I’ve made sure to raise my birds where they got showers from a young age so it would never be a problem getting them to bathe. However, a lot of birds refuse to shower with their owners or at all and it can be very difficult for the bird owner to deal with because as we all know… parrots NEED to shower, and often. They have lots of dander and baths help a ton with stopping feather plucking.

So here’s a tip from my galah, Bandit…

Step one: Turn on shower and hang out near by. Feel the mist and hear the water pour down. Cue excitement.

Bandit loves just hearing the shower run, he’s not even that wet in this video but he is LOVING the environment he’s in where he can pretend to be bathing and have a great time doing it.

You may need to just get your bird used to the bathroom first, then used to hanging out on a shower perch or whatever it is you might use… then get used to hearing water run. It may not even be in that order for your bird, it may need to be hearing the shower from the next room, and then getting closer and closer.

Also, birds learn best from seeing other birds do things so if you have one bird who will bathe and one who won’t, let them watch one another so that the un-bathing bird will learn that it’s a good thing. Observational learning is super powerful when you have more than one parrot so use it to your advantage.