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
This article is about about to teach a parrot to hang upside down from your finger like a bat. This is a fairly easy trick to train and does not require any requisite tricks be learned previously. The only requirement is to have a hand tame parrot. If your parrot does not step up, let you touch it, and let you grab it, please refer to the Taming and Training Guide prior to proceeding with the bat trick. In preparation for training the bat trick, practice a lot of handling with your parrot including touching the feet, back, and rotating it around in your hands.
The good news about the bat trick is that it is very easy to perform and works every time. It is the only trick I can get Kili to do even if she does not feel like showing a single trick because it is more about taming than positive behavior. If the parrot is rolled upside down, it has little choice about being there. As long as it is tame and knows the trick, it will just hang there until brought back up. While it took a week to teach the bat to Kili and several weeks to teach it to Duke the Budgerigar, Truman learned it in a quick two days. The cool thing is that absolutely any parrot can learn the bat trick including a parakeet, cockatiel, conure, african grey, amazon, cockatoo, or macaw. How long it takes to teach will vary but it is definitely possible to teach any parrot species the trick with the following technique.
To begin teaching the bat trick, begin by holding the parrot on your hand. I always use my right hand for the parrot to perch on for the trick but it just depends what you are comfortable with. It is important that the parrot is perched closer to the tip of your index finger and not too close to your hand. Then place your thumb over the bird's feet and squeeze gently. At the same time put your left hand on the parrot's back. Cup your hand around the back and tip the parrot back about 45 degrees. Hold that briefly and then upright the parrot. Now give it a treat.
At this stage, it is not important to use a clicker because you are simply taming the parrot to the requirements of this trick and there is not a specific action to click for. Continue practicing this tipping behavior progressively increasing the angle until the parrot is completely upside down. The next step is to reduce dependence on being held with second hand. When you tip the parrot back, very slowly ease the holding pressure with the left hand. Then tighten again, upright, and reward. Continue to progressively hold a less tight grip at the upside down phase until you can even let go of the parrot's back briefly and take your hand away a short distance. At first continue holding your hand nearby to reassure the parrot that you will grab it back and not let it fall. As you progress, you can let go and leave the parrot hanging from your hand longer before grabbing it back to upright. Make sure you roll the parrot straight back and not over the side or the trick won't look as impressive.
You don't need to expect the parrot to stay perfectly still and strike a beautiful post at this stage. As long as it is staying upside down while being held by the feet, you are making progress. Now you can continue rolling it back with the hand support but let the parrot upright on its own. Begin rolling your hand (that parrot is perched on) to upright the parrot. Of course reward at this point. Now it is time to begin receding dependence on the supporting hand for going upside down. Place the hand on the parrot's back and begin rolling it back but take the hand away before it is fully inverted. You can continue practicing and letting go earlier and earlier.
Now there should be a special cue emerging. When you grab the parrot's feet and begin rolling your hand back, the parrot should know it has to not resist and go inverted. If the parrot is flapping or trying to upright itself while you are rolling it back, you may need to keep going to overcome that. However, if that doesn't work, you have to practice the earlier stages with back support for longer.
At this point, all the remains is improving the pose and letting go of the feet. I suggest improving the pose prior to working on letting go of the feet or putting the entire trick on cue. Most likely at this point the parrot doesn't hang straight down but rather curled up toward your hand. They feel more balanced this way but it's ok, we can easily solve this. Now's the time to begin using a clicker. Your left hand is freed up because at this point you should be able to roll the parrot back strictly by the hand it is perched on. Hold the clicker and treat in your left hand prior to rolling the parrot upside down.
The simplest way to get the parrot to strike a nice pose to look like a hanging bat, is to lure its head down with a treat. After you roll the parrot upside down, use your other hand to show it a desirable treat. Keep the treat below the head and just barely out of reach so that it has to stretch down to get it. For the first few times, let the parrot get the treat in return for stretching down. As soon as it gets the treat, click and upright the bird to give it a chance to eat the treat. You don't want to continue holding the parrot upside down because it will go to a bad pose to focus on its treat. After a few of these upside down rewards, the parrot will know to reach for the treat. But you won't give it any more. Show the treat but just out of reach. When the parrot is stretching for the treat, click, upright, and reward. This way you are actually teaching the behavior. Once you find your parrot stretching down for the treat like this, you can begin hiding the treat between your fingers and just letting the parrot aim for your fingers. Before long, you can hold the treat/fingers much further away and then not at all. The parrot will remember to stretch its head down. If it does not, continue holding it in the bat a few seconds waiting until it does. When it stretches down, click/reward. If it does not, upright and do not reward. Next time you put it upside down, lure it again to remind it to stretch head down. This way the parrot learns to extend its head down. Keep practicing and waiting for it to hang with head down for longer and longer with each try prior to clicking and uprighting.
