a big meal that there's just no room for desert no matter how good it is. Well don't train your parrot in that kind of state. Once again, without getting into advanced food management, the very least you gotta do is train the parrot before it goes over to the food to eat. You can safely remove the food from the cage for 3-6 hours prior to training for any kind of parrot, do the training with treats, then put the parrot back into the cage to complete its meal. So my point is that if you can't come up with any treat that is better than what the parrot already eats as its staple diet, it can be used as a treat with sufficient hunger. On the other hand, no matter how good a treat is, it won't be effective for repetitious training if the parrot is not hungry at all.
Keep in mind that as your parrot discovers new foods, times change, and hormonal changes occur, effectiveness of treats may vary. For example going into winter and declining in home temperatures, more fatty treats may be most desired while going into summer sugary things may become preferred. Pay attention to this by checking the vigor with which the parrot eats certain treats or which treats it is willing to work for.
Lately I have been finding that for continued training (but not necessarily for initial training) just using a treat that hasn't been used in a while can be sufficient motivation instead of more aggressive food management. How much the parrot desires the taste of a specific treat vs how hungry it is for eating anything are important factors in training. I would suggest sticking to the favorite treat method (as long as parrot is hungry enough that it would like to eat) unless greater motivation is required for more advanced training behavior. Remember that motivation/hunger is only one side of training. Just because a parrot isn't learning a new trick does not necessarily indicate that it is not hungry or doesn't want the treat. The parrot may be distracted or just doesn't understand what you want. You can test motivation by cuing an already known trick to compare. If the parrot eagerly performs other tricks then motivation is not the issue.
As the parrot becomes more accustomed to the treats and the concept of training, try to use smaller and smaller treats. This increases the value of each treat and prolongs the amount of motivation you can get out of every training session. While at first you may be giving an entire almond or slice of apple, eventually you should be able to cut these into bite sized pieces. Not only will you save on time between tricks for eating, but you will be able to get more repetitions for the same amount of food. A good indicator of size is a treat that the parrot does not need to life its foot to chew. If it can swallow the treat in one piece, you are ready to continue immediately. Unfortunately seeds can't be broken down and the parrot will take more time to work on it.
Now onto the question that is on everybody's mind, what treats do I use for my parrots? I will break this down to 4 parrots (2 deceased) and ballpark order the treats based on effectiveness as motivators for training.
Kili - Female Senegal Parrot Sunflower Seeds Apple Banana Saflower Seeds Walnut pieces Peanut pieces Almond pieces Oatmeal Grape Pasta Popcorn Dried Corn Other Seeds Pellets
Truman - Male Cape Parrot Almonds (especially whole) Walnut Pecan Mango Grape Apple Pineapple Peach Banana Sunflower Seeds Corn Pasta Popcorn Pellets Other Seeds
There may be some other foods I did not mention but they do not play as major of a role in training as the above foods do. Sometimes the chance to taste a table food never tasted before can go a long way. I don't like using manufactured treats like newtriberries and other things. First of all they are way too big, the parrot will fill very quickly on one or two of these treats. Further they mix everything together. I can get a lot more effectiveness from dividing up the effective ingredients and offering them as treats individually. Don't forget that not all rewards must be food. Toys, scratches, attention, shoulder time, or getting to check out what you're doing can all be used as effective rewards for behaviors such as recall. For more basic information about how to begin taming and training a parrot, refer to my taming article.
Kili and Truman enjoy getting a whole nut for a job well done
As a trainer I really like to use nuts and seeds as treats. They are easy, don't spoil quickly, and highly motivating. The good thing about seeds is that you can easily buy a mix cheap and eating it as a complete experience for the parrot. I think they enjoy breaking them out of the shell as much as the taste. However, they may take a while to work on and leave a mess of husks. This is why my favorite treat to use for training is nuts. I'll crack an almond, walnut, or peanut and keep the nut between my fingers. Then I break off pieces prior to each reward depending on how much I want to give. I can freely walk around without having to return for more treats. The birds can eat it without dropping anything or making a mess. I break the pieces small enough that they usually swallow it in a single bite and are ready to continue training. However, by using a treat I'm normally too lazy to use (fruits or stuff I'm eating), I can sometimes get unbelievable boosts of motivation. Perhaps I won't get as many repetitions as a normal training session but I think it helps lock the behavior in as more memorable for the awesomeness of the treat it earned like a whole kernel of popcorn. But I never give my parrots food "just because." They need to know that getting special treats depends on their good behavior. So at the very least I recall them over or have them do a trick for the special food.