If the parrot is jittery and moves around a lot (this especially happened when teaching a budgie this trick) while hanging upside down, the best way to reduce this is practice. Always click when the parrot is in the straightest and calmest pose. Over time and extensive practice, the parrot will learn that it will not get rewarded until it is calm and stops moving. Teaching the trick is quick but perfecting it takes a lot of practice.
By now the parrot should be catching on to what is going on. Use less and less force in your hand to swing the parrot over and back up. Let the parrot shift its weight to strike the pose. Just begin the motion of rolling it back and then slow down, allowing the parrot to put itself in that pose. Same thing goes for uprighting. You can begin uprighting the parrot after clicking but stop halfway and let it work out its muscles to come up. You can show the treat it's about to get for extra motivation. But do not give the treat until the parrot is completely back upright on your hand. This step is important for putting the trick on cue. To put the bat trick on cue, decide what word or gesture you will make and do it right before turning the bat upside down every time. For Kili, I snap my fingers and she goes into the bat position completely on her own. It doesn't have to be finger snapping though. You can just say "bat" or point downward. When the parrot gets used to seeing this cue enough times while being rolled over, it will catch on. The only thing required then is to roll it back less and less so that it would put the effort in to roll back on its own.
The last thing to do is to stop holding the feet. Do it progressively by holding less and less pressure on the feet while the parrot is upside down. Keep your other hand nearby to catch it in case it is not holding on adequately. It will quickly learn that it needs to have a good grip on its own. Just make sure you position the parrot on your finger such that it can still hold on while upside down. Eventually you don't need to put your thumb on its feet at all to perform the bat trick.
I am having a collection of parrot graphics created for my website and content. I wanted to share some of the latest graphics with you as well as Truman's movie trailer. There will be many more articles and videos coming soon so check back frequently. You can subscribe to the blog to receive a notification immediately when new articles are released by adding your email in the green box in the left hand column.
Truman now has his own cartoon character, check him out:
Truman the Performing Cape Parrot
Truman the Pillaging Pirate Cape Parrot
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Truman the Caped Cape Parrot
Follow the trained parrots Kili and Truman on Facebook. I will be posting status updates, brief stories, and testing out new content on there first. If you haven't already, press "like" on the parrot's facebook page so you can get the first scoop on what's happening with the performing parrot duo.
I still have not come up with the perfect cartoon character for Kili. You can see the Kili ballerina graphic near her concise profile in the left hand column. I'm not sure it is the best representation of her. Kili would bite the heck out of me if I dared try to dress her up in a tutu like that. Truman the Caped Cape Parrot just clicks as the right character for him both as a play on the name and his personality. I welcome you to submit your ideas for a Kili character in the comments.
For some time now I have been contemplating upgrading Truman to a larger travel carrier. Unfortunately his carrier is no bigger than Kili's even though he is a bigger parrot. Generally this has been fine for short outings like taking him to the vet or on a short drive. However, I have begun taking him on overnight outings lately and long drives. Not only is the carrier confined, but also boring for him. I think boredom leads him to a lot of screaming during the drives. Most of this would be manageable but my biggest complaint is that he ends up stepping off his perch into the poop below. Just stepping in poop is never enough. He ends up getting it all over his beak, the walls of the carrier, and everywhere as he is playing with the paper towel. Also his tail keeps hitting the walls as he turns around, so he comes out quite scraggly looking.
I would gladly put his perch higher (like in Kili's carrier), but since he is so big, any higher would cram him against the top of the carrier. Thus I set out in search of a new travel carrier. My main criteria was that the carrier must be about 4 inches taller so that I could raise the perch 3 inches and allow an extra inch of head room. Of course I must be able to modify it to add a perch but toy hanging options are also important. I wanted a few inches more to the width but not really the length. The length gives him more than enough space as it is. Finally, I like having a cage style top loading door for putting him in and cleaning. Most pet carriers have a side door only which is unsuitable for a parrot.
At PetSmart I actually found the same version as his current carrier but one size larger. I was really excited because I liked the design I initially chose. Unfortunately it turned out that the bigger version was several inches longer but barely an inch taller or wider. This was of absolutely no use to me. Since I bought Truman's cage, I was aware of a travel cage made my Kings Cages. I have thus far been reluctant to buy it because of price and weight. I began considering it again since seeing it at the Bird Paradise Parrot Palooza. However, they lied about their products being 20% off which was a major turn off from buying the cage there.
I had no luck finding a plastic carrier to modify and replace Truman's carrier, so I considered the Kings Cages Travel Cage some more. I got to see it in person and my first reaction was that it was too big, too heavy, and too expensive. This was the same feeling I got the previous times I've seen it which was why I did not buy it previously. I decided to compare to the smaller version of it. Despite being made out of aluminum, it weighs a hefty 14lbs without the parrot, toys, or perches.The small Kings Travel Cage is more affordable and the 8lb weight is acceptable. I was not disappointed about the lack of a grate or food doors. I could always hang my own food bowls and keep the perch high instead of a grate. However the 14" cube dimensions were unsuitable. It would hardly serve as an upgrade from Truman's current carrier. Furthermore, I discovered that the bottom is not held in and can fall into the cage. It cannot fall out, but there is nothing stopping it from falling in.
Realizing that the small carrier was not an option, I continued deliberating with myself about the medium one. I even got permission to bring the sample out of the store and check how it fits in my car. Luckily it just fits on a seat and the seat belt just reaches to secure it. I even held Truman next to the cage to see how he would fit inside of it. Finally I was convinced by the incredible discount I was offered to purchase the travel cage. 30% off the online standard price is no cheap Bird Paradise trick. Even at $150, the travel cage is quite expensive. This is really the absolute max I would pay for it but I knew there was no way of finding it any cheaper or a better alternative elsewhere. So I went ahead and bought the cage for Truman.
I discovered that the medium travel cage does not come with a top handle perch like the cheaper small cage does. I brought this up and was given a perch dowel for free to screw on myself. Being handy, this was not much of a problem for me but I find it disappointing that the more expensive cage lacks an awesome feature of the cheaper version! If I could make one complaint about Kings Cages is that the more expensive the products they make, the more they cut corners. The cheap economy cages come with stainless steel bowls while the expensive aluminum cages come with worthless plastic cups. The travel cage came with these cheap cups but I don't intend on upgrading them unless Truman chews them to bits. I wouldn't be surprised if he does; he chews plastic bottle caps into a pulp in under twenty minutes. I'm mainly counting on the fact he won't have enough time in the travel cage (and that I will only leave cups in briefly during feeding) to destroy the cups and want to save on weight, space, and money from upgrading to stainless steel ones.
Assembly
I let Kili and Truman stay out to watch the assembly of their new travel cage. The reason I say their is because they will each continue to have a carrier but will take turns spending time in the travel cage. My brother helped assemble the cage. Assembly is quite easy and takes no time at all. No tools, hardware, or skills are required. This definitely puts Kings Cages ahead of others for people who need the product without the complexity of assembly. The hard part is figuring out the orientation of each piece but luckily they only go in one way. Once the inner tabs are lined up, it's just a matter of pounding the parts until they lock into each other. The best way is to turn the parts such that you can hit down with your hand and allow gravity to help.
The four sides connect first and then the top is added to hold everything together. The poop pan and grate slide in like a normal cage. Yet, unlike the normal cages, the travel cage has a rotating flap to prevent them from sliding out. This is fantastic and I'm disappointed the bigger cages don't have this feature as well. The large door is built into the front panel, so no mounting of a door is required. The door spans the entire front so it is very easy to access the inside. The food doors are built into the front door which makes it easy to open the cage door to refill the cups without need of taking them out.
The included perch is a machined dowel with notches. It is easy to drop in place. Gravity holds it down but unfortunately driving on a bumpy road could allow the perch to bounce upward. I do not recommend using the included perch as a primary. In fact, it is almost mandatory to have two perches inside. I placed the included perch toward the front of the carrier to facilitate easy access to the food bowls for the parrot. Then my brother helped me by cutting and bolting a dragonwood perch slightly back of middle. I selected dragonwood because the bark is more porous and allows the parrots a good grip with their talons during travel. My brother bolted the perch on using equipment from my Traning Perch assembly kit. Instead of the wing nuts typically used for cage perches, we opted for a permanent wrench on nut instead. The added security of such a nut plus the fact that it sticks out less made it preferable for a travel cage. The notched perch can only stand at the height dictated by the cross bars it sits on. However, I was able to select any height for the bolt on perch. I did not place it dead center because that would waste space toward the back and cram the feeding perch. So instead I placed it back as far as I could go without Truman's tail hitting the rear cage bars. I also placed the main perch slightly higher than the food perch. This way the low perch does not affect him when he stands on the main one and his tail can hang below the main perch when he is on the eating one.