I am going through some footage from the flight training sessions that led up to Kili & Truman's high school performance. I am going to try to post some more of the footage that shows the training involved in getting the parrots to the point that they flew to me on command during the show while also sharing some of the difficulties in the process.
Day 5 of advanced flight training was the second day in the theater. The forth session went extremely well but I wondered how much of it was based on the fact that the birds were very hungry that time. So during the fifth session I made sure they were better fed beforehand and tried to see if they would fly to me for the reward of having a more fun time on stage. A large component was putting the parrots on a familiar Parrot Training Perch and then walking to the stage and leaving them there for some minutes. Not only would I let the parrot on the perch get bored, but I would do a lot of activity with the other parrot on the stage. This was to make being on stage more lucrative than anywhere else. Not only was this for the purpose of being able to recall the parrot to the stage but also to reduce the likelihood of the parrot wanting to fly away from the stage during my eventual performance.
Kili learned to fly circles when she missed her perch on a return flight. She didn't come back to me immediately because she seemed to simply enjoy the fact that she can fly. But eventually she was getting tired and flying lower so she came back to me. On one flight recall that I called Truman he went straight for my brother who was videoing instead of me, but when landing on his head didn't seem to go as he had planned, Truman turned and flew to my hand.
Truman did end up flying up into the rafters and curtains a few times though. Whenever he doesn't make his landing on the first attempt or isn't sure of where to go, he flies higher and higher. If he can't find a spot to land he'll continue circling high but never flies back down to me, perch, or anything else. Eventually he lands somewhere high and I have to wait until he calms down and gets bored before he would even consider flying back down to me. In the video you may see me call Truman a few times to come down. In reality it would be much more than that. I might call several times every few minutes until it finally would dawn on him to come after all. I would reward him generously and let him take a break after coming down though so he would not feel like flying down would force him to go back to work if he didn't want to.
After the failures of the second and third flight training sessions in the wrestling room, I decided to adjust my approach by trying a stronger case of food management. It's not even that I decided to go extreme with the food reduction but more so that I had been too generous with the feedings during prior training sessions. The generous food helpings I was feeding in the cage prior to training did not repay with better flight attempts from the parrots so a more strict food regiment was in order. Prior to the fourth flight training session I reduced the pellet meals for both parrots not only the morning of the training but also the night prior to clear out their crops in time for flight training in the evening.
Originally the goal was to test how well I could get the parrots flying in the wrestling room with more hunger motivation and after a successful day, move up to the theater. However, my number of flight training days were getting used up and practicing in the theater was most important. So my brother and I decided to make use of the high hunger motivation by jumping straight into the theater. I unloaded the parrots and put them on their Training Perches on the theater stage. We didn't know how to turn on the stage lights so we had to make do with just some work lights controlled by ordinary light switches. Nonetheless, the stage was the best lit part of the entire theater.
There is no doubt that Kili and Truman were a bit nervous and awkward about their new surroundings. However, within minutes of letting them out, I was already able to cue them tricks. First I had Truman do the few tricks that he knows. Then Kili ran through her routine and even played dead on the stage floor. Tricks are a good indicator of motivation level and help me guess what kind of flight performance I can expect. I had two main goals for theater training. The first and most important one was for the parrots to learn to stay on their perches on the stage. I don't want them flying off or going anywhere during a performance. The second purpose of this training is to teach them that if they do fly, to fly back to the stage. All of the recalls would be on or toward the stage and never away. I wanted the birds to get super used to being on stage and to recognize their perches as the best place to land if not on me. Then all of the thrill of flight training and practicing recalls was a secondary goal but more personal than practical.
I began by recalling Kili across the stage and she came eagerly. Truman took a lot more time and coaxing but eventually he was making short recalls across the stage as well. Kili was so successful and so motivated that I decided to progress further with her. I took her training perch and put it about 20 feet off stage and put her on it. I recalled Kili to me on stage and she came eagerly. I continued putting the perch further and further back in the theater aisle and she was coming consistently. This training session was going far beyond my expectations. All I expected to do was to desensitize the parrots to the stage and maybe get just some short on stage recalls going.
Kili was really clingy and generally flew to me rather than anywhere else. Sometimes I would send Kili to her perch but she would return to me instead. One time, Kili missed her perch and flew laps around the theater instead. She made several circles before returning back to land on my hand. The fact that she is afraid to go anywhere she hasn't been works in my favor in terms of her returning to me rather than going anywhere else. This demonstration of return reliability makes me confident to fly Kili in any indoor environment because I know that she will either fly back to me on her own or at least come when I recall her.
With so much success on Kili's part and high motivation on Truman's, I decided to give him a shot with the aisle to stage flight recalls. I brought the training perch back closer and put Truman on it. He did not make an effort to come right away. He sat there stunned and looking around his new surroundings. I worked hard on making him jealous of how much more fun Kili and I were having on stage and eventually he flew the recall. I always made sure to give a lot of attention and time to relax on stage as a reward to flying to the stage. I was teaching Truman that being off stage is boring but that good things happen when he comes back to the stage.
However, not everything ran so smoothly. Truman missed my hand on one of his recalls because he flew too fast. Instead of turning back to me as Kili does, Truman flew laps of the theater getting progressively higher and faster. Finally he landed up in the rafters and recovery was only possible with a stick because he was too high and close to make a flying descent. I will unveil my special "Parrot Recovery Perch" in coming weeks and make it available for purchase so stay tuned. After getting Truman down from the rafters, I rewarded him and put him back in his carrier to take a break. I focused on Kili for a bit and then took him back out. I thought he would be too nervous to fly any more but after a bit of coaxing I had him flying short recalls again. I let the parrots enjoy some almonds on stage as super treats for their final recalls.
This forth advanced flight training session was a major breakthrough from any flight training I had previously done with my parrots. Now they were flying in a significantly large open space with very high ceilings. The distances required for recalls were further than ever before and there were endless new things to look at. Nonetheless, the parrots were super motivated and did an outstanding job performing their flight recalls. Finally, Kili demonstrated an eagerness to return to me in the event of a fly off. Truman would not fly back to me, but at least I know I can recover him with a Parrot Recovery Perch. The two hour flight session was tremendous exercise for the parrots and a phenomenal learning experience for both them and myself. Here is a video of this training session. The video is quite long but a worthwhile watch for all parrot owners interested in flight training. Even if you're not flying your parrot in such a large space, the advice contained herein is helpful for flight training anywhere.
You can purchase a similar set of Parrot Training Perches for flight training your parrots at gym, theater, or at home. Please visit http://ParrotWizard.com and check out the various products I am offering for parrots. Many more coming soon so check back often.
The relationship between Kili and Truman is definitely improving. They are becoming more used to each other's presence and aggressive outbursts are becoming fewer. Kili is even starting to like this "Truman Trick." She is learning that she has to not attack Truman and then she gets treats for it.
This time I gave an almond to each parrot (although I had them do a recall each to earn it first). This was again one of those two in one sessions where Truman can model some handy skills from Kili and meanwhile she can learn to tolerate Truman. Truman got to watch Kili skillfully work her almond and perhaps pick up a few tips. Kili got to enjoy an almond in its entirety just for being near Truman. Mind you, I do not feed an entire almond to Kili very often.
Truman is not yet adept at working open an almond but he is definitely learning. This was the first time he had actually successfully broke it on his own after watching Kili. While it did take him twice as long, he had the patience and perseverance to work at it till he could finally get some tasty nut out of the shell.
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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