The final modification to make was to cut and screw on the spare dowel I received. This was easy for me but not something the average person can undertake. I used a miter saw to cut the dowel to the size appropriate to the cage top handle. Then I drilled holes through the aluminum handle using a drill press. Next I added wider holes into the outside of the handle holes to facilitate counter sinking the screw head into the handle. Next I transferred the holes from the handle to the perch by aligning it and using a drill with a smaller bit. The final step was to put 3 screws through the handle to attach the perch. This is a pretty essential modification because perching on the bare handle alone would be uncomfortable for the parrot. The method for mounting the handle is pretty strange. There are two knobs that stick out the sides of the cage and the handle snaps onto them by stretching apart and over the knobs. Then the handle is pulled upward and locked in place by pieces that rotate down. Not only is it complicated, but also looks like the most likely fail point on the entire cage.
I added two toys to the carrier. One was an old toy but one was brand new. I hung them on the sides not only to keep them out of the way but also to provide a little bit of hiding cover. Since it is a cage rather than a carrier, all sides are exposed, so it's not bad to give a little hiding. The first time I tried to put the food bowls in, it was really difficult because the plastic was not yet stretched. It's a good thing I tested them prior to putting food or water in because the first time they wouldn't budge until they snapped in all at once. After a few uses, they go in ok.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Kings Cages Aluminum Travel Cage is the best travel cage on the market I could find appropriately sized for medium parrots such as African Grey, Cockatoo, Amazon, Eclectus, and Cape Parrot. It is not approved for air travel and I wouldn't recommend it for that anyway. A plastic carrier is still more suitable for short outings (under 3 hours), but this kind of travel cage has many uses. It's a nice cage for a parrot traveling by car frequently. A travel cage is great if you plan on spending overnight outings away from home with your parrot, but it can also be very convenient to have at home. At home it can serve as a temporary cage during cage cleaning and can also be used to cage the parrot in other rooms (like during cooking or in the presence of guests). This model definitely affords the most convenient feeding solution. The slide out poop pan and grate are nice but not really required in such a small cage. It would not be that much more difficult to clean through the door. However, since these features don't add any significant weight, it's great to have them. I would rate the cage 4 out of 5. Here's a quick summary of the pros and cons:
Pros
-Sturdy/reliable -Grate -Food doors -Aluminum (light and non-corrosive) -Carry handle -Fits on car seat -Adequate space for medium parrots -Safety door latch and magnet like on big cages -5/8" bar spacing -Selection of colors similar to cages -Looks very nice
Cons
-Expensive -Heavy -Plastic food cups -No secondary lock for food cups -Top handle perch not built in -Unsuitable notched perch -High pressure on bottom feet of cage can cause dents/scratches to surface
Stay tuned for more articles about this travel cage about how to train a parrot to go into carrier, the parrot's review of it, and videos of the travel cage in use.
Getting your parrot accustomed to being held with a towel is a fairly important exercise. There will be times in its life that toweling will be necessary such as vet visits, grooming, drying, or frantic capture. Unfortunately most people go about toweling completely the wrong way and make their parrot more and more fearful of the towel. In this article I will tell you about why Truman became phobic of towels and how I trained him to be toweled in just three days.
After I had discovered that Truman was phobic of towels, I contacted his breeder and learned she had never toweled him. I suspected this by the fact that he was cautious around towels in the first place. I had never bothered toweling him myself since I got him as he is completely tame. He always stepped up and I was able to grab him, so I never even considered toweling him. However, during Truman's last vet visit, I noticed he was very uncomfortable being grabbed by a towel. The harsh treatment during the procedure probably contributed to his phobic response to towels. I realized that this towelphobia was serious when I walked past Truman with a towel and he took flight. I knew we would need to work on this.
First of all, I would like to say that toweling should never be the primary means of taking a parrot out of a cage or handling. This will only make the parrot more fearful of the towel and make the aggression you are trying to block with the towel even worse. While I do say in my taming guide that a towel could be used to extract the parrot out of the cage for the first time, positive reinforcement training must immediately be employed to overcome the distress caused by the circumstances. Such toweling should not be used beyond the first few times being taken out (or better yet avoided all together by targeting). The parrot should not be chased with, cornered, or trapped under a towel. All towel interactions should be positive.
I am horrified by the advice I hear given to newbies at pet stores and online about forcibly toweling the parrot regularly to make it used to handling. This is terrible advice not only because it is ineffective but also because it does not build a relationship based on trust. The parrot has no reason to like its human just because it has been broken to stop fighting a towel. And yet, this is possibly one of the most advised methods out there. Please do not use or advise toweling as a method for taming a parrot to handling. Instead, use my Taming/Training guide for a better approach. This Toweling article builds on that taming approach to extend it to toweling but is not a primary means of taming.
Just because you can capture/grab a parrot with a towel does not mean that you should. It is easy to break feathers or possibly a wing in such rough handling. These types of incidents elicit a fight or flight reflex and teach the parrot to be fearful both of you and the towel. Ideally, positive toweling should be introduced prior to any unavoidable negative toweling (vet, grooming, etc). If the parrot becomes accustomed that the majority of toweling is positive and the rare vet visit is unpleasant, the parrot will still remain towel tame. A big mistake that many people make is to only use the towel when necessary and therefore all towel interactions are averse.
The first step in towel taming a parrot is to let it observe the towel in a harmless way. How long this needs to be done will depend on how scared the parrot is of towels or new objects. I prefer to use a specific towel for parrots only but this is optional, just don't use a used towel because there could be mold on it. Begin by hanging the towel on a chair or placing it inconspicuously at a great distance from the cage for the first day. In the span of several days to a week, leave the same towel out close and closer to the parrot's cage. Once the parrot is used to the site of it, just walk around the cage area holding it but without much attention on the parrot. Definitely do not come straight at the parrot with the towel. Just walk around casually to and from the cage holding the towel and even play around with it. This will show the parrot that the towel is harmless.
The prior steps can be done with a completely untame parrot, however, to continue with towel taming, it is important that the parrot is already accustomed to coming out of the cage and stepping up. If it is not, follow the steps in my taming guide prior to continuing with towel taming.
Now begins the formal towel training. I recommend putting the parrot on a Training Perch because it will keep it focused on you with limited space to go. The training perch will keep your hands free for manipulating the towel and parrot. Put the parrot on the perch. Once again show the towel from some distance and approach slowly. Hold the towel casually and not pointed straight at the parrot. Drape the towel over your shoulder or arm and handle your parrot normally. Cuing some tricks (such as targeting) and providing treats is a good way to get your parrot to relax in preparation for towel taming. Only at this point will you try to gauge your parrot's fear threshold to towels. Hold a small tip of the towel out and let the rest hang away. Slowly approach the small tip of the towel toward the parrot. The moment it begins to back away or attempt to bite, stop and hold the towel there for a few seconds. Withdraw the towel and reward the parrot with your other hand. It is important not to push too far to the point of eliciting biting or flight. If the parrot is given the chance to bite or fly away, it will become negatively reinforced for that response.
Continue the approach and hold method with the towel for several training sessions. Eventually you should be able to hold the tip of the towel closer and show a greater portion of it. The reason for showing just a small tip at first is to make it less big and frightening looking. But as the parrot becomes more familiar, you can show more. You will keep practicing this until you can gently touch the parrot's back with the tip of the towel. Lay a corner of the towel on the parrot's back and give it a toy or treat to play with while the towel is there. If the parrot still pays attention to the towel, you need to practice the previous steps further. But if the parrot entirely ignores the towel and enjoys the reward, negative reinforcement is no longer necessary because the parrot is not scared of the towel. What this means is that taking the towel away from the parrot is no longer the main reward but the treat/toy is.
All that is left now is to go from touching the parrot with towel to grabbing it. This is kind of the tough part if the parrot is afraid of being grabbed with a towel. The mistake I made the first day was approaching Truman with the towel to grab and giving him the chance to fly away. Every time he got to fly away from being grabbed by the towel, negatively reinforced flying away from towels. He was learning that flying away is the best way to deal with his fear of towels. This might work great for him but it is counter productive to my goal of towel training him. Here we reach a fork in the road where it is necessary to choose between flooding and strict positive reinforcement.
The positive reinforcement approach is probably "nicer" in practice but will take drastically longer to achieve. To use the strictly positive reinforcement approach, continue practicing the method mentioned previously squeezing with ever slightly more pressure with every approach of the towel and then rewarding. This will need to be practiced and practiced until the parrot can be grabbed and held with the towel.
The positively reinforced flooding method is much more effective though. It accelerates the training and helps you be over with this procedure sooner. It should not be used as a short cut to avoid careful and deliberate training. It is just a way of showing the parrot straight out what is required and reconciling rather than taking a long time to let it figure it out on its own. Do not skip the previously mentioned steps and jump straight to flooding because then you won't achieve the tameness required for a parrot to voluntarily accept toweling. Once you are confident that the parrot is not fearful of being touched by the towel, place the towel on the parrot and squeeze to hold the parrot. Use your other hand to block the parrot from flying out of the towel while the towel is approaching. Essentially you force the parrot to be in the towel and grabbed. Once the parrot is grabbed, it can no longer kick or flap. Wait a few seconds for the parrot to calm down and release it back to its perch with a preferable reward. Continue practicing this by either holding the parrot prior to applying the towel or at least keeping another hand up to block it from avoiding the towel. If the parrot is having a major panic attack here, this training will not be effective and you need to go back to the basic taming listed above. However, if the parrot is tolerating the towel with only slight discomfort, you are making progress. Continue practicing this until you no longer need to block the parrot from flying away from the towel. Do this by keeping the blocking hand looser and then further away with each try. Successful completion of towel taming is when you can hold a towel in your palm, approach it to the parrot, and grab it without any resistance.
While in the training progress you may have forced the parrot to be in the towel against its will (otherwise, how would it find out that it won't hurt and a treat will be given if it never tried?), it is important to get to a point where the parrot accepts toweling voluntarily. Treats and painless interaction will erase the fear originally created by the towel or mild flooding process. Continue practicing toweling in a positive manner from time to time to maintain the comfort. Eventually you can reward toweling less and less frequently but the parrot will have no reason to resist because it knows the towel is harmless. You can transition to social rewards in place of food/toys for toweling. You can make toweling fun by toweling the parrot and then cuddling/petting it. On a cold day or after a shower, toweling will in itself be rewarding to keep warm. If you practice toweling in these positive ways, the occasional bad experience of necessary toweling will not outweigh all the good ones. It is just important that the vast majority of toweling times be good, that's all.
It was a fun Halloween experience with the parrots. I dressed up as Captain Hook, Kathleen was Peter Pan, my brother as Tick Tock the Crocodile, and my little sister as Tinkerbell. As a pirate, it was of no surprise to be adding a parrot of the old world to match my ensemble.
The whole concept started out with the parrots. I wanted to incorporate the parrots into my costume so naturally I had to be a pirate. Then I wondered how to get Kathleen involved as well. At first I was just going to make her another pirate but that would be boring. So I pondered the antithesis of pirates and who serves better than Peter Pan himself. At that point there was no doubt that my little sister would be Tinkerbell, and Tick Tock the crocodile was great for my brother.
Saturday night Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Tick Tock went to a Halloween party accompanied by Kili the Senegal Parrot. She sat on my shoulder for nearly 2 hours at a bustling party with no trouble. I did keep her on a harness but she didn't really try flying off anyway. The harness was just a precaution. She was incredible well behaved. She did not rip my costume apart or even poop on me the entire time. She added spunk to the costume and played along very well. Kili was friendly and the party was a good socialization outing to work on her people skills.
On Sunday we took Tinkerbell and Truman out for trick or treating. Truman is not as used to being out so the party was no place for a young energetic parrot. However, a brief outdoor outing was just the thing. Unfortunately I couldn't keep him on my shoulder for more than 30 seconds at a time without him trying to destroy everything. Then getting him off wasn't easy as he'd velcro himself to my shoulder or grab onto any assortment of things to hold onto. However, he was still very friendly and of course a huge attention grabber. Once again, a successful parrot social outing. Perhaps by next year I'll be able to trust him on my shoulder for longer outings just like Kili.
I think Kili really just wanted to be a Cape Parrot for Halloween because she was constantly imitating Truman's contact call! And Truman? He was just being his mischievous Cape self.
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